Swimming with Asian Sharks - Business Secrets from the Pacific Rim

Air out Your Frustrations, or You Will Go Crazy

One of the key characteristics of a good leader is being able to detect when the members of the team are upset. This allows you to deal with a problem early because bad feelings when they fester become big problems. If you give the other person a chance to vent and just express all that is bothering them, the problem usually will solve itself. Mr. Princeton is particularly good at detecting the feelings of others, and he has used this many times to his advantage. The key is to be the calmest person in the room.

While working on the big data company, I was fed up with the lack of progress and lack of help from the other members. I had let Mr. Princeton, who was one of the partners, know about my dissatisfaction via a scornful email. This was not very professional of me, but I was already on tilt at this point, and could care less. Mr. Princeton ended up scheduling a 10 p.m. meeting with me.

I spent most of the meeting venting my frustrations at the lack of help and resources their partnership was bringing me. I vented for a good hour about how it was not fair and that they both had way too much stock for contributing way too little to the company. No one was there to discuss the start-up nor were they there to provide emotional support for wins and losses I experienced daily. Entrepreneurship is a rollercoaster ride with emotional highs and lows.

Mr. Princeton listened thoughtfully and only interjected to agree with me on points. When I was finally done venting, he reminded me that no partnership is truly equal. That there will always be a point where one partner feels they are doing more than another. He promised that he would help push the project forward, and even fly Mr. Data over to Hong Kong so that we could spend time working on the project together. We ended up going out for dinner and desserts and he was able to calm me down.

Unfortunately these are one of the times I let myself get emotional and worked up. I had acted really unprofessionally toward Mr. Princeton, and at the same time I let him calm me down just as easily as I lost my temper. This is something that needs to be corrected. Being able to be roused so easily can lead to being manipulated. If someone knows how to push your buttons, they can easily push you to the edge.

At the same time, it is important to express your feelings of discontent openly with those with whom you are working. Don't make it a chance to criticise and dump on them, but take opportunities to state genuinely how you feel because it greatly improves your ability to work with them. Letting ideas brood in your head will cause you to feel paranoid about the activities of your partners. Small slights slowly accumulate into what appears to be complete disrespect and outright villainy.

Mr. PrintMan would often open venting conversations by saying a set script.  What happened was our fault, and there was no malicious intent at all. This is a good way to set the tone for the conversation because it is usually simply negligence/neglect that causes many of the problems. This was the case with the big data company; the other partners were just too busy with their other ventures and simply neglected to do any of the things I had asked. There was no intention to let me do all the work alone, nor were they trying to take advantage. Openly discussing my feelings helped resolve the issue without hurting the company.