{"id":659,"date":"2017-12-05T20:41:02","date_gmt":"2017-12-05T20:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/?p=659"},"modified":"2018-05-30T09:01:25","modified_gmt":"2018-05-30T09:01:25","slug":"friend-vs-foe-mindset-which-of-these-mindsets-best-reflects-yours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/rwc-blog\/friend-vs-foe-mindset-which-of-these-mindsets-best-reflects-yours\/","title":{"rendered":"“Friend” vs “Foe” mindset – which of these mindsets best reflects yours ?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week I accompanied my young teenage son on a school camp to Tihoi Venture School<\/a> – located near Kinloch, Taupo. This relatively remotely located camp offers a phenomenal set of outdoor learning experiences for those who stay here.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From my perspective, as a teacher\/ parent\/ manager, it was interesting to see the degree of emphasis placed upon involving the student group in activities that were focused on strengthening relationships…collaboration and cooperation<\/span><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Knowing that collaboration and cooperation is also a central learning orientation at the primary school that our daughter attends, it got me thinking “where in the human development chain then does adult learning start to become devoid of a strong collaborative\/ cooperation focus ?”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In my view and based on my own experiences in life to date, I believe that generally the art\/ skill of working collaboratively stops being deliberately taught\/ guided after secondary school years (i.e. when a student has reached the age of 17 or 18 years). Thereafter, it seems that the pursuit of careers\/ business success acting as individuals takes precedent over the pursuit of collaborative\/ cooperative relationships. And in my view, this orientation in adult life is having serious consequences<\/span><\/strong> in the form of:<\/span><\/p>\n

a) Dysfunctional workplace relationships.<\/span><\/p>\n

b) Dysfunctional relationships in the home environment and wider communities.<\/span><\/p>\n

c) Continuing steady flow of people wanting to “go it alone” (or as a husband\/ wife business ownership scenario only) starting-up Small-Medium Enterprises…adding to a proliferation of SME scale businesses operating in New Zealand (have a look at the statistics here:\u00a0Changing the SME Business Model<\/a>\u00a0)<\/span><\/p>\n

d) Continuing unacceptably high business failure rate; where in my view a significant contributing factor is the sheer\/ vast number of SME’s operating in each business category\/ industry, causing “fragmentation” of each sector and resulting in each participant battling for a slice of a highly contested market pie – where many participants are unable to secure a “slice” of the pie that is big enough for them to ensure sustained viability.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you are currently a business owner, and you operate with a “friend<\/span><\/strong>” mindset, then you are more than likely predisposed to the idea of forming collaborative working relationships with others (e.g. franchise structure, merged entity, parent company, strategic partnerships). I believe it is people with this mindset who will survive and thrive in business going forward.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand, if you are an owner of a SME scale business who tends to isolate yourself from the “outside world” and view other businesses as “foes<\/strong><\/span>” rather than potential allies, then I implore you to talk with other people who do have a more collaborative attitude towards operating their businesses; for I fear that if you don’t choose a more collaborative path going forward the likelihood that your business remains sustainable\/ viable is questionable…particularly if your business is orientated towards appealing to N.Z. based customers only.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is what collaboration looks like for school students<\/strong><\/span> (the Tihoi experience):<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Tihoi<\/a>\"Tihoi<\/a>\"Tihoi<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

This is what collaboration looks like for business people:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

a) Strategic partnerships formed with carefully selected suppliers – to achieve collaborative marketing and special terms of trade.<\/span><\/p>\n

b) Being a part of a buying group, cooperative or franchise structure – which affords more beneficial terms of trade than you otherwise could hope to receive operating as a single business unit.<\/span><\/p>\n

c) Being one of multiple individual legal entities (e.g. limited liability companies) that operates under a single parent company, and therefore a single brand.<\/span><\/p>\n

d) Being one of two or more separate legal entities that merge to achieve a single entity that is larger and which yields greater commercial benefits versus operating as individual business units.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I accompanied my young teenage son on a school camp to Tihoi Venture School – located near Kinloch, Taupo. This relatively remotely located camp offers a phenomenal set of outdoor learning experiences for those who stay here.\u00a0 From my perspective, as a teacher\/ parent\/ manager, it was interesting to see the degree of emphasis placed upon involving the student group in activities that were focused on strengthening relationships…collaboration and cooperation. Knowing that collaboration and cooperation is also a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":812,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions\/812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}