We’re only part way through, but we’re hooked. And in asking ourselves why, we realized that in every problem, or lawsuit, or takeover attempt the characters encounter, and no matter how sophisticated the law and analytical tools they employ…

the problem is usually based on personal relationships.

And though we humans are endlessly fascinated by our personal relationships, that doesn’t mean we know how to handle them well.

Even with a minor frustration, our first instinct might be to blame someone else. And this is as prevalent at work as in our personal lives.

“It couldn’t be my fault—I was perfectly clear. And polite. He’s a d-ck.”

“He hates me/is jealous/wants my position/wants my stuff/wants my girl.”

“I said I didn’t care about the corner office, but I really do. And she should have known that!”

In our right minds, we know the blame game is something we help children grow out of.

To avoid that trap as adults, let’s focus on two underlying ways we get in trouble with other people:

First, assumptions. We often assume we know the reason a problem persists, and proceed according to our own ideas about it.

The other party has assumptions too. Did you stop to think about that?

In my days of scientific research, I found checking assumptions to be a powerful tool to open up a new area of questioning. What is it that “everybody” knows? What is that based on? It might just be an assumption that has fallen into the realm of accepted fact.  Asking different questions may uncover new truths. 

That example is based in assumptions about facts. There are other ways assumptions get us in trouble.

Assuming another person’s motives. We misinterpret their intentions and let misunderstandings build-up and strain relationships. This is especially true if we ourselves feel misunderstood.

Assuming what someone else needs or wants.  Without asking them, this can result in actions that miss the mark. Frustration, anger, and even dismissal can result.

Assuming everyone sees a situation the same way. Two business partners assume they will work as hard as necessary to get their business going and thriving. A few years in, the “hard-as-I-can-go” partner is still going and feels overworked and under-appreciated. The partner whose idea of “hard-as-necessary” encompasses checking in on the business and doing her part includes frequent breaks for travel and the beach each year. Each resents the other but hasn’t had the hard conversation—how does our business support the life I want to live?

Assuming others understand your perspective without clearly communicating it can lead to confusion, ineffective solutions, and bad decisions.

Ignoring diverse perspectives overlooks important viewpoints and hinders collaborative problem-solving. If the main assumption comes from a top dog, the power relationship stifles inquiry too. Assuming characteristics or behaviors based on stereotypes or worse, bias, can lead to unfair judgments and hinder objective problem-solving processes.

And the second way we get in trouble with other people is perception:

My perception is often your “misperception”.

Misperception is a very common word in our relationship lexicon, but really, most people cling to their own perception as correct and remain suspicious of other’s perceptions.

A powerful reason for this is that people in the same situation pay attention to a wide variety of details and different ones at that.

In other words, different people perceive the same situation differently.

This attention bias is well known but often overlooked in the heat of a moment or in a power struggle.

In her book Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life, author Winifred Gallagher describes how what we pay attention to defines not only our perception of a situation but also the quality of our relationships.

The whole family can be at the Thanksgiving table, experiencing the same events. Yet, haven’t you had the experience that later, several people remember things very differently? And since we all carry baggage to the dining table, memories of how things happened, of who told the best joke or started the fight or said the hurtful thing are not the same for everyone.

There is also confirmation bias, where people ignore contradictory evidence and limit their ability to objectively identify the problem.

When judgment is clouded by emotional bias, strong emotions like fear, anger, or falling in love can stifle consideration of alternative perspectives or solutions. Either the other person is classified as “never does anything right” or “can do no wrong”.

We are people. We get stuck. Especially if we don’t examine either assumptions or perceptions, our own or others. 

And how best to unstick ourselves?

Step out of being isolated. Talk with the other people.  Invite them to a conversation. Explore your assumptions, mutual or otherwise. Be curious about their perspective. Ask questions. What makes them see things the way they do?  Ask for their perceptions about a situation you are both in and ask if you could describe yours. Is there an overlap you can work with?

Be gentle. This is delicate. Try to stay neutral. And if there is a disagreement or conflict, it doesn’t have to be resolved at that moment. It’s not a loss to agree to disengage and come back to it later.

Most of us don’t live in the high-powered environment of Suits, where a do-or-die proposal is slapped on the desk with an hour to take it or leave it. But even in that fictional world, the relationships among the firm’s members are tender. Past hurts, present challenges, and fear of the future are all roiling around.  They keep referring to themselves as a family. Not everyone is OK or not OK at the same time.

My husband had a great metaphor: Play this like Pick-up Sticks. Examine the lay of the sticks. Choose just one to move and do it very gently. Then the next.

It all starts with a conversation—and the first one is with yourself.

Lorette Pruden has helped hundreds of small business owners, sales professionals, entrepreneurs, and community leaders grow their businesses and manage that growth since 2000. She specializes in the Formerly Corporate—so many small business owners who’ve worked with her come from a corporate background that she finally wrote the book on it.

Around twenty years ago, in the early days of modern business and life coaching, there was a premise that the client already knew what they needed to do, and the coach’s job was to help them uncover and reveal to themselves that knowledge.

Once that was obvious, the client would go ahead and do that thing.

That’s kind of simplified, but it’s the gist. In practice, however, that premise didn’t really stand up.

Why not?

Often the client didn’t know what to do.

When the coach did know, a teaching opportunity arose. A good deal of basic coaching practice occurs here:

How to find leads, how to close sales, how to build a team, how to manage your finances. There is a body of knowledge, but maybe the client hasn’t learned it yet.

One might say this is training, not coaching, but in truth, there is some of both.

But what about when the coach didn’t know either?

 In my book, Formerly Corporate: Mindset Shifts for Success in Your Own Business, the concluding chapter defines three qualities of the successful entrepreneur, who

• Embraces Ambiguity
• Accepts Volatility
• Creates New Value

How does the coach help the entrepreneur strengthen these qualities and create money “out of thin air”?

By asking great questions without either having to know the answers already.

This is where the magic happens. Without anyone knowing the answers, the situation is rife with opportunities--for both the client and the coach, and their collaboration. Assuming someone has the answers, that the answers already exist, is a self-limiting approach.

What’s wrong with not knowing?

Nothing. I think the most successful and creative coaching relates to the concepts captured in the phrases, “Don’t Know what you don’t know”, or the “Unknown unknowns”. When there is trust between client and coach, figuring stuff out together can lead to unimagined, unheard of, results.

I want to teach a little bit here:

This “don’t know what you don’t know” idea seems to have originated in a personal development tool called the Johari window, developed by psychologists Luff and Ingraham in 1955, to help individuals understand themselves better.

Briefly, there are four panes in the Johari window—three about “knowns” and one labeled “unknown”.

1. Open:  Everybody knows…
2. Blind (or blind spot) I don’t know, but someone else knows.
3. Hidden (or façade):  Private knowledge. I know but I won’t tell you.

 And then there are the Great Unknowns.

Several categories and labels have emerged for ”Unknown”--

• Known knowns— Somebody knows. The facts are there and can be learned.
• Known unknowns—I don’t know yet but could make educated guesses, predictions, hypotheses.
• Unknown unknowns— don’t know what I don’t know, and
• Unknown knowns—I know deep down but refuse to acknowledge

Over time, these concepts evolved and found application in areas as broad as project management, military planning, national security, and analytical chemistry.

Donald Rumsfeld, both the youngest and oldest Secretary of Defense, in two administrations, even titled his memoirs “Known and Unknown”. 

Lesson over.  

Back to the Qualities of the Successful Entrepreneur

Facing the unknown is a humbling experience, whether the unknown is in your psyche or the depths of outer space. Even picking which type of unknown you’re dealing with is sometimes hard, especially if you are examining your own self-knowledge.

It is good to have trusted companions, as well as guides, to help sort them out.

Let’s go back to those fundamental qualities I mentioned. These concepts define the entrepreneurial landscape, and they mostly live in the Great Unknowns.

Embracing Ambiguity:

Rather than seeing uncertainty as an obstacle, embracing ambiguity becomes a catalyst for growth. By shifting your mindset, you can recognize that the unknown holds a potential for discovery and innovation within it.

Curiosity is vital to embracing ambiguity.  What if? and what next? questions about uncharted territory can make it seem more exciting and less fearsome.  By seeking links among time-tested and newly-won knowledge, coaches and entrepreneurs together uncover new pathways to success.

Here again, two heads are better than one.  The coach plays a vital role helping the client accept the need to change—resistance is a natural reaction when change is called for.

There may be more than one path to success, and choosing which can be hard, and risky, and ambiguous.

Accepting Volatility

Volatility --of the economy, the business climate, life’s circumstances—cannot be controlled. Fear may be a reasonable first response, but the sooner you accept the new situation, the sooner you can leverage it to drive innovation and growth.

Resilience—Challenges may be an opportunity for growth, but they may also feel like a setback. Setbacks are unavoidable, in life and business.

Adaptability and agility as circumstances change are other hallmark responses to volatility.  

Change may be a temporary disruption, but this framework encourages you to use change and disruption to drive your business forward. Consider refining business strategies, exploring new markets, or taking a good hard look at the competition.

Volatility can be frustrating! All your best plans may go out the window. Here is one place where your coach may turn to empathy, or a good kick in the pants, or both. Because you’ve been working together, and your coach will know which one when.

Cultivating Creativity

Everyone has problems to solve. I believe that creativity and innovation are not luxuries limited to the “creative class”.   They are necessary for solving problems, staying engaged, and achieving rewarding results. The fine artist, and the great musician may be recognized more widely, but the people who keep the farm machinery or the auto plant or the farmers’ market running are creative too.

One more thought: We don’t always get it right the first time, and must try again. The big word for that is iterative—try something, look at what happened, try a better approach from what you learned. Where entrepreneurs persistently refine and evolve their ideas, creativity becomes a dynamic force, adaptive and competitive in the business environment.

Getting Beyond the Here and Now into the Unknown

At the heart of my own philosophy is the idea that “when you are your only resource, your options are limited.”  Or put more simply, "self-reliance is over-rated."

Back to the premise that the client always knows…I think that sells the client short. They come to a coach for help getting beyond themselves, for getting to the edge of what they could not yet see, and for the nudge over the edge into a "new known".

Isn’t this a Great Life? 

Creating a product or service that is valuable enough to buy, charting your own course, redirecting as you go, taking risks, rolling with the punches, learning to humble yourself, learning to stand up for yourself, creating new options, and recognizing rewards beyond money--these are the grand adventures of the entrepreneur.

PS. I personally would have never arrived here without my own coaches and mentors and clients, and I thank them all.