Shareholders do not just add capital to a company, but knowledge and experience as well. They often take a share of the responsibility for the company. But the existence of shareholders bears the potential for conflicts within the company. These conflicts might occur suddenly after years of harmonious co-working.
Turf wars:
This kind of conflict usually occurs when companies are founded, two companies unite or responsible staff changes. The cause of conflict is a lack of regulation of responsibilities which makes several people think that they are authorized to issue in the same field of work. By establishing a clearly defined company structure and a binding determination of responsibilities turf wars can be easily avoided.
Change of a shareholder:
The change of a shareholder or the addition of a new shareholder might cause uneasiness within a company. The new shareholder might not know the usual procedures and responsibilities within the company and arrives with different experiences and new ideas. Thereby, he sets impulses that might lead to conflicts in the company. By establishing a well-structured training period for new shareholders that integrates the old shareholders and a certain level of openness to new ideas this kind of conflicts could be minimized.
Interference of family members:
The cause of a conflict between shareholders do not necessarily have to be the shareholders themselves. Especially in family businesses family members might play a vital part in the drama. A common cause of this kind of conflict is a new life partner of a shareholder who is at odds with other family members or one of the shareholders. In this case it is necessary to ease the tensions by solving disagreements and misunderstandings.
Occuring proving grounds:
Proving grounds often challenge self-evidences in a company. A proving ground might be the first large crisis in a company that might cause the questioning of behaviour, the company strategy or even the corporate focus. But a proving ground might even be a positive development like a strong growth of the company. By the suddenly occurring additional work the company has to deal with through the growth in demand hidden weaknesses within the company present themselves that were not obvious when the company under a lower work load. One or more teams in the company feel suddenly overburdened and new employees have to be hired to master the additional workload that have to be trained for the job under already challenging working conditions. Responsibilities have to be newly defined, workspaces and tasks newly assigned. In a nutshell, a lot of conflict potential pops up that is looking for opportunities to unfold. Strive for an early conflict solution to avoid escalation.
Different attitudes to the work:
People are different. Therefore, there are many potential reasons for conflicts between shareholders. Causes might be different opinions concerning certain workloads, work-life-balance, meaningful training measures for the staff, corporate philosophy, corporate culture, corporate development, hygiene standards or the maintenance of working material. Each shareholder tries to propose his own preferences and to carry through his visions and persuasion. As these are basic questions that might have a lasting effect on the company occurring conflicts in this field have the potential to become huge and long-lasting. Snare your conflicts as early as possible and settle them in the best interest of your company
To bring back your management to functional working conditions I assist you via mediation with the solution of your conflict.
Make an appointment for a first free preliminary, now to get to know each other and figure out, if a mediation is a useful option in your case under the phone number 0049 – 160 – 76 25 61 8