We often tend to expect others to act as we ourselves do and this certainly has a huge impact on us – from our assumptions which leads to how we make a decision, what we see as facts and the consequences of the actions taken.
In businesses I have seen this often materialise in stakeholder relationships – such as what used to be great partnerships in sound companies to businesses simply failing because the shareholders are caught up in the midst of conflict. So, while you need to have a business based on a great product / service, sound practices, steady cash flow, sustainable client base and so forth – all of this hard work can come crashing down because of the relationship.
Mostly when relationships work we don’t try to work out exit or conflict resolution plans for when they don’t – but the reality is – when we are in the position of the relationship broken – no one is interested on agree how to resolve their problems.
And that is the magic tip, make sure you work out how you will try to resolve conflict or if that doesn’t work exit while the honeymoon is still taking place. As while the quote speaks to people consciously not being honest, life also is complex and misinterpretation often occurs with the result that integrity becomes debatable. Now you can imagine how you would hold your position if your integrity is questioned and you believe you didn’t cross the line – very hard to resolve this type of conflict!