Teammate VS Partner - Know Your Relating Style

Understanding the difference between being either a Teammate or a Partner in your relating style is critical.

These two styles will help you communicate better with the people in your life.

Especially, intimate relationships. Knowing whether you communicate like a Teammate or a Partner and which style the other person communicates like makes all the difference!

Clearly, this does not include relationships where one person is making most or all of the final decisions.

This is strictly for those who have a 50%-50% (or close to that) type of relationship. That could be a friendship, business partner or marriage.

To discover more, have a listen as I explain what the relating style difference are and why it can be relationship Ending if you don’t understand this difference.

Below the video is the transcript of this podcast segment.

TRANSCRIPT

This is your host Dyann Bridges.

Today I’m going to be talking about the difference between being a teammate and a partner.

These are important terms to understand when you’re talking about either a business partner, life partner or even a best friend. Anyone that you spend a lot of time with and move forward with in life in a significant way.

There is a difference between being a teammate and a partner and in their relating style.

Let me explain…

Being a Teammate

Being a teammate in life means that you have the same goal. The goal doesn’t change.

It’s to get more points than the other side. That’s it. The goal is always the same. So, everyone can agree on that. Then you work together to achieve that goal.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Some team players can be a little more skilled in some ways than others, but everyone works together to get more points than the other guy.

Being A Partner

Now with a business partner you must hash things out.

It’s important to be able to articulate your ideas. You must be able to challenge the partner. You must be able to receive a challenge from them and give and receive criticism in a way that is constructive.

That way you can drill down in a more detailed fashion to really understand where the other person is coming from.

This is important if it’s an equal partnership.

Then you must agree on how you’re going to move forward. Most of the time two people are not going to agree.

Sometimes that happens, but most of the time you don’t fully agree. You just have to find a way to reach middle ground so that you can make a decision to move forward in some way or another.

To do that you must push. You must know how to push somebody else. How to push yourself, to refine your point of view and the idea that you have. You must know how to receive their detailed and refined viewpoint as well.

What’s important to you? What’s important to them? Where can you come together?

Which is Better? Teammate or Partner?

All of this is very important when you’re talking about a relating style and being a partner in business, in friendships, with lovers and in life.

However, you might wonder which is ‘better’. The answer is; Neither.

Whatever your relating style is… is just that. You’ve got to decided whether to adapt and adjust within the relationship or not. Sometimes, having one person as the dominant decision maker can make things easier for both of you. Such as in a business partnership. You’ll concede a lot of power if you do that though.

If you want as close to a 50%-50% relationship as possible then you need to figure out if your relating style is that of a Teammate or a Partner.

Essentially, you just need to know where you agree and where you know you can find middle ground.

That way you’ll know how to move forward. It’s a simple concept that’s much more difficult to execute!