It is when the going gets better, that the going gets tough. This enigmatic sentence bears explanation: when a firm is in dire straits, in the throes of a crisis, or is a loss maker – conflicts between the shareholders (partners) are rare. When a company is in the start-up phase, conducting research and development and fighting for its continued, profitable survival in the midst of a massive investment cycle – rarely will internal strife arise and threaten its existence. It is when the company turns a profit, when there is cash in the till – that, typically, all manner of grievances, complaints and demands arise. The internecine conflicts are especially acute where the ownership is divided equally. It is more accentuated when one of the partners feels that he is contributing more to the business, either because of his unique talents or because of his professional experience, contacts or due to the size of his initial investments (and the other partner does not share his views). The typical grievances relate to the equitable, proportional, division of the company's income between the partners. In many firms partners serve in various management functions and draw a salary plus expenses. This is considered by other partners to be a dividend drawn in disguise. They want to draw the same amounts from the company's coffers (or to maintain some kind of symbolic monetary difference in favour of the position holder). Most minority partners are afraid of a tyranny of the majority and of the company being robbed blind (legally and less legally) by the partners in management positions. Others are plainly jealous, poisoned by rumours and bad advisors, pressurized by a spouse. A myriad of reasons can lead to internal strife, detrimental to the future of the operation.

While I have never wholesaled used clothing, I am aware that there is a very large market for it. Used clothing usually is collected by charities such as your local thrift shop to national organizations such as the Salvation Army.

Large global corporations have already begun to outsource from India and the Philippines. The relatively low cost of manpower makes these countries a very attractive base for sourcing cross-border IT-enabled services. India has been the largest provider of software engineers to silicon valley. And the benefits provided by such global corporations are very helpful to the economy of these countries. The Call Center Industry is now considered a major source of employment in the Philippines, a nation with virtually millions of English-speaking people. The usual time difference between America and these countries make outsourcing an advantage, since most companies like to have customer care and support available round-the clock. Some 85% of Fortune 500 sales and marketing executives are outsourcing more key marketing services and 90% of these companies report that it has made them more competitive. However, since the increase in outsourcing, these companies received more complaints about Indians with heavy accents handling customer calls. This is due to the very big demand of English-speaking agents and scarcity of capable ones.

ACTIVE LISTENING: The most frequent cause of failure in therapeutic counseling interviews is the interviewer's tendency to talk too much. Numerous studies have shown that in counseling interviews the average manager will talk as much as 85 percent of the time. For a counseling interview to serve its purpose of drawing out responses from the employee, the interviewer must be an effective listener, not a talker. The manager must know how to ask questions which force the employee to speak about his or her unsatisfactory performance. After asking the question, the interviewer should remain silent, thus compelling the employee to speak. NEVER BE AFRAID OF SILENCE: Most people talk too much because they feel uncomfortable when silence prevails. For example, a manager may ask an employee to suggest how his or her job performance could be improved. If the employee was unprepared for such a question, it may take a few moments to prepare a cogent answer. These few moments may seem like hours, compelling the manager to say something else or to elaborate on the original question. If the manager succumbs to this compulsion, the employee's chain of thought will be interrupted, and he or she will be encouraged to lapse back into a passive mental frame. It's far easier for the employee to listen to the boss talk than it is to try to construct a meaningful answer to a pointed question.

This short story, Coworkers Collaborate to Complete Successful Initiative, is part of AlphaMeasure's compilation, Tales From the Corporate Frontlines. It illustrates how important cooperation, collaboration, and communication are to achieving the common goals of a successful organization. Anonymous Submission