IN our BaZi consultancy, a regular question our consultants deal with is helping clients determine the suitability of someone as a prospective business partner. BaZi is extremely effective and accurate for evaluating issues of business partnerships. But we also find that many clients don't approach the question from the right perspective.
Frequently, clients are heavily focused on the question of whether or not a prospective partner is trustworthy. Clients also often ask the question as to whether or not the prospective partner is "compatible" but often with a rudimentary understanding of compatibility. Compatibility is often seen as "we get along" or "this person will bring me luck". BaZi can answer both these questions very clearly but it can also do a lot more.
Invariably during these discussions, we find that clients have given little consideration is to the question of why the will have a good partnership with a particular person (is it due to complementary skills?), whether or not the parties can actually profit together (in other words, will their collaboration actually bear financial fruit) and how long the partnership should go on for, and what form it should take. They also very rarely give thought or consideration to whether or not they are suitable candidates for a partnership themselves.
There is no 'I' in T-E-A-M
The key is to ensuring your partnerships are always smart partnerships is to understand what kind of partnerships you can embark upon and in what circumstances you can embark on a partnership.
I think the first step must really be to ask yourself: is he or she the kind of person who can handle being in a partnership? Some people simply do not have a collaborative gene in them — working together with someone is not something that comes naturally to them. But it is often the case that we rarely consider ourselves in the question, and instead like to put the question or onus on the other person ie: will this person be a good partner with me. In BaZi, a consultant has to consider the question from both perspectives.
You also need to ask yourself if you actually need a partner, and what is the reason why you feel you need to have a business partner. Some people don't need a partner but simply want someone onboard because they don't want to do all the work. Some people bring a partner on board because they feel it's better to get capital from someone than to open their own wallets. In BaZi, the general rule is that Day Masters who are strong don't need partners as much as Day Masters who are weak, although there are exceptions to the rule.
Assuming the person can engage in partnership, an additional consideration is whether or not they are suited for enduring partnerships, or should they adopt a more free-wheeling approach to partnerships. Here, clients must be open to possibilities in partnerships and also to an appreciation that a partnership can take many forms, with varying degrees of commitment. Partnerships can manifest themselves in many forms: equity partnerships, collaboration, joint venture, sleeping partners, relationships of convenience, one-off collaborations and some might work for you better than others.
Assuming your chart allow you to engage in partnerships, what kind of person should you partner with? Ideally in BaZi, a business partner or business partners should complement you based on the structure of your chart and the structure of their chart. They should bring a set of skills to the table that you lack or which you need in order to achieve your goals, and vice-versa. For example, if you are an ideas person (Hurting Officer structure), then your partner should probably be an operations person (Direct Wealth or Seven Killings Structure) If your talents lie in interacting with customers or front-facing tasks, then a suitable partner would be a backroom boy-type. There also must be compatibility from a goals standpoint. It doesn't matter how well you get along — there can be no lasting success or successful partnership if one party isn't hungry for success and the other party is supremely ambitious. This is what we mean by evaluating the compatibility of someone as your business partner.
Then we come to the question of timing. Is it the right time for you to embark on a partnership? Here, the individual's luck, as well as that of the prospective partner, is an important consideration in the equation when it comes to the success of a partnership. When both parties are in favourable Luck Pillars at the time of their partnership, and the Luck Pillars indicate opportunities through partnership, then the partnership is strongly likely to be successful and profitable. This is the gold standard of partnership success in BaZi. On the other hand, success comes in many forms, and sometimes, people achieve success through partnerships simply by betting on the right horse. If you are in not so good luck, but your chart allows you to use partnerships and you happen to chance upon a partner who is about to enter good luck, riding on the coat-tails of that person makes sense. It may even be worthwhile tolerating personality conflict or a different set of values for mutual advantage.
Clearly, trust and trustworthiness are but small factors to take into account in the grand scheme of things. A person may be supremely trustworthy but if they are in bad luck, their trustworthiness isn't going to help either of you make money or achieve success. Equally, a person may be supremely trustworthy but prove to be a dead weight in the business to which, what is the point in having them on board?
The role of the BaZi consultant is very wide ranging and involves highly sophisticated and penetrating analysis when it comes to advising on questions of business partnerships. It extends far beyond mere evaluation of trustworthiness. Our job is to think about not just beginnings, but endings as well. Smart partnerships do not just involve partnering the right person, in the right kind of collaboration or venture, and at the right time. It also involves managing the partnership so that should it come to end, it is done in a professional, amicable and minimally disruptive manner.
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