Few situations are more challenging for your design team than a war among the client principals! When there is an on-going duel concerning concepts, preferences and decisions, your design team inherits an assortment of untenable choices!
The primary role of your professional team is to take your concept vision, develop it into a workable design that you can approve, then guide and assist you through the detailed process of production. This is very difficult to execute in a war zone peopled with partners, spouses or corporate associates from an organizational chart, who want it their way or no way.
Under such circumstances, it is extremely dangerous for your designer to attempt to referee a preferences debate by expressing personal positions and judgment or by trying to mitigate disputes with unknown histories. The best route for your designer (when you ask for help in such a situation) is to perhaps try to guide you in better ways to arrive at mutually acceptable decisions.
One route to that place is to use the old tried and true "opposing position lists." It can be anything from Yes/No to Want/Don't Want! As simplistic as that may seem, it is one way to sort out just where the trouble spots exist. With that information, your design team can then help you trouble-shoot the factors -- the pro and con elements – without getting into personalities.
No one wants a black eye when the goal is to create or improve an environment that will satisfy all participants. However, differences do arise and must be resolved before any specific phase can proceed. Many factors come into play in the process of determining the style, furnishings, lighting, colors and textures for an environment. Personal taste is a highly individual thing. Compromise is sometimes very difficult to achieve.
Let your designer in on what the differences are that are creating the battles. Often, your designer can provide solutions from his or her experience and knowledge that would easily resolve what feels to you like an insurmountable problem. Sometimes the solution is available in a way with which you are just not familiar.
Your professional won't take sides! It is not their environment, and they know how important it is for the end result to be the client's vision. While duels may be colorful (with all the posturing, huffing and puffing and thrusts and jabs) they waste precious time and can create lasting compatibility wounds. They usually don't serve the health of your project, and there are better tools.
Once again, open communication is the answer. Having heated and unresolved disputes behind the scenes, then presenting your design professional with a falsely unified front, only promises trouble down the line. Don't be embarrassed to reveal that you and another principal are struggling with an important answer that the design team needs.
For all the reasons mentioned, it is wise to cooperate with your professional by participating in regular meetings (and mini-meetings) to stay on top of potential trouble spots. Put away the weapons and bring out your notepads – electronic or otherwise – and brainstorm your way off the battlefield.
Robert Boccabella, B.F.A. is principal and founder of Business Design Services and a certified interior designer in private practice for over 30 years. Boccabella provides Designing to Fit the Vision© in collaboration with writingservice@earthlink.net. To contact him call 707-263-7073; email him at rb@BusinessDesignServices.com or visit www.BusinessDesignServices.com or on Face Book and Instagram at Business Design Services.
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