How to create an effective business partner relationship
Creating an effective business partner relationship can have a huge impact on your business’s overall success and longevity. According to Noah Wasserman, Harvard Business School professor and author of The Founder’s Dilemma, 65% of start-ups fail because of an ineffective relationship between co-founder.
How can you set your partnership up to have the greatest chance for sustainable success?
First, let’s talk about time investment. Every great relationship requires time. Time and experience with positive outcomes will lead you to a long lasting relationship. Taking time to work on the relationship can yield huge benefits down the line.
Here’s a few ideas to consider when creating your business partnership:
Get to know your relationship patterns. Think about your most successful relationships. What are the characteristics of those relationships? What makes those relationships successful? Pay particular attention to relationships where you feel trust and safety? What do you to create this experience of trust and safety? What does the other person do?
Think about your worst relationships. What about these relationships have led to disastrous outcomes? What is your part in it? Remember that you can’t change the other person. You’re greatest power lies in your ability to take accountability for your own reality.
What are the needs that weren’t fulfilled? It’s important to start identifying where your relating pitfalls are and how they can be consciously brought to light and navigated. If you notice a reoccurring pattern, it may be time to work with a coach or therapist.
Discover what each co-founder needs to feel trust and safety in the relationship. When creating a new business there is an inherent feeling of ambiguity and unknown. You may not always feel trusting of the choices you or your partner make, or feel safe in taking a huge risk, but you can strive to feel trust in the relationship and safety in your ability to relate to one another.
So how do you build systems that support trust and safety?
Here are some steps to take with your partner. Remember that it’s not enough to go through this exercise alone, it requires both partners to synchronize and agree.
1. Get clear about the larger vision of your business and your partnership.
Think about what your business will become in 20 years from now in its greatest manifestation. What is the output? Who is it benefitting? What positive impact is it having on the world (i.e. humanity and the environment). As a result of building this business, what is the outcome of your relationship to your partner in 20 years? How do you want to feel about each other? What is the dynamic you want to create? Who are you as a result of this relationship?
2. Determine the goals of your business.
Let’s talk strategic planning. It’s critical that there is a plan in place and that each partner agrees on what your business is working towards and how you will achieve those goals.
When setting goals:
1) be specific
2) make it actionable
3) stretch yourself but be realistic
4) create a timeline and deadline for completion
5) agree on how it will be accomplished
6) determine who’s responsible and who will execute the work.
3. Agree on the roles you and your partner will take-on.
Do an assessment of all the roles that are required for your business operation. Determine which roles you and your partner will take-on based on interest and skillset. Identify roles that are necessary but neither partner has interest or skillset to take-on. Make an agreement for how this role will be fulfilled. Can it be outsourced? Will either you or your partner be willing to take a course to learn the skill required?
4. Document your processes.
Make a list of all the functions and processes of your business, large and small. With your partner, document how these processes should flow. When documenting your processes, notice if there are steps that are unclear or if there is an unclear role assignment. These unclear processes can be pitfalls for your business and your relationship, so take time to dialogue and get clear on how the processes should work.
5. Develop your systems for communicating with each other, decision-making, and working
through conflict.
Decide with your partner how you both agree to communicate. Think about the day-to-day operations that you need to be updated on. Is there technology that can assist with capturing important communications? Are you communicating through text or email, or will you have daily or weekly meeting?
Here’s a few tips for working through conflict…
When and how will you discuss personal and emotional things that come up? It’s important that your communications not only cover technical updates but also personal updates. If you fail to communicate about what is personally coming up for you and your partner, you will be missing critical information that is necessary for making informed business decisions.
Have shared language and processes for working through conflict. We tend to be a conflict-avoidant society, and it’s always to our detriment that we avoid conflict. Conflict is the necessary ingredient for creativity in partnerships. Conflict is unavoidable when people work together. It’s important to embrace it and learn how to work with it in heathy ways.
Don’t avoid conflict. When we avoid conflict, we internalize it and that conflict builds up overtime within us until we blow-up. A bad blow-up can be the end of a relationship. Don’t go there. Instead, address the conflict when it’s at the “pinch” level rather than waiting for the big “crunch” (check out Sherwood & Glidewell’s Pinch Crunch Model).
Get familiarized with conflict resolution tools. I’m a big fan of Nonviolent Communication and Crucial Conversations. These tools take time and practice to master, but I promise these are worthwhile investments. Be forgiving of yourself and your partner as you muddle through early conflicts. As you gain more experience and practice it will get easier. One day you will be surprised at how well you and your partner are working together.