The Laws of Partnership

On the other hand, business partnerships can supersize what any individual can do.  The synergies and energies of two people can make the world align to your business success more quickly and with more joy and ease than you can imagine.

My business partner, Christine Harvey, was first introduced to me at a seminar.  We hit it off immediately.  We share the same values of honesty, integrity and communication.  We recognized that fit almost immediately. 

Our key was to set down common goals and beliefs in writing.  If you are in a business partnership or looking to begin one, this is a very useful exercise.  What are your goals for the business?  Do you plan to sell, or work it for the next 20 years?  Will you start other ventures separate from your partnership while building this business?

Partnership is a lot like marriage.  In many wedding ceremonies, couples set down expectations.  For example; that you will stay together for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health as long as you both shall live.  Expectations of partnership are not the same, but should also be addresses.  Christine and I had to lay down expectations about who would pay for our start-up faze.  How would we take ownership, how would we split profits?  What kinds of business people are we willing to partner with and how will we treat each other?  These are important start-up and ongoing agreements to make.  Having similar expectations can allow more freedom and faster growth than you can imagine.

And as our business relationship grew, we found that having a few basic principles allow us to grow exponentially with little or no friction in our relationship and clear long-term expectations.

1)      The Law of Disagreement:  Christine and I learned early on that the moment we disagreed on something, we had the opportunity to get to an even better solution.  We would talk through our two different approaches and found that we always came to a much better solution.  Disagreement is now fun (or pretty close).  When we come to something we have opposing views on, now we get excited!  And we always come up with a better solution than either of us had thought of before.  Disagreement takes us to a higher level.

2)      The Law of Gratitude and Respect:  No one likes having their hard work ignored.  I am no different it would be easy for me to take for granted my partner's work because I am working hard, too.  Instead, she and I take the time and care to appreciate the work of the other.  A simple “thank you, I notice you did this and it looks great,” makes all the difference in motivating each other to do even more.  Gratitude and appreciation make a huge difference in keeping us both feeling fulfilled in our daily work, too.

3)      The Niggly Feeling Rule:  Sometimes people get a feeling they just can’t describe.  One that they can’t yet defend or explain.  Most people ignore those feelings in a partnership situation because the feeling is indefensible.  We have found that those feelings are really important to pay attention to.  So we encourage the use of the “niggly feeling rule.”  If one of us gets the feeling that we need to not do something, or do it a different way, we take that very seriously.  And we affirm that feeling so that we have the use of our intuition, even when we can’t explain it.

Those three “Laws of Partnership” that we run our business on is creating fast growth and ease and fun in our partnership.  What rules help you work with partners?  We’d love to hear your thoughts!
 

Want to learn more?  Motivation Marathon, a 4-CD series with Beth Walkup, Sue Dyer and Hilde Bartlett is still available! More than three hours of conversation with Christine Harvey about How they create success, joy and prosperity in their lives without loosing the adventure.  Visit our eShop to get your 4-CD set now!