Why Most Partnerships Go Bust
Why Most Partnerships Go Bust
Forming a good partnership takes some skill. Are you there?
In the last 13 years, I’ve co-founded 2 gyms and co-founded PushPress. For perhaps the first 11 years of the partnership experiences of those 3 businesses, I didn’t truly understand the science of great partnership.
Luckily for me, I was engaged with partners in my last gym and PushPress that naturally allowed the partnerships to thrive.
Only recently, have I realized what makes a great partnership. Like almost everything in life, the answer is simple, but to get there is extremely difficult.
Trust, Communication, Clarity, and Space.
Trust
Trust is the foundational requirement for all business, personal, and societal activities.
Without trust, everything is broken, so it starts there.
This isn’t just “I trust them not to steal”. This is “I trust them to make a hard decision without me having to butt in with my feelings” - which is much more a difficult trust level to attain.
Communication
Once you have trust, you can have real communication. Most people can communicate about the easy things.
The communication I’m talking about here is the hard stuff.
The topics everyone wants to avoid. You know like firing a staff member your partner might have a soft spot for. Or cutting back the partner draws cause there’s some tough times coming.
Generally speaking people avoid or defer hard conversations, which lead to resentments or unspoken feelings - both of which will break down trust.
Clarity
Lack of clarity comes from a general inexperience of communication. Things are left to interpretation. We might not don’t want to put the nail in the coffin of a hard conversation. We might be more concerned with someone’s feelings to give someone the gift of clarity.
Clarity generates responsibility and accountability. Without clear cut responsibility and accountability, you leave room for everyone to play the “oh I didn’t realize that’s what you meant” game.
And those games piss us off (which breaks down trust. Go to Jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200)
Space
Giving someone space to accomplish tasks and goals is the culmination of Trust, Communication and Clarity.
Often people want to intervene in tasks. They try to butt in and help when help is not required.
Providing help, and not granting space simply demonstrates to your partner that you don’t…. you guessed it… trust them to do the job.
People take pride in getting jobs done - and encroaching on their space is taking the limelight from them while also letting them know you don’t trust them.
Grace
Shit happens. Nobody makes the right decisions or completes any task to 100% perfection. Lord knows - you don’t.
So why would you hold anyone else to that standard?
Giving each other grace to do the job to the best of their ability is key to partnerships. Recognizing that the job got done without your involvement should be seen as a huge step towards moving the business forward.
Just because it’s not done how you would do it doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
Partners Are Important
In my opinion, partners are critical to the success of a business. There’s so much shit a business has to get done, and the market doesn’t care if you do it or someone else does.
The market gives many shits if your business is slow, provides less value, or can’t keep up with the competition.
Especially in the early stages of a company, partners are critical.
Partners are like free employees who will work more hours, care more about the business, and go to battle with you more than an employee will.
And - bonus - partners contribute money to the business as well. Employees cost money.
Whenever I hear someone say “Partners are bad” what I hear is “I don’t understand the basic frameworks of communication and trust building”