Great Partnerships

 Friday, October 23, 2009 from 11am EDT to 6:45p EDT
Saturday, October 24, 2009 from 11am to 4:45p EDT

For $29, this 2-day conference aims to educate and inform copreneurs on timely topics for couples in business. We welcome married couples, those who are dating, or are in same-sex relationships. Every registrant receives a FREE 1-year membership to National Copreneur Society. Here is just some of what you’ll find at Copreneur Camp:

·                             A keynote address from Paul and Sarah Edwards, copreneurs and award-winning authors

 ·                             7 sessions led by professional consultants, coaches, authors, or copreneurs

·                            2 opening sessions by the National Copreneur Society co-founders

·                             2 Copreneur Roundtables where attendees can learn and share with each other

·                             Twitter Chat Room for live interaction during the Camp

·                             A virtual swag bag of educational and informative goodies provided to all attendees

Plus, the best part, is that it’s virtual! Attend from your home or business. All you need is access to a computer and telephone (or computer speakers and a microphone).View the schedule, session outlines, speaker list, and register for Copreneur Camp http://www.copreneursociety.org/membership/2009-virtual-copreneur-camp

 If you have questions on anything, please e-mail NCS.

I was recently asked, “What is the most important requirement for partnership success?” My one word answer – “Trust.” 

When a deep level of trust exists between partners, they are each able to take great risks - risks they might not have taken without the trust. The mutual trust provides a safe space to step out in faith and achieve what might appear difficult, impossible, or overwhelming. Remember that people live up to expectations - the more you trust, the more your partner will achieve new heights. When such trust exists in your business relationship it supports growth, improvement, and excellence in the business.     

Follow these guidelines to build and strengthen trust:  

1. Respect your partner at all times.
2. Listen to your partner - make sure you know what they really mean.
3. Don’t make major decisions unilaterally.
4. Honor your agreements to everyone.
5. Realize that you are always connected to your partner.
6. Back up your partner’s decisions to outsiders, even if you disagree.
7. Be consistent.
8. Be honest with yourself and your partner.
9. Have clear boundaries.
10. Do not over promise.

“Trust each other again and again. When the trust level gets high enough, people transcend apparent limits, discovering new and awesome abilities for which they were previously unaware.” David Armistead

1. Insist on being right all the time
2. Compete with your partner instead of collaborating
3. Make up the rules as you go along
4. Criticize your partner in front of other people
5. Complain instead of requesting what you really want
6. Don’t forgive or forget your partners mistakes
7. Spread gossip about your partner
8. Keep score of who does more work
9. Second-guess your partner’s decisions
10. Get distracted by outside events
11. Avoid difficult conversations
12. Launch personal attacks against your partner
13. Blame your partner for your problems  

Entrepreneurship was the topic of discussion at a meeting I just attended. One question was – “Do you want your child to follow in your entrepreneurial footsteps?” All 8 people at my table said yes (7 women and one man). I was surprised that so many others feel the same way as I do, given our current economy. Not only do I think that entrepreneurship is a great path to follow but I also think that instilling entrepreneurial values in children is a worthy goal, regardless of what they decide to do with their lives.

You can partner with your children to lay a foundation for your them to have prosperous lives, even if they ultimately decide that entrepreneurship isn’t for them.  A few of the valuable entrepreneurial principles that they can learn from you are:

Goal setting – In many ways, children are hard-wired as natural goal-setters.  The problem is, they usually fail to follow through with concrete action.  You can teach them how to reach a goal by breaking it down into a series of easily reachable mini-goals.  For example, if they want to buy a new video game that costs $20 and they can save $5 per week, help them make a chart that will track their progress.  Every week when they save $5, let them color in the next portion of the chart that shows their progress.  You’ll be teaching them the importance of following through on goals with clearly defined steps. Celebrate with them when they buy the video game. 

Motivation – Keeping children motivated requires plenty of encouragement and positive reinforcement.  For example, if you’re teaching your child the importance of saving money for a rainy day and they want to tap into the piggy bank, praise them for how much they have saved already. Also remind them that being patient now will pay huge dividends later. Consider paying a small amount of interest on their savings, so they can experience how the real world of investing works.

Responsibility – You may not be able to teach responsibility but seeing how you are responsible for the success of your business and do not blame others for your mistakes will encourage your children to act responsibly. They will see you considering options and making choices that may be difficult at times. As an entrepreneur you take action and if something doesn’t work you do something else. You do not depend on others to bail you out. Seeing this in you will encourage your children to be self-reliant and responsible for their own actions and choices.

Teaching your kids these principles of entrepreneurship will, of course, come in handy if they ultimately decide to follow in your footsteps.  However, self-reliant, motivated people who reach their goals are in relatively short supply.  By instilling these values in your children you can help to ensure a lifetime of prosperity for them.  And you’ll be doing your part to help create another generation of success-minded entrepreneurs who can ultimately change the world for the better!

I was at two different women’s business networking meetings last week where the subject of ex-husbands and ex-business partners came up. While these very savvy businesswomen were “complaining” about lingering problems caused by their ex-partners they were also talking about exciting new partnerships that were unfolding for them.

This all started me thinking about the likelihood of these new personal or business partnerships surviving. After all, statistics indicate that 50% of first marriages fail but the failure rate of second marriages is a staggering 70%.

Business partnerships fare even worse. According to the Harvard Business School they start out with a 70% failure rate and who knows,  like marriages this rate may climb for second partnerships.

This raises questions for me. Why are people jumping in again without learning from their mistakes and past experience? Why aren’t they learning from other people’s mistakes? Why do they think that next time will be different? Are they spending the time and energy to make more intelligent decisions? Do they realize how they may be contributing to these failures?

And the big question for me is - how can I help?  Since, in my mind one ex is enough. 

I am back to this blog after a six month hiatus during which I was trying to figure out how to tie together my various offerings. I have decided to concentrate on my core message that the way to success in life and business is through building great partnerships of all types.

My plan is to share insights and information here that will help you build a great life by connecting and collaborating with yourself, others and the world. So, you may see posts on personal relationships, business relationships, marriage, family, networking, business building, or anything else I believe will help you to grow and prosper. 

Jean Charles, Business Relationship Coach

Once you have mastered the art of cooperation you can move on to the most exciting and productive stage of any partnership. This is when the productive energy just seems to flow between partners, they feed off of each other’s ideas and actions and the results are exponentially more than the sum of their efforts. This is the Synergy stage. This is the fun stage and where you want the partnership to stay, so commit to:

·         Acknowledge, appreciate and reward each partner’s contributions

·         Keep adding creative energy to the business

·         Communicate differences of opinion without becoming argumentative or defensive

·         Truly value your partner’s differences

·         Take full responsibility for reaching your own business goals

The more partners work together in a synergistic high-performance team, the more productive and profitable the business will become. Synergy is exciting with possibilities of truly significant gain and improvement so it is worth the effort and commitment.

The fifth and last stage of partnership is really the one that should be considered in the beginning of any partnership and usually is not. Come back here to read it soon so you can be prepared to build prosperity through partnership.

When the Honeymoon is over the Power Struggle will start!– It is inevitable that when new aspects of personalities emerge conflicts will occur. This is the stage where partners test and judge each other. It is necessary to build trust in this stage of the partnership to move on to working well together. Hopefully all major issues that arise have solutions built in to your partnership agreements. For handling ‘smaller’ issues commit to:

·         Be flexible

·         Work out differences side by side

·         Balance emotions with rational dialogue

·         Listen to the other side of arguments and reserve judgment

·         Seek common ground and learn the underlying intentions of each partner

·         Keep partners informed on any matters that could affect the business

·         Not assume you know the other persons thoughts or feelings

·         Give the benefit of the doubt to your partner

·         Revisit agreements and revise or amend as needed

·         Seek outside advice and support when necessary

Sadly many partnerships fail because they get stuck in the power struggle. Don’t let this happen to you. See past the disagreements and commit to working out issues. The rewards will be evident when you progress to the collaborative stage of partnership.

Partnerships, and all relationships for that matter, go through predictable stages. Knowing these stages is like having a map that will help you to know where you are and get to where you want to go. It will also allow you to deal effectively with the particular issues of the stage you are in.

The first stage is Attraction. This stage of relationships is characterized by a fascination with another person, organization or project, a desire to learn more about them, and to share with them. This is the stage that is fun, feels good and people wish would last forever.

The Attraction stage is similar to a Honeymoon in that everything is exciting and everyone is on their best behavior. This is when partners are focused on and exploring positive possibilities. Small disagreements are probably overlooked until they build up to become major issues. While the relationship is still in the agreeable Attraction stage commit to:

• Resolve any doubts that you should be partners by learning more about each other

• Make sure your individual visions for the business and its growth are similar

• Undertake a strategic planning process

• Clarify with yourself and each other what you want from the partnership

• Build trust and confidence in one another and your ability to jointly manage the business

• Contribute what is needed to make the venture a success

The partnership will inevitably progress to the next stage. After all, the Honeymoon does not last forever! But if you have set a strong foundation using the above suggestions, the negative impact of a power struggle will be minimized.

I was angry watching the Today show the other morning. Their producers picked up on the NY Times article I mentioned in my last post about successful women entrepreneurs hiring their husbands.

They showed clips of interviews with two of the couples and then had two “experts” comment on this business model. The male “expert” is a journalist whose then-wife was his boss at a publication for which he wrote. When she turned down an article from him he went above her head for approval and was also rejected. He thinks no man should ever work for his wife. He had no experience working for a successful entrepreneurial woman. Working for a woman who is a manager in a corporate environment is not analogous to working for a woman entrepreneur who owns a family business.  Also he was so bitter and surly, I don’t think he could work for any woman and it is evident why his former boss is no longer his wife.

The other “expert” was a family therapist. Also, in my opinion, not qualified to comment on this topic since couples working together or otherwise do not seek therapy until it is too late. She did not mention that she has experience counselling couples who work together and if she does, she probably only sees couples with insurmountable problems and not those who are working together with some minor issues that need improvement.