Partner business session for co-owners
Case details
Problem
Three partners came to the session to “structure their agreements” on continuing to run the business together.
The work revealed issues the partners had either never discussed or had only touched on briefly.
They came to an unexpected realization: the lack of recorded roles, expectations and clear division of responsibilities was a source of lost control and numerous disputes, while management had been blamed without cause.
Solution
The session addressed the acceptance of responsibility, procedures for crisis situations, a roadmap for structuring cooperation and risk management.
Individual preliminary meetings explored breached boundaries, past patterns that had affected the present situation and strategic mistakes, as well as the criteria for a successful partnership and areas of individual and joint responsibility.
According to the participants, leaving things unsaid and making assumptions for one another had served them badly but provided a valuable lesson.
Result
The business session helped the participants find the internal resources for an open, constructive conversation, work through negative experiences, reach a new level of trust in the partnership and move away from the “gentlemen’s agreement” nature of most of their arrangements.
From practice
