8-Elements-of-a-Successful-Partnership.txt

8 Elements of a Successful Partnership
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We live in the era of the lone genius or the lionized hero, but the truth is most of the greatest things that has ever been accomplished were accomplished by multiple people. Think Lewis and Clark, Steve Jobs, and Steve Wozniak. Charlie Munger, and Warren Buffett. Serena and Venus Williams, and even in fiction and stories, some of the most iconic characters we can think of come in pairs. Han Solo and Chewbacca. Samwise Gamgee and Frodo Baggins. Here's the thing. Successful partnerships are powerful. Forming a partnership, forming an alliance is extremely powerful because you now have someone who can watch your back. Everything is easier, whether it's moving your house, raising a family or building a company when you have a partner at your back. But partnerships can also be challenging because now there's room for conflict. Now there's room for arguing, for tension, for disagreements. Sometimes your partner can let you down, your partner can hurt you, your partner can make things worse.

So what does it take to make a successful partnership? Well, luckily for us, there's been some incredible research done by the Gallup organization that looked at successful and unsuccessful partners. They asked thousands of American adults to think about situations where they partnered successfully and when they partnered unsuccessfully. And to think about the differences in that dynamic. And as a result, they came to this conclusion that there are eight specific elements of highly effective two person teams. So today we're gonna talk about each of those elements and how you can foster them in your partnerships. Whether you are raising a kid or raising $10 million for your company, there is value in trying to implement these strategies in your partnerships.

Now, the first and most important element of a successful partnership is complementary strengths. That means strengths that support and augment one another, where one person's strength supports another person's weakness and vice versa. Let's take the example of Apple co-founders, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Steve Jobs understood computers at a high level, but he was not a programmer. He was not a hardware designer. That was Steve Wozniak's expertise. Steve Jobs understood markets, branding, design, and selling. He was able to figure out what kind of product to offer the market to get the business off the ground while Steve Wozniak brought his technical expertise and engineering skills to make that vision a reality.

As an executive coach, I often work with startup founders who start a company with another person. Usually it's one business person and one technical person, or one designer and one engineer. And at some point things will break down and they'll ask themselves, are we too different? That's the wrong question to ask because the reality is successful partnerships require differences. Nobody is great at everything. And ideally, you have someone who's great at one thing and maybe weak in another. And you have that partner be the one to support you. Now, obviously that requires you to appreciate each other's strengths and be able to leverage them in the collaboration that you have. But the first thing is knowing that those complementary strengths, those differences in the way you think, act, behave, your network, your knowhow, it is critical to making that partnership successful.

Now, Gallup identified a couple of questions that were important to ask to know if you are in fact leveraging this element. So in an exceptional alliance, you would be answering strongly agree to all three of these questions. We complement each other's strengths. We need each other to get the job done. My partner does some things much better than I do, and I do some things much better than my partner does. If you answered strongly agree to all three of those questions, congratulations. You are leveraging the most important element of a successful two person team. If not, maybe ask yourself how you could get to a strongly agree, how you could make that element work for you.

The second element of highly successful two person teams is a shared mission. This is about having alignment on the long term goals, direction that the partnership is taking, whether it's to climb a mountain, to reach a certain destination, or to build a particular kind of thing. Complementary strengths gives you the capacity to work together, but a shared mission provides that guidance to make sure that you are rowing in the same direction.

For instance, in Star Trek, Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are very different people. Captain Kirk is a little hotheaded, aggressive, warm, charming, and a people person while Mr. Spock is a bit colder, more rational, more logical, and more conservative in his thinking. But the two of them are united in their shared mission to boldly go where no one has gone before. That is the mission of the Starship Enterprise, and that's what unites them, so that even when they get into differences, they come together.

Because of that shared mission, the Gallup organization found that only one in four of poor performing two person teams could say that they had a shared mission. So this is often something that is missing in poor partnerships and something that is super important to cultivate in strong partnerships.

Now, if you're looking for questions to ask yourself to see if you are on track with your partnership in the shared mission, you might ask yourself: one, we are genuinely aligned on what we are trying to do together. Two, we share a common vision of the future that excites us both. And three, when faced with difficult decisions, we prioritize our shared direction over individual preferences. If you can answer strongly agree to each of these three questions, then you are nailing the shared mission element of highly successful partnerships.

The next element is fairness. Fairness is the sense that each partner is being treated equally, given equal respect, equal value. It has equal say in decision making and reaps an equal share of the rewards. Now, that doesn't mean that you have to have everything split 50-50, but it needs to be organized in a way in which both parties feel is fair. You don't have fairness if you have one side thinking it's fair and the other side feeling it's not fair. Both partners have to feel like there's fairness in the partnership for this to count. Okay, so if you have one person with a problem with fairness, you have a two person problem with fairness.

Fairness also doesn't mean that everybody splits every task 50-50. If one person is really good at finance and accounting, and the other person is really great at branding and marketing, you're not gonna have the branding person do half of the taxes and have the accountant do half of the new launch campaign. That just doesn't make sense. However, each party needs to feel like they're doing their part and their partner is contributing, their partner is contributing equally to the company. Here's some questions to ask yourself if you want to see if you are leveraging the fairness element of successful partnerships. One, we share the workload equally between us. Two, we do not have to keep track of who does what and who gets credit for what. Three, we see each other as equals. One of us is not better than the other.

An interesting example of what you might call an equal partnership with unequal financial upside is Berkshire Hathaway. For many, many decades, Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger worked together. Now, Warren Buffett had a greater share of Berkshire Hathaway. Partly that's because Charlie Munger came in later into the business, but they still worked together as equals. The way they communicated, the way they made decisions, they deferred to one another, they listened to one another. Yes, Warren Buffett ended up having a greater net worth. At the time of his death in 2023, Charlie Munger's net worth was maybe around two, two and a half billion dollars while Warren Buffett's was closer to $80 billion. Now, part of that is because Charlie had sold or donated much of his stock to contribute to philanthropic efforts, but he also started out with less from the get go.

But in their 45 year partnership, it is clear that Charlie and Warren did not hold it against each other. They truly treated each other fairly and they did not keep score. This is something that the research really emphasizes. If you start thinking about keeping score and making sure that you're even, you are not acting in fairness. It means that you are too focused on making sure that you get the right amount and you are not getting the benefit of feeling like this is fair, I'm getting a fair shake and I want to give, and that both of us are getting a good deal from this partnership.

Moving on to the fourth element of highly effective two person teams is trust. Trust is the idea that your partner has your best interest in mind and will act in favor of the partnership, not just their own individual gain. Working with other people is always risky. There's always a chance that they betray you, that they lie to you, that they cheat you, or they just slack off and let you do all the work or take all the risk. There's always some danger involved in putting yourself in the hands of another person. That's why people often work alone. But the power of the partnership is when you do trust that person. When you know that they have your back, you can do things that you might not be able to do alone.

Think about Han Solo and Chewbacca in the Star Wars films. Across the films, you see that they really trust each other. They put their lives in the other partner's hands. Chewbacca might be frustrated at something Han is doing, but Han will just say, listen, I don't need to hear from you right now. Just trust me on this. And other times Han's getting really anxious because Chewbacca is supposed to be fixing something and they have a limited amount of time left before things go really south. But he trusts Chewbacca to come through for him.

When you have trust, you can move much faster and be more efficient because you don't waste time covering your ass, double checking work, making sure that you're not gonna get screwed in some way. You can just act as if you are going to be covered. And that makes you more effective than other two person teams or even larger groups where there's even more possibility for risk and betrayal.

Here's some questions to ask yourself to see if you are in a high trust partnership. One, I can count on my partner to keep their word. Two, I can be honest and open with my partner without worrying about how that might be used against me later. Three, I trust that my partner is gonna be there for me when I need it. If you can answer strongly agree to these questions, then you are really taking advantage of the power of trust in your partnership.

The fifth element of successful partnerships is acceptance. Now, acceptance is a really interesting one, and I think this theme is a bit controversial because it's basically asking you to not change your partner. Often when we get into conflicts with our partners, we want to fix them. We want to change them. If only they would stop doing this. If only they would start doing that. But the reality is in highly successful partnerships, the two parties don't try to make the other person change, at least not changing in fundamental ways. Because going back to the first element, complementary strengths, those strengths tend to be differences in the two of you. So of course, if one person is a risk averse individual, they're going to be frustrated when their partner takes more risks than they feel comfortable with. Now, obviously you need to find a way to make that work. But the answer is not to clamp down all the sort of exuberant risk-taking, adventurous values and personality of that other partner. That is not gonna work. It removes the strength and it also hurts the relationship because now you're saying you don't accept them as who they are. You need them to be different.

A great example in films of learning this lesson is in the movie Inside Out where the emotion Joy partners up with the emotion Sadness. Now, in the beginning of the film, Joy feels like she should be in charge of everything and Sadness should be kept in a corner and hidden because tainting Riley's emotions with sadness seems like a bad thing, and tainting their memories with sadness also seems like a bad thing. So at first, Joy is trying to make Sadness change. She does not accept Sadness for who she is, the emotion being something that is valuable. But by the end of the movie, Joy realizes that in fact, Sadness has a place in our emotional landscape. Sadness allows us to connect to other people, to seek comfort, to seek protection. And that is okay for our memories and our experiences to have both joy and sadness wrapped up in it. That is a great example of accepting your partner for who they are, not in spite of their differences, but because of them.

So if you wanna know if you're using acceptance in your partnership correctly, here are three questions you can ask yourself to see if your partnership is leveraging the power of acceptance. One, we focus on each other's strengths and not our weaknesses. Two, we accept each other as we are and don't try to change the other person. Three, we are understanding of each other when one of us makes a mistake. This one's important because there are times when your partner will make mistakes and will let you down, and in fact, that brings us to our next element.

So the sixth element of a highly effective partnership is forgiveness. This is speaking to the ability for the partners to forgive each other. If there is a breach of trust, if there is a heated argument that got a little bit out of hand, or maybe even a lot out of hand, when a big mistake is made, when something really happens that lets the other person down. Strong partnerships are able to forgive one another without holding a grudge. That is not necessarily easy, but it is very powerful because once you start holding a grudge, it is hard to be accepting, it is hard to treat someone fairly, and it is hard to trust them again, so you do have to work towards full forgiveness.

Forgiveness may not happen immediately. It may not happen all at once. But it needs to happen for that partnership to stay healthy and strong and not create inevitable decline. One thing to note here is that research also shows that trying to vent your anger by yelling, screaming, punching a pillow or badmouthing them to somebody else just to get things off your chest does not work. Because what happens is it creates more anger and resentment towards that person. It increases, it stokes the flames of your disappointment, and it does not make it easier to forgive them later. It may feel tempting to do, but it is not going to support your partnership. Instead, being able to talk about it, being able to share how you were hurt by it, being vulnerable, being willing to take a risk and say that something really hurt you and that you would like an apology and that you would like to make amends and heal the rift is really important.

Now, the other side of forgiveness, of course, is being willing to apologize, being willing to admit when you are wrong. It is hard to have forgiveness if you never acknowledged the harm in the first place. So in this case, the two questions you might want to ask yourself are a little bit different. The first one is something that you don't want to say strongly agree to, which is: there have been times when my partner or I have violated the other person's trust. In a good partnership, that happens extremely rarely, if ever. That said, the second statement would be: when one of us has violated the other person's trust, we have been able to forgive each other. That is really important because the research shows that 85% of good partnerships are able to forgive one another after a breach of trust.

I have been married to my wife for six and a half years, and I can think of only one time in our relationship when I really violated her trust, and it was when I took someone else's side on an argument for something that was really important to her, and she let me know. She let me know that she was hurt and we spent a couple of weeks working through that, and she was really mad, madder than I'd ever seen her before or since, at me in particular. But because we talked about it, because we worked through it, because I understood what I had done and I apologized and I learned from that, she saw that I was willing to step up and be there for her. And she was willing to forgive me, and she has not held a grudge against me for that mistake.

And on my side, I don't think I've ever had my wife violate my trust in a way that I would consider even nearly close to that level. So I'm really grateful for our partnership because we have been able to maintain each other's trust, and I know that we would have the ability to forgive each other and work through any violations that occurred.

All right. We've come to the second to last element of a successful partnership, and that is communication. Now, it seems obvious that if you have a partner, you need to talk to them, you need to communicate with them, but there's a lot more to it than just that. Early on in a partnership, communication is really important to align both sides, to build trust, to get to that shared mission, to figure out how the two of you are going to best work together to achieve your shared objective. Over time, the research shows that great partnerships create a sort of continuous information flow. There's always new information being shared, whether it's in a Slack group, text messages, a daily phone call, a morning or evening sync up. Great partnerships, the communication channels are always open and they are constantly flowing with new things. Silence is the killer here. Not communicating, not talking to each other, whether it's because you're busy or because you are stonewalling, is a huge sign that you are not taking advantage of communication in your partnership, and in fact, it is hurting your partnership.

Now, communication doesn't even have to be verbal or written. It can be in body language, it can be in gestures, it can be in facial expressions, head nods. How many times have we been in a meeting when we heard someone say something and we looked over at our teammate, someone that we really trust and respect, and we just made that face that we knew, like, we're gonna talk about this later. Can you believe they just said that? Or other times when you are talking to someone and your partner kind of nudges you or signals in a way that they don't want you to talk about a certain thing, or they wanna leave or they want you to change the topic.

Those are all examples of communication, and communication is not only a very clear form of collaborating with your partner, but it is constantly changing your dynamic in little ways. If you communicate with a smile, it is going to strengthen your relationship. If you are cold, terse, and uncharitable in your communication, it is going to harm the relationship.

If you've ever watched beach volleyball, you can see great examples of those communication practices in action. One legendary duo, Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings, won multiple golds back to back in the Summer Olympics, and you can see how they are often signaling behind each other's backs. They do a quick huddle after each rally and you see them talking to each other, checking in, cheering each other on in a good moment and supporting each other after difficulties. It's also a great example of acceptance and forgiveness. When one person misses a return or makes some kind of mistake, the other partner is quick to just check in and say, hey, everything's fine. We're still good. Let's get back in the game. Beach volleyball, great example of successful partnerships.

Now, questions you can ask here. One, we rarely misunderstand each other. Two, we are good listeners for each other. Three, we show appreciation for what the other one does. Now the research found that good partnerships scored on average 3.6 out of five for these questions, while excellent partnerships scored a five, which is strongly agree on all three questions, so it's clear that strong communication skills are critical for a successful partnership.

All right. We have come to the eighth and final element of highly effective partnerships, and that is unselfishness. Unselfishness is really about demonstrating that you care about your partner as much or even more than yourself because it is natural to want to take care of yourself, to prioritize yourself first, but in phenomenal partnerships, in the ones that really go the distance and are deeply fulfilling to be a part of, there's a strong sense of unselfishness that your partner cares about you personally, wants to make sure you're okay, that you truly act with mutuality. That is the term used to refer to the state where the natural concern for one's own welfare transforms into gratification for seeing your partner succeed.

I am currently working with two co-founders who are in a bit of conflict and when one of them said that they were burnt out and actually wanted to leave the company, the other co-founder did something really unselfish. He offered to provide 30 days of paid leave. You don't have to work. You don't have to do anything. We will keep paying your salary and at the end of those 30 days, if you still wanna leave the company, then okay, but let's try. And I think that gesture, that symbol of unselfishness, that we're gonna spend money for someone who may not be here at the end of the 30 days, they're getting basically a free vacation, one way to think about it, helped that partner see that maybe there still is something here, that maybe the two of them could still find a way to work together. And of course this wasn't a negotiating tactic by the first founder. It was truly an unselfish act done with an acceptance of who that founder was and what they were experiencing in the moment.

Unselfishness is so important because when you are trying to do big, difficult things, there will always come struggle. There will always come difficulties and big, powerful forces that want to oppose what you want to do, and it can be daunting. And whether or not you wanna stick in the partnership or not, you may just want to give up. You may just wanna stop trying. And unselfishness is really about caring so much about that other person that you don't want to give up because you don't want to be the one to let the other person down.

There's an old saying that people don't go to war and risk their lives in order to fight for their country. They risk their lives to protect the people who are fighting alongside them. It's that powerful sense of mutual care and self-sacrifice. The guy who jumps on the grenade to protect his brothers. That is what really powerful partnerships look like. It is not to say that you should want to die for your partner, but you want the best for them and you are willing to lose out a little to make sure that they're okay.

Here are three questions to see if unselfishness shows up in your partnership. One, we take as much satisfaction in seeing the other person succeed as seeing our own success. Two, my partner would risk a lot for me and I would do the same for them. And three, my partner is like a brother or sister to me. The idea of family, the idea that you are bound as if by blood, because one of the most powerful ways that humans have learned to cooperate and collaborate is through families. Husbands and wives, children, brothers and sisters working together. And if you are able to find someone that you feel is like family, even if they aren't related to you, that is truly a powerful thing. And if you can answer strongly agree to each of these three questions, you are probably really benefiting from unselfishness in your partnership.

Look, forming a strong partnership is incredibly hard, but deeply rewarding. If you are trying to improve your relationship with your partner and you think that you might need some help, feel free to reach out to me with some of the links down below to see if I can help. So whether you're just starting a partnership, in the middle of one, or thinking about teaming up with someone, keep in mind these eight elements: complementary strengths, shared mission, fairness, trust, acceptance, forgiveness, communication, and unselfishness.