This was something that occurred to me, and I'm surprised that I can't remember ever reading/hearing any philosophy about it:
I wonder if it isn't generally a bad idea to go into business with somebody you have a close relationship with (family, lover, friend)?
It just seems to me that sooner or later there's almost bound to be a decision where what's good for business will hurt the relationship, and vice versa. And there's just no easy way out of that.
I'm sure there are many examples of it working for many years, but I think that the percentage where it has had no detrimental effect at all on either the business or the relationship is pretty small.
I think most people that go into partnership, together, know each other pretty well and already have "worked together" well for some time in whatever relationship they are in. Much, I think, also depends on having really good communication skills between the two people and that they are willing to discuss any issues that come up until both parties' concerns have been addressed and [at least] included, in some form of compromise, in how they proceed from there on. I also think that both people have to have a similar vision for what they even want to accomplish as a team, to begin with. And...hopefully, as w/all other successful relationships, "failure" isn't even part of their vocabulary.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that there are quite a LOT of things written on the subject; here is just the first page of a search I did.