4 Strategies to Create the Win-Win in Your Business AND Marriage Relationships
My husband, Paul, and I have successfully worked together in our business for over a decade AND we also enjoy a marriage full of unshakeable love and unleashed passion.
Frequently we’re asked how we make it work. Usually the question goes something like this: “How do you guys prevent the business stuff from coming into your marriage and impacting your family? When we have a problem in the business, it spills over into our normal life, and we talk about it all the time.”
This is so common, because there’s a loop that happens when you work with your spouse. How it works is simple. If there’s something wrong in your marriage, it seeps into your business. If there’s something wrong in your business, it seeps into your marriage. You don’t MEAN for it to happen… it just does.
Around and around this loop goes, until one partner finally yells, “Enough!” At that point, either the business fails or the marriage fails, and usually it’s the marriage, because let’s face it: There’s a lot more proven training available on how to succeed at business than there is on how to succeed at marriage.
But don’t worry! It’s completely possible to work with your partner AND have a great marriage. I know because my husband and I are doing it, and have for years!!
If your relationship isn’t thriving, your business cannot hit its highest potential. That’s a fact. And we want them BOTH to thrive – FOR YOU!
Here are 4 strategies to create the win-win in your business and marriage relationships for spouses who work together, or want to work together, can use to start creating the win-win in both their marriage and business relationships.
#1: Working together magnifies everything.
If you have things in your marriage relationship that you can’t talk about, it’s going to be a hundred times that (at the MINIMUM) in your business relationship, and vice versa.
For example, if there are hurt feelings in your marriage relationship, it’s going to be magnified in your business relationship. If you have things that cause kerfuffle in your marriage relationship, you’re going to have a hundred times the kerfuffle in your business relationship.
The flip side of this is, if your marriage is Unshakeable, you and your partner are aligned, and you’ve created the win-win, you’re going to bring that to your business instead, and have a hundred times that power in your business!
Right now, as you’re reading this, check in with yourself. Is your marriage unshakeable? If so, great! If not, it’s okay, because you can get there. Relationship is a skill set, and it CAN be learned!
Either way, understand that whatever the marriage relationship dynamics you’ve got going on, you’re bringing one hundred times that into your business relationship.
#2: Get the skill sets, mindsets, and tools it takes to succeed.
There’s a saying that the bottleneck in a business is the mindset of the owner. Meaning, the business owner’s skills and mindsets are the ceiling for how far their business can go. When you hit that next ceiling, new skills and mindsets are required to break through.
This is especially true when working with your partner, because the dynamic is so different. You can’t order them around. You can’t fire them the same way you would anyone else.
All this and more is why it’s mission critical you get the skills and tools you need to understand how to frame what you say to someone based on how they’re wired and need to receive it.
You also need the skills and tools to be able to talk about anything without fighting, to get to the win-win, and to never settle for the win-lose.
The most important thing to understand about these skills and mindsets is that they’re not JUST for your marriage. They’re for your team and your clients, too!
#3: Build a role-based business.
When people new to business reach a point where they can’t do everything themselves anymore, very often they bring on whoever is nearby, instead of people who are a great fit for the role. A lot of times, your spouse is one of those nearby people.
When you hire people based on convenience, proximity or because they’re just like you, instead of because they’re ideal for the role, it’s a recipe for kerfuffle. In the case of your partner, it leads straight into that loop I mentioned earlier, where marriage problems come into your business relationship, and business problems come into your marriage relationship.
Let me give you an example of what strategic hiring–whether it’s your partner or someone brand new to you–looks like.
When Paul was still working in corporate, and I was primarily running and growing our business, Relationship Development® Organization, I reached a point where I needed to hire my husband.
Understand… it wasn’t because he’s my husband. It’s because there’s nobody better at infrastructure, operations or management than Paul! Plus Paul is MASTERFUL at content development. I needed him in the business full time, because him NOT being there was holding us back.
See what I mean? My reasons for asking him to join the business were strategic. Paul and I hire all our employees strategically, and in so doing, avoid a lot of drama and wasted time.
If you bring your partner into your business, be strategic about it. Don’t bring them in just for the sake of bringing them in. Get crystal clear on what role (or roles) they’ll serve in the business. If there isn’t a role they’re uniquely qualified for, don’t bring them on.
#4: Use systems, processes and explicit communication for every role.
Without systems, processes and explicit communication, you’re creating an environment where the people you hire will never meet your expectations. They’re unhappy because they wanted to do a good job, and you’re unhappy because they didn’t do a good job, and you don’t understand why this miserable loop keeps happening. Without systems and processes and checklists for them to follow, they really can’t win.
As the owner of the business, it’s your personal responsibility to ensure that there are systems, processes, and explicit communication for every single role in your organization. This is even more mission critical If you and your spouse work together, because one of the biggest breakdowns we see in relationships where the partners work together is caused by assumptions and invisible expectations.
YOU know what you want done and how you want it done, but unless you articulate it with systems and processes, your partner has NO idea what you expect. They do it the way they think is best, and expect you to be happy about it.
Instead, what you want to get done still isn’t getting done, or it’s getting done incorrectly. Both of you are frustrated.
Systems, processes and explicit communication. That’s how you avoid invisible expectations, and the destruction they bring to both your business and to your marriage relationship.
If you’d like tools and strategies to master the skill set of relationship, so you can thrive in your business and in your marriage, get started at relationshiptransformers.com today!
