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People work well together when they like each other, have some common interests and usefully complementary skills and, above all, trust each other. It is difficult to trust someone with whom you cannot communicate easily so good interpersonal communications is a pre-requisite to trust. Part of the shareholders / partners agreement mentioned in yesterday’s Daily Paradox “Partners in Business”, will deal with what happens when communication or trust breaks down. Agreeing a sensible basis for separation is vital.

The criteria for working with a partner start with knowledge. If you are planning to build a business together you must know each other and getting to do so is time well spent. Brief office meetings will reveal no more than the polite façade. Agree a joint interest other than work and devote time to doing it together.  This may seem to be a trivial or side issue; it is not. The key to making things work is making people handle them together.

It is easy to point to successful partnerships that involve a lot of conflict. What is difficult is to know the points at which they agreed. Rolls and Royce were from completely different backgrounds; Gilbert and Sullivan ended up barely speaking to each other. Both partnerships were highly successful. Nureyev and Fonteyn were no kindred spirits socially or by background but they shared a passion about ballet that made them among the greatest dancers of all time.

Partnerships are not made from what we agree about but from important matters about which we don’t disagree – not a simple concept but understanding it eases the partnership path. The reason that marital relationships initially succeed (and sometimes subsequently don’t) is because sex is a common interest until it becomes boring or unacceptable to one of the parties.

Certain fundamental rules apply to successful partnerships that will last.

First, politeness is a feature of what works for more than the short term. Good manners make any relationship more durable. Bad treatment that sometimes comes with familiarity is a cause of more broken partnerships than almost anything else.

Second, expectations have to be managed. What each partner brings to the business is unique and valuable. In many partnerships it is quickly assumed to be that partner’s basic contribution and other partners start assuming a right to further inputs above and beyond what was agreed.  This is especially true of funding. A partner who is generous will be assumed to be rich and therefore a source of incremental funds. Most partners quarrel about money sometime.

Third, while great partnerships can develop into almost any area of business they should start with a limited and modest aspiration. Listen to two people discussing a possible business start-up. They will often talk of expanding the Great Idea into a truly big operation, international and forever growing. This may sound visionary but in reality it is a way of avoiding the small details about the initial business by thinking big. Attention to detail must be one of the partners’ responsibilities.

Taking a working relationship for granted is a sure way to end it. A good partner never assumes that another partner is in full agreement even when they raise no objections to a course of action. The shared interest I mentioned earlier should be revisited from time to time to allow for informal discussions about how the relationship is working.

A true partnership is as big an asset as a business gets. It needs nurturing.