EP 94 | How to handle a dispute with your partner

how you settle disputes with your partners. Enjoy. Let's talk about how do you settle a dispute with your partner. Now? I work with thousands of business owners. We have a company with all sorts of different partnership agreements. We own businesses. And this is one of those tricky things that a lot of stuff goes behind the scenes, goes on behind

the scenes as it relates to structuring partner agreements. And we give a lot of advice around how do you enter a relationship where both parties are excited about it but also know what the structure looks like? However, we've never really created content around what happens when there is a dispute. What do you do when there's a falling out, especially when there's family involved? I happen to work alongside my business partner and also my life partner who is

my husband. And we have this very clear process that we go through. If ever there is an issue that we're encountering and we use the same process with all of the partners that we have inside our portfolio to just navigate the disputes or the issues or the frustrations that can come up. Because if you're growing your business, there are going to be issues like, I'm just going to stay and say it bluntly. If there are issues or if you want to grow your business, there are

going to be issues. So if you know that there are going to be issues, you have to have a mechanism for handling what those issues are. And it can't just be about feeling it can't be about emotion because all of those things distract from what you're trying to do, which you have to remember what you're trying to do. Like, why did you start this business? You started it likely

because you wanted to grow. And so I want to walk you through our process for when there's an issue, when there's a frustration inside a partnership that either we have or maybe even I'll give you some examples of our own frustrations inside our own partnership, which might get a little juicy. But don't worry, Brandon's on board with

me sharing, so let's dive into it. My first piece of advice on bringing up any sort of issue that you're running into with a partner is that you do everything that you can in preparation for this conversation to use facts instead of emotion. Now, it shouldn't feel like a dissertation of these are the 45 things that you've done wrong. However, you should know what your numbers are. You should know the details of whatever the exchanges that

you're frustrated with. You should really be able to come to that meeting prepared to talk about a very specific list of things. Don't throw every single issue in the petty little stuff ideally is just not even talked about. It's not you're not worrying about the petty stuff, but the big things need to have great documentation and great

preparation so that you're not winging it. And I can speak from personal experience on this whenever I'm emotional about something and I'm emotional about partnerships, not all the time, but it happens from time to time. There was an instance that happened within the last three months that I was very emotional about, and I was frustrated with the situation.

And I knew that despite me wanting to call the person up right in the middle of my frustration and my irritation and my overwhelm, I knew that I just needed to wait and to get every detail that I needed to have in order to properly have the conversation. Because if I would have just called them when I was emotional, it would have turned into this big nasty fight. And I don't know about you, but I hate getting in fights with people. I don't like being frustrated. I

don't like people not liking me. I just want to go through every single day being excited about where we're going, pushing towards the target, being hard on the team so that everybody can achieve their goals. And when you have these issues and you bring emotion into it, it clouds everything else. So huge recommendation here. Use facts and if you're emotional, wait, just wait to have the conversation. Okay. Now, the second piece, let me just consult my notes here.

This one is important. When you come into an agreement with a partner, it's not likely that you were really clear on who was doing what in terms of job descriptions or roles and responsibilities. Now, there might have been like vague communications around this, but the things that you're

fighting about probably aren't documented anywhere. Meaning if I'm fighting about something that I thought I was supposed to be doing and they're doing something that they're not supposed to be doing, but it's involving me or maybe it's involving my team. The nuances of that probably wasn't documented anywhere. So when I'm preparing for a conversation like this, I want to get really clear about, Hey, what's my role in this situation? If I'm the president of Cartoon Ventures,

what is the president's role in the business? What is the purview of the decisions that I should be making? So let's say Bran and I are having a discussion and we're frustrated because he's stepping on my toes or I'm stepping on his toes. And the business just feels hard. And we're married, but we're also partners. What I'm going to do is I'm going to say, okay, as president of Cardinal Ventures, this is what I'm responsible for. My understanding as CEO is this is what you're responsible for.

You are encroaching on my responsibilities. So is it because you don't trust me in this area? Is it because I don't have statistics in this area? What is causing you to not focus on your job but do my job? Or if the opposite is taking place, let's say I'm negotiating some deal and I didn't bring Brandon into the into the deal. And it was something that he was supposed to be working on. I bypassed him for some reason. I would have to then look at his job description

and say, Yeah, you're right, I did that. And let's say I, I frustrated him in the process because I didn't keep him in the loop. And then he looked silly talking to somebody else I would have to own. You're right. I did do your job. And in our little scenario, what would be really important is for me to say, I don't want you to have to do those things any longer because I think I can handle them and I'd like to take that off your plate.

But if I didn't communicate that ahead of time and we didn't get clarity on who's responsible for what and why, the stepping on toes is taking place, that's where all of the frustration lands and that's where all the emotion lands. So having these job descriptions, although it sounds ridiculous, is so beneficial to constructively moving the conversation forward. Because if you believe in your partnership, most partnership conversations and in

fights about money. So if it's how you're managing expenses, if it's what your travel and expense policy looks like, if it's how you're taking and distributing cash out of the business, all of those financial components, if you're the person that's responsible financially for the organization, then you should have clear documentation and policies in place and that is in your purview. Ideally, you guys are in 5050 and this is where we we have the most issues with

business owners. They got into a partnership agreement. They were 5050. Everything was lollipops and rainbows and fantastic at the start. And all of a sudden they are fighting because they don't see eye to eye. And the 5050 doesn't allow one of them to have more say than the other. This is where you have to use the job description to say, Hey, I'm proposing that this is my role and that this is your role, and we have to figure out who is actually responsible for making these decisions.

Because the only thing what is this saying? I'm going to mess it up. The only thing worse than a bad general is two good ones. The only thing worse than one bad general is two good generals because you can't make a decision and then you're gridlocked and no one knows who to go to for what. And it feels like mommy and daddy that kills the growth inside of business. Okay, so the next thing after you have your prep, you have your job description. When you have

this conversation, you start with the intention. And the intention should always be, We're here to make this work. We are on the same team. We want the same thing. I want to figure out what we can do to make this work because I believe that there is always a way to make it work. So when you start off the conversation like that, instead of being heated and frustrated, you're like, Hey, wait, we're just going to recenter. We want to make this work. What would we have to

do knowing the problem to make it work? What would that have to look like? And then you can start from that place instead of potentially starting with a dissolution. Like in my partnership with my husband, there is no potential of dissolution. We are in this thing. We are figuring this thing out. But it's worth reminding in partnership conversations, whether it's with your significant other, your business partner or any other partnership, that there is high stakes communication that's

on line. Clarify that your intention is to make it work and that's the place that you're coming from. That is your responsibility. Now, once you're clarifying that, that's your intention. Ideal scene is that you actually have contractual clarity. So whoever is the managing member of the organization gets to make the final decision. There was some provision in place that stated what things had to be signed off on

from both partners versus the managing member. Getting to make other decisions like those type of things in the communication should be brought up. If you do have contractual clarity that, Hey, this is what I'm supposed to do, so I need to be doing this. And if it's if you're preventing me from doing it contractually, this is what's supposed to happen. So what do we need to fix? Because this is the contract. This is what we all signed up for.

This is what we agreed to. Um. My last piece on this, as you're going through an issue with the partner, ideally, the first conversation that you bring up solves the issue, right? You have a three hour meeting or a four hour meeting or whatever the amount of time is for you to sit down and to work through the problems. But in all reality, in the way that I've always seen this play out, it's not just one conversation that fixes things.

It's multiple conversations. It's changing operating agreements. It's potentially changing a contract or employment agreements. There's there's there's legs that challenges can create, right? There's legs that that disputes create. So as you're going through this process, just remember that you are supposed to keep the main thing, the main thing with your team. So they should not have any wind of this. Your team, you show up to all of your meetings, you have conversations with all of your

leaders the exact same as you would have before. There is no conversation around it. There's no nattering about it. There's no like, oh, I'm so overwhelmed. I can't make decisions. Keep making the right decisions, make the ethical decisions, make the decisions that are in the best course for the organization, because that is the right thing to do. Even if you could start making shady decisions, do not make shady decisions.

Whenever I have like there's like these little moments where I'm like, Oh man, I could really jack things up right now. I think that every once in a while I'm like, not an angel all the time. And then I'm like, Wait a second, I am highly ethical. I am a moral. I have integrity. I want the best for everybody involved. There is no there's no issue that

I want to create. I want everybody to succeed. But sometimes you have to remember, you remember that and remind yourself of that when there's real life stuff happening in business partnerships. So despite all of those feelings and all of the leverage that you could have be ethical in the process and treat somebody how you would want to be treated if you were in that same position. So those are my tips on what you do when you're having a dispute or an issue with your business partners.

I'm curious to know what challenges have you run into with business partners? I've seen a lot of them, but I'm sure you've had some pretty unique experiences, so let me know in the comments. All right. I hope you enjoyed this episode. For those of you who didn't know,

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