I had a meeting today with a business partner. This partner is also a close friend. The meeting centered around our business and our issues with each other. To me the business stuff was easy to get through. We had tasks to accomplish, challenges to overcome, and strategy to think of, implement, and execute. The challenging part was working through our issues with each other.

Is it possible to not have issues with each other? My belief is some form of conflict is inevitable when two people interact in any kind of close relationship (working, dating, married, friends, parent/child, roommates, biz partners, etc…). Two people cut from different cloths with different ways of solving problems and handling people are naturally bound to have issues.  The question then is how does one deal with it.  What we did today was we sought honesty and grace in the issues that were bothering us.  Important pieces were already in place:  we believe in the end goal of our business, we believe that we are taking good steps to achieve the end goal, and we believe that we can make it work.  We also have the understanding that if we can’t work things out we have the freedom to move on and keep the business healthy.

So we each gave the other person time to express their issues.  We heard each other out.  Sought forgiveness where necessary and then found ways to address the items going forward.  I see this as being an integral way of working together.    This wasn’t the easiest meeting but in the end we each know where we stand and how we can move forward.

Another question I thought of while typing this is should friends do business together or be business partners. Jim at the The Entrepreneur School really changed my perspective on this a few years ago.  We got into a debate in class where I posited that losing a good friend didn’t seem worth what ever potential business gain there could be.  I know this seems way too idealistic and perhaps so.

Jim did an interesting exercise that illustrated 2 points.  He pointed to a fellow new friend, John, and said “John, you and Jacob are friends right?

We both responded and said of course.  He then asked how long we had known each other.  ”Two months.” was our reply.

Jim said “Well, tell me:  Do you know each other’s birthdays, kids, wives, favorite sports, interests in food, etc…”  ”Do you know the trials and tribulations your “friend” has been through”  We responded with a few yeses but mostly with no’s to the questions.

Jim then said assuming that you determine that you can trust the other person and have similar values etc… what would be lost if we went into business together and it threatened the friendship?  The answer:  A friendship that was 2 months old, one where we didn’t even know that much about the other person.  How hard would it be to recreate this friendship with another person?  Not hard.  So why not make a go at it?  Another point that came out was our ability to create new friendships and relationships is bound by the constraints of life, time, & opportunity.  So if we waited to only go into business with non-friends we would truly limit our opportunities.

Lastly, we talked about the types of friends or relationships we have and how they would relate as potential business partners.  Essentially the closer the person is to you the more careful one should be in structuring the business and clarifying things up front.  Obviously this makes sense as the closer a person is to you the more you have to lose if the business and relationship are at ends with each other.  A good example would be a husband and wife going into business together.

Then to tie it all together I believe that if one is using my first point about addressing issues in an honest and upfront way it will greatly help relieve the pressure that one finds in working with friends.