Let's say you have three basic goals. You want to hold administrative costs to 20%, you want to produce three handmade bamboo fly rods and 150 flies per week, and you want to double the demand for your products within three months. Develop and write the plan in outline fashion, in as much detail as you can imagine. Start with the goal: three rods and 150 flies. Decide who will be responsible: Partner A. Decide who will do the work: Partner A (75%) and Partner B (25%). Allocate the time to accomplish the task: one week. Plan what will be done if the target of doubling your demand in three months is not met; record at least five options. When each goal is developed and addressed in this fashion, write the whole thing up formally, and have each partner sign it. If this is done for each main goal, no one aspect of the business should get so far off the track that it endangers the other aspects of the company itself.
These written plans are the basis for the overall operation of the company. They provide the focus for the management meeting you should hold at least once a week. To make these meetings worth anything, a recording secretary must keep complete and objective minutes. These minutes must then be reviewed at each subsequent meeting so that everyone is satisfied that interim operating procedures are mutually acceptable.
Like a report outline, company plans provide frameworks for action. Don't deviate from them capriciously. As circumstances dictate change, review your plans with all of the partners. Some seemingly simple change that you're sure is appropriate may be seen quite differently by another partner.
While this may all sound ominously formal, structured, and time-consuming, it is much more costly in both time and dollars to proceed on an ill-defined course or, worse, to operate at cross-purposes with your partners. If you fail to write everything down (and there are always plenty of good excuses for not doing it), and things start to go wrong, be assured that no one will agree on what was said six months ago.
RULE 3: DON'T LIE
Generally, none of us tells big lies that lead to fraud or other criminal acts. But there are those little white lies -- more pleasant ways of putting the truth, or simply lack of candor -- that can occur, and they can be devastating to a partnership.
There is a great deal of pressure to dismiss, ignore, or avoid bad news. Bad news, however, is not necessarily a sign of personal failure, nor is it usually the result of some totally external factor inflicted on the company by unknown agents. Instead, it is information that must be addressed in the context of your company plans. Only if you get sound and adequate information can you overcome problems.
If one partner is responsible for raising money, and all of the partners have agreed that a certain action is dependent on raising $30,000 from normally acceptable sources, it is not really a favor to the company if the money-raiser gets $10,000 from selling his car, $10,000 from his kindly old aunt, and $10,000 from a loan shark, and neglects to tell you that it didn't come from the bank. The consequences of such efforts, even if they happen to have some short-term advantages, are deterimental to company planning because they are based on false premises. It is always possible that the banks are refusing your loan request for a good reason, a reason that the company should be aware of. If the company is going beyond conventional sources for loans, it had better be a partnership decision. In this eample, there is the additional danger that personal concerns will adversely affect company performance. Your company should not be forced into making decisions based on a partner's having to walk to work, getting into disputes with relatives, or being threatened with bodily harm.
It's particularly easy to lie to yourself about employee relations. If the employees are not producing, you must find out why and face the consequences. Most people find it difficult to fire employees, and many managers have trouble urging, cajoling, or demanding the required work from employees. Use the style that best suits you when it comes to supervision, but don't lie to yourself. In most cases, you simply can't afford to "wait three more months" for an employee to get the hang of it. And, in fact, it does the employee little good to assume that his work is acceptable when it is not. Employees must understand clearly what is expected of them and then be given adequate opportunity and support to meet those goals. If the person is not suited for the position, send him on his way with suggestions for more appropriate employment. Delay only compounds the problem and your level of stress.
You may also notice a tendency to oversell yourself or the company. This is lying.Some people can work 112 hours a week, but most of us can't. You can't plan effectively if you don't assess your capabilities realistically. The same is true at the company level. You really don't gain anything by selling what you can't deliver, and there's no better method for shutting off the flow of contracts.
Lying or not confiding in your other partners is harmful mainly because it denies your business the chance to benefit from all your partners' experience. You are partners because each one of you is bright, talented, and full of useful contributions to the company. Don't fail to use your own resources by hiding unpleasant situations from your partners. They may not think the situation is as grave as you do.
Partnerships are a great way to combine resources, and much of their effectiveness comes from a merger of human and intangible qualities. Your accountant, attorney, or banker can be invaluable with corporate and financial concerns, but it is your partners who are your greatest assets. Choose them wisely, ask hard questions, and don't take them -- or yourself -- for granted. You have to work at your partnership as much as you do at your business.
