It barreled through. The two men never agreed to much more than a mutual goal, which boiled down to this: let's get rich. Did that mean focusing on certain niches? Would each be satisfied with 15% growth in pretax earnings a year? "I kept asking, 'What happens if things go sour?' " recalls St. George. "But they had their minds made up."
The negotiations were simple, swift, and flawed. When Eisenberg and Pannell became partners again, there still was no structured understanding between them.
It was a troubling omen. Partners often use a contract to air fundamental differences and to set up certain tools to ensure effective communication. (See "Ways of Making You Talk," page 6.) When there is no contract, they often drift toward what Mardy Grothe, a psychologist who specializes in partnerships, refers to as "gunnysacking." By that, he means that partners quietly stuff injustices in a mental pouch until one of them -- in this case, Eisenberg -- explodes.
The resentment usually takes time to build. Most partners enjoy a honeymoon as they start out. But Eisenberg felt slighted from day one. Many of the differences that began to upset him were not especially significant; the misunderstandings, in fact, fell within some of the most common areas of dispute between partners. The broad issues will be familiar to anyone in a partnership -- and instructive to those who are considering entering one.
Roughly six months after their partnership tumbled to the ground, Eisenberg and Pannell have yet to pick through the ruins and sort out what truly mattered. "I can't even tell you the real reason we split up," says a tired Pannell. "I don't even know anymore."
It is possible, though, to isolate some of the different strands and examine them closely. What follows are examples of some of the most damaging -- and familiar -- areas of conflict:
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* The rescuer syndrome: one partner devaluing the other. Partners need to value each other's contribution to the business. From the start of Eisenberg/Pannell/St. George, though, Eisenberg preferred to think of himself as Pannell's rescuer. "It always sat in the back of my mind that I had saved him," Eisenberg admits. "His was not a viable company." Pannell claims his company "was going to be OK" even if the merger hadn't occurred.
The absolute truth, in this case, doesn't much matter. Eisenberg felt that Pannell should be grateful and should instinctively capitulate to a much wiser mind. Because Pannell wasn't, and didn't, the doomsday clock was wound from day one. Pannell, who confesses that he is "very timid," didn't even try to reset the hands. Mostly, sensing Eisenberg's air of superiority, he quietly begrudged him, collecting the snubs that would provide comforting self-justification when time ran out. "We were coming home every day and saying, 'Gee, I can't believe he did that today,' " recalls Pannell.
From the start, Eisenberg sought confirmation that Pannell was the weaker half. Everywhere he looked, it seemed, he found evidence. Unless he looked in Pannell's office, in which case he found nothing -- not even Pannell, who had left early again.
Or that's how Eisenberg began to see it. In his mind, he started measuring how much time Pannell put in. By his standards -- which were never shared -- Pannell was always coming up short. Never mind that Pannell was just starting a family. Eisenberg wanted Pannell to be at the company as much as he was. To be specific, all the time. "This company is my life," says Eisenberg, who is divorced. "I do not have anything else." As for Pannell -- remember, he would have had nothing had Eisenberg not lifted him from the squalor that was Pannell/St.George. And this, thought Eisenberg, is how he repays me?
Though he had known Pannell for 20 years, Eisenberg convinced himself that he was suddenly privy to an insight into his buddy's character: the man's work ethic wasn't up to the goals they had set.
There was, naturally, no shortage of evidence.
When Pannell refused to hop on a plane to New York to placate a grumpy client, Eisenberg saw only a lack of aggressiveness. Then there were the Federal Express receipts that showed Pannell had been doing some pro bono work.
And how could Eisenberg ever get the painting lessons out of his mind? At a particularly stressful time, when a big account had just clarified its intentions of becoming a midsize account, Eisenberg happened to walk by Pannell's office and hear something infuriating. "Cap wasn't on the phone getting new clients," he reports. "He was arranging painting lessons." Outraged, Eisenberg immediately let his dissatisfaction be known -- to Brinkman. "He screamed about it," she recalls. Never mentioned it to Pannell, though. So Eisenberg had no way of knowing that Pannell never even took any painting lessons. And anyway, says Pannell, "I was going to do it on my own time. It was none of his damn business."
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* Culture shock: merging everything but values. It couldn't have been that much of a surprise. Carol St. George was pregnant when the partners first reunited, so it followed that she would give birth to a baby shortly after Eisenberg and Pannell brought forth their second business. But the child's presence fed into a fundamental and deeply divisive question that neither of them had the stomach to confront: What kind of company are we building?
