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Reflections
Success in today's fast moving and service intensive economy depends as much on social relationships and networking as it does on business efficiency.
The often unspoken connections between the personal, social and economic aspects of business have always intrigued me. Increasing numbers of couples for example are starting up businesses together. When you live and work with someone 24 x 7, personal and business issues are inevitably intertwined.
Over the past few years I have been researching how such couples succeed in working together and with their local communities. In 2006-7 I interviewed over 30 US franchise couples. They were all doing well but then the global financial recession hit and the whole country suffered. I reinterviewed these couples again in 2014. Their stories speak of the challenges encountered both in their own businesses and in their local communities and how people with their backs to the wall economically, still managed to help each other.
Getting on well together and making the most of each other’s strengths were critical success factors - see Reflections.
My book based on their stories: Love and Collaboration: Franchisee Couples Tell their Stories is now available on Amazon - click on the image on the right to view it
“Bev likes marketing. She’s very practical and I’m strategic. She sees something needs to get done and she gets it done… If you’re self-aware and hopefully understand the other person’s strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, you find a way to optimise the ‘likes’ on both sides.
Give up what you’re really not as effective at, or as interested in. Just say 'you go and do this and I’m not going to meddle. I’ll observe and give you feedback but this is your patch right here.’ It kind of happens for us naturally.”
Dick Hagadorn, President of Great Clips, Las Vegas
