01 Sep What’s Your Partnership Quotient?
You were born with your IQ, and you’ve developed your EQ, but how would you rate your PQ?
IQ, or Intelligence Quotient, is a number resulting from one of several standardized tests. IQ is used to assess someone’s cognitive ability as compared to the population at large. Just to shorthand, let’s call IQ “smarts.”
EQ, or Emotional Intelligence, is a person’s ability to identify, evaluate, control and express emotions. Some people believe it’s strongly tied to success in the workplace and social situations. Let’s call EQ “savvy.”
PQ, or Partnership Quotient, is a measure of how well you as entrepreneurial partners work together. Are you on the same page about the future and in tune with each other in the present? We call that “sync.”
The Partnership equation looks something like this:
Business couples with High PQ show strengths in:
- Staying aligned through good times and bad
- Sharing a cohesive vision for the future of the business
- Combining their respective strengths to get results
- Communicating clearly and constructively, which produces an exponential, positive effect
But even couples who rank high in those areas can be undermined by:
- Unresolved conflict and built up resentments
- Inattention to problems in the present
- Confusion related to roles in the business
- Lack of clarity around expectations and goals
Algebraically speaking, you could say these issues have a divisive effect on business partners’ PQ.
No business relationship is firing on all cylinders all the time, but the most successful have a mixture of smarts, savvy and sync. What needs a tune-up in your partnership?
Most leaders accept that at some time in the future, their time at the helm will end and the business will be given into the care of the next leader. However, just thinking about the transition can be daunting and overwhelming for the senior leader. If that weren’t enough, most owners experience their own succession just once. Tandem Partners provides the experience and professional guidance needed to move through the strategic, operational and interpersonal issues that are all a part of transition.
For families in business, success is not just measured in fiscal years, but over generations. Yet often, leaders are so focused on the day-to-day that they aren’t able to step back and focus on the issues that impact long-term sustainability. We help leadership teams assess where they are now, where they’re trying to go and how they’re going to get there. Our expertise in the areas of organizational strategy, structure, process and performance is a unique feature of our work, and integral to our transition management approach.
