What’s Your Partnership Quotient?

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:

Partnership Quotient

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?