Partners pose a unique working environment. Generally supportive and you know they’re invested in the success of the company, however! They have their own goals and ways of doing things.
It is really easy to assume we share the same culture and have similar approaches to problems. Wrong. Each partner has their own unique set of challenges and ways of looking at things so it’s critical to always be respectful and open to their way of operating. It might be the same, but it might not and politically, it can be career suicide if you get it wrong.
I have made some huge errors when working with partners as I wasn’t really tuned into company politics early in my career.
Arrogant: I went into the partner’s organization, candidly pointed out inefficiencies and showed them the right way to do it. While they did experience a lift in sales and profit, in hindsight, it was pretty arrogant. Doesn’t help I was right 😋
Rude: I had assumed they operated with the same frat house joking culture we had. Yup, rude. It only took one statement to learn my error and I quickly corrected! I tend to say inappropriate things anyway so thankfully I have some damage control abilities after the fact.
Espionage: Now this was a rookie mistake. I didn’t realize you could be partners in one venture while being competitors in others. If we’re partners, we’re partners right? I pumped a partner for a ton of information about a wide variety of topics. This particular partner was a pioneer and leader in a particular space. Once I discovered he was a partner, I wanted to learn as much as I possibly could from him! Except, he was only partner in a particular venture and I was asking about things beyond that. Actually into areas where we were competitors. Fuck. Made a ton of apologies and was removed as liaison and learned a valuable lesson!
Now I’m very delicate in working with partners. I ask the bare minimum of questions, significant related to the task at hand, do a little if double checking internally before presenting anything and listen for the partner to tell me how they’d like me to assist, or not!