Can This Partnership Be Saved?
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The cofounder team of six people were all best friends. They threw in all their money and joined together to start this coffee/bakery business in Nevada. They had a really good go in the first couple of years – customer base growing steadily, lots of popularity and people coming into the business interested in what they were doing because of their unique products.
At some point a few years in, they started having disagreements about how things were getting done, who was working the hardest, who was being paid fairly, and who was accountable for which responsibilities. All while the business was in the middle of growing pains.
They called me in as a coach and we did some team coaching. In my process we did interviews and surveys with everyone at the bakery as well as outside stakeholders.
It wasn’t long before I saw the signs that the disturbance in the force was coming from two of the founders. It was pretty clear that they were displaying bullying behaviors – maybe from the start and people just accepted it? Unclear, although the other partners seemed really thrown off by the conflict that was going on in the company.
So I dug further, using our Abrasive Leader Diagnostic™ to focus on interpersonal behavior patterns that might be happening, and more in depth interviews to figure out what kinds of behaviors were being seen.
What came through loud and clear to me was that we had two abrasive leaders working “together” (not really because they were at each other’s necks as well as everyone else’s), with different habits, different fears driving their bad behaviors, showing their anxiety in different ways – but with the commonality of demeaning employees and other partners in public, using intimidating sarcastic humor, walking out of meetings, and regularly clamming up at crucial moments when they didn’t want to deal.
Immediate triage was required!
As happens often when cofounders get into conflict, the leadership became too paralyzed to make good decisions during this key time. So I started by helping them negotiate some agreements to get more investors so they could paint a picture that would keep the business going, and allow them to get to the next stage of growth. Some progress was made.
But the two abrasive leaders refused to recognize their responsibility for the conflict in the company. And the six cofounders were basically ALL the top bosses. So there was no one to say, this behavior has to stop. And if it doesn’t stop, here’s what’s going to happen!
The two abrasive leaders even accused each other of bad behavior – you're killing our business, your employees hate you, I hate you, you gotta stop. But they couldn't force each other to make the changes. Despite the best efforts of coaching (which can only go so far without participation by the abrasive leader), they never did deal with the “elephant in the room” – their own interpersonal behaviors.
This is a classic case of “regular” relationships and partnerships where disruptive behaviors don’t show up at first. These two people hadn’t spent their lives being jerks.
But as business pressures mount during major growth or change efforts, for some people the fear and anxiety set them loose and trigger bad behavior that harms everyone and harms business.
This is a cautionary tale for people in management who see what’s going on but understandably hesitate to jump in. I’ve found that taking small actions to understand the dynamics at play can give the best chance to diagnose the problem and start the process of shifting the behavior. Do something before it’s too late.
Dr. Laura Crawshaw’s book, Grow Your Spine & Manage Abrasive Leadership Behavior: A Guide For Those Who Manage Bosses Who Bully is a great guide on how to stop the suffering caused by abrasive leadership behavior (and help the leader in the process to do and be better). I’d say it’s a must-have for managers at all levels, HR pros, boards of directors, business coaches and umbuds.
When we join a company, partnership or team, our expectation is that everyone involved will exhibit professional behavior toward us and each other. Instead, it’s highly possible that we may become one of the more than 60 million adults in the United States who are affected in some way by bullying behavior at work.
What kind of behaviors are we talking about? Our definition is any interpersonal behavior that causes emotional distress in others sufficient enough to impede their productivity or disrupt organizational functioning. It isn’t just a personality conflict — it’s a chronic pattern of disrespectful behavior.