Partners in Life…and in Business!

What does it actually mean to work with your partner or spouse? Co-hosts Hannah Robinson and Melissa Honan share their thoughts, advice and experience to help you make sure that, if you work with your partner, you keep animosity to the minimum and that you definitely don’t take it home with you.

[0:56] Hannah asks Melissa at which time of her marriage she began working with her husband. Melissa shares that she got invited by her husband to join the business after she had gotten very overwhelmed, and unhappy, about a sales job she was doing at the time.

[3:13] Melissa and her husband worked together for about a year because she got pregnant and developed some complications. Two years later, her husband deployed for a longer period of time and this pushed Melissa to come back, this time, in a more administrative role, before a set of circumstances led her to step in as the CEO.

[6:23] A loud-talker by her own admission, Melissa doesn’t share her workspace with her husband, though they have tried.

[7:28] Hannah asks Melissa how she and her husband manage to balance out being in a boss-employee relationship, as well as in a personal relationship as a married couple.

[9:11] Feeling as if she was born a leader led Melissa to clash with her husband who feels he was born a leader too. Melissa was supposed to be a mere employee but had plenty of her own ideas.

[10:12] For Hannah, maintaining a level of professionalism when working with your spouse or partner is a tough thing to do. However, it’s key that not only you aren’t fighting at work but that you aren’t carrying over that feeling of taking it personally into your home as well.

[12:03] Melissa has found a way to cope with the situation: compartmentalize. It’s about thinking about the roles her husband has in her life – he’s the founder of the company and Melissa’s boss, but he’s also the Chief of Operations, which is Melissa’s subordinate, as well as her husband, and the father of her children.

[14:34] Melissa’s advice for someone who’s just starting out working with their spouse or partner is to create boundaries and, then, essentially having a process in place to make sure that those boundaries stay in place and that everyone’s respecting them. And there’s a lot of tough conversations that need to happen, and it isn’t going to be easy, even from a marriage standpoint.

[18:21] Hannah sees establishing boundaries early on as one of the key things those planning to work with their partner should strive to do.

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ILB episode 20 - Work-Life Balance Series: Strategies to Actually Set Boundaries, Protect Yourself, and Your Business

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