Ideas from adjacent fields
Ideas from psychology, law, economics, sport, film and history applied to business partnership: the Peter principle, compartmentalisation, negotiation techniques, court cases, films about partners. The broadest topic in the catalogue, where the author tests which borrowed experience works for co-owners.
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How can you test a professional in a field you know little about?
Ask 3-4 follow-up questions to every answer. A real professional relaxes, or says plainly that the thing you ask about does not exist; a pretender tenses up, fearing to be exposed.
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
Who is to blame when a partner exploits your hardship to take the business?
The blame lies with the partner who exploited a dead end, but responsibility for leaving the relationship unformalised lies with you. Rules, authority, decision limits, control and an exit scenario should be fixed before starting, as in Jewish business culture.
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Partner misconduct and internal control · Partnership agreement · The author's own partnerships
What is compartmentalization and what does it cost a person?
Division into isolated compartments for functions, processes or information, found in biology, psychology and veterinary work. In the mind, it is keeping contradictory thoughts in separate boxes; the author argues comfortable living demands it, at some cost to human qualities.
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
Why did a Spanish court uphold a dismissal for arriving half an hour early?
A court in Alicante treated as serious misconduct the fact that a 22-year-old logistics employee came in half an hour early: undermining discipline, disrupting teamwork, risking conflict. The author recalls partners who are "always and everywhere", but calls that another story.
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · The hero partner and overwork
Should a business partner be replaced every 8 years?
The author applies the rule "a maximum of 8 years in power", built on the idea that even the best eventually become dictators, to a business partner, a wife and friends. If the rule is universal it always works; if not, the "expiry date" of leaders is in doubt.
Could digital dopamine kill the need for business partnership as well?
An Institute for Family Studies report: weekly sexual activity among US adults fell from 55% in 1990 to 37% in 2024. Partnership, like intimacy, rests on regular time and attention; the author leaves the question open to readers.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conscious partnership · Ideas from adjacent fields · Managing partner relationships
How do you win over the other side in a negotiation?
Four moves: back your words with facts and stories without embellishing, listen actively and do not interrupt, show respect like an advocate rather than a prosecutor, and see the other side's gain without losing your own. Keep the substance, not the form.
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
What do you do when a partner has reached their level of incompetence?
A co-owner fills up to three roles, owner, manager and executor, and lacks competence in some of them; by the Peter principle, that is where growth stops. The way out: an honest conversation, an assessment of what each really carries, and a reassignment of roles.
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · The three roles of a co-owner
Does a partnership always have to be a tandem?
A tandem fixes the roles and limits the scenarios, and the author asks whether it always fits: can partners swap places or rebuild the design from scratch. What it looks like depends only on what they agree.
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
Why does a frame of agreements give partners more freedom?
After 20 years coaching Belgium's Olympic team, Alain Goudsmet reached a formula: more frame, more freedom; less frame, more control. Without agreements partners slide into dissatisfaction and control; agreements give a fulcrum for accepted freedom.
Topics: Conflicts between partners · Ideas from adjacent fields · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
Why do critical partnership problems stay below the waterline?
By Sidney Yoshida's "iceberg of ignorance" model, most problems are never voiced, and partners lose touch with each other and with the business. The author suggests honest talk, partner meetings, one-on-one feedback and a facilitated session twice a year.
Topics: Conflicts between partners · Ideas from adjacent fields · Partnership session
Why draw up an ideal partner profile before starting a business?
95% of entrepreneurs enter a partnership through friendship, family or chance contacts; only 5% use the Ideal Partner Profile framework. It helps assess one's own resources soberly and see what a partner must compensate; a 60-question questionnaire goes with it.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Ideas from adjacent fields · Tools and services
What should founders agree on before they start working together?
Six subjects: roles and areas of responsibility, goals and expectations, finances, decision-making, conflicts and exit. The logic comes from Gallup research: companies with the most engaged employees earn 147% more profit per share.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: A partner's exit from the business · Ideas from adjacent fields · Partnership agreement
Why ask partners a thousand questions?
The technique comes from improv theatre: a character gains depth only when the questions run out. Where awkward questions are not asked, a partnership stays flat and uncertain, so at a partnership session the author has partners answer them up front.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Partnership session · The author's own partnerships
What belongs in a partnership agreement under bill 9103?
Bill 9103 states that partnership is not marriage, and there is no case practice yet, so the author advises spelling out terms in a detailed agreement. Ten blocks: property, health, care, housing, debts, termination, representation, confidentiality, term and disputes.
Original: LinkedIn
Can a partnership be built on the principle of service?
The author carries servant leadership over to co-owners: each helps strengthen the other's strengths. He leans on data that a manager affects mental health as much as a spouse, and suggests one test question to a partner: how can I help you improve your results?
Original: LinkedIn
Why do people really enter a partnership?
Beyond economics the author names four motives: a need for stimulation, for structuring time, for closeness, and nostalgia. When partners play different games conflict is bound to follow, so each should recognise their own motive and say it aloud.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Tools and services · Why people go into partnership
What experience did unicorn founders have before founding the company?
A Stanford GSB analysis of 2,507 founders of venture-backed US unicorns found that 22% had founded companies before, 19% were vice presidents or directors, 13% worked in technical roles and 10% were CEOs. The author advises choosing partners with such a background.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Co-founders through an investor's eyes · Ideas from adjacent fields
Why are bronze medallists happier than silver medallists?
In Richard Wiseman's study The Luck Factor, bronze medallists think they could have won nothing, while silver medallists think they could have taken gold. Psychologists call this ability to imagine what might have happened counterfactual thinking.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out
Why is an appeal to authority not an argument in a dispute?
Even a recognised expert's opinion must be backed by facts, logic or evidence: a person's status does not make their words correct. Such an appeal is a logical fallacy, argumentum ad verecundiam, and a dispute should turn on the substance of the arguments.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conflicts between partners · Ideas from adjacent fields
How does the Thomas theorem explain conflicts between partners?
If people define a situation as real, it is real in its consequences: when partners' perceptions diverge, each acts in a reality of their own and turns defensive. Regular structured dialogue, such as a partnership session, is the hygiene of a partnership.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
What does the film Twelve Monkeys say about a partner's "crazy ideas"?
The film's hero, whom the psychiatrists take for a patient, is telling the plain truth about the future. The author suggests not judging too harshly a partner who arrives with yet another crazy idea: he may simply have come from the future.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: When partners see different realities · Ideas from adjacent fields
Can you take a partnership for a test drive before entering it?
Yes: the 1993 experiment by Ambady and Rosenthal showed that we judge a person within minutes and hold on to that first impression. A trial period of joint work tests compatibility, competence, reliability and financial discipline.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Ideas from adjacent fields
What does the film about Facebook's creation say about partnership?
The story of Facebook shows how ideas, personal ambition and working at the limit of endurance turn into a global project. Partnerships and agreements between the founders are key elements of the plot.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
What is the danger of a secretive partner you trust unconditionally?
A classic about financial machinations and ambitious brokers reveals the dark side of economic success, which greed and the secrecy of a business partner you trust unconditionally can lead to.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
Which five mistakes did the partners make in the folk tale The Turnip?
They did no planning, had uniform competences, named no coordinator, undervalued the smallest member (the mouse was called last) and never discussed scenarios. Regular partnership sessions are the place for such talks.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
Why draw a portrait of the ideal partner before entering a partnership?
A portrait helps to assess your own abilities and needs soberly and to see what a partner could make up for. Partnerships usually grow out of friendship, family or work, and no more than 5% of businesspeople look for a partner deliberately.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Ideas from adjacent fields · Why people go into partnership
What does the film about Ray Kroc and McDonald's teach?
A biopic about Ray Kroc, who made McDonald's a globally recognised brand, teaches persistence and aggressive growth, and shows how important it is to find the right business partners.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
How does a false dichotomy help dismiss an inconvenient argument?
It is the straw-man fallacy: the other side’s position is replaced by an extreme, absurd alternative while all other options are ignored. The author shows three forms in business dialogue: opposite swapped for contradiction, extreme conclusions and emotional manipulation.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conflicts between partners · Ideas from adjacent fields
What does the film about inventor Joy Mangano say about partnership?
A woman inventor built a successful business despite every difficulty. The film shows how motivation and perseverance overcome obstacles and makes plain how much negotiation skills and building partnerships matter.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
What does the 2008 crisis film say about the right people at the right time?
A film based on real events: a few financial analysts foresaw the market crash and chose to profit from it. It shows how important it is to find the right people at the right time and see opportunity where others see only problems.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
What does the film about Billy Beane say about building a team?
Baseball manager Billy Beane changes how he builds a team after meeting Yale graduate Peter Brand and his mathematical model. Together they lead the team to success and a so-called “eternal” record in the American league.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
What does the film about Howard Hughes say about business and partnership?
The biography of an aviator and entrepreneur who became a legend through his passion for innovation. The film shows how the pursuit of perfection and business can overcome any obstacle and touches deeply on business and personal partnerships.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields
How does the Thomas theorem explain rifts between partners?
If people define a situation as real, it is real in its consequences: one partner may read the other’s harmless act as a threat and start defending. Regular, structured dialogue, ideally a partnership session, keeps misunderstandings and discontent from piling up.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Partnership session · When partners see different realities
Why is scenario planning a safer bet than relying on luck?
Crediting others’ success to luck means giving up agency and any learning from mistakes. A scenario played out in advance removes negotiation in a crisis: Chicago imposed quarantine earlier while New York missed its moment. Luck wins once; a system wins repeatedly.
Original: Site blog · LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Scenario planning: failure, windfall, a partner dropping out
How do you resolve a conflict with the FAVER technique from Stanford?
Five first-person steps: name your emotions, ask yourself “what” triggered them, assume the other person means no harm, discuss the facts with I-statements, and part without hostility. The technique is taught at Stanford Medical School.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Conflicts between partners · Ideas from adjacent fields · When partners see different realities
Which uncomfortable questions should you ask partners before you start?
The ones our culture avoids so as not to “scare off” the venture: how often one can take a vacation, whose departure would end the business, what happens to the knowledge base on parting. Without them, agreements stay flat, like a stage character without a thousand questions.
Original: LinkedIn
Why is admitting what you do not know the first step to professionalism?
A fixed mindset creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over and blocks development. As Carol Dweck cites it, NASA rejects candidates with spotless records and prefers those who failed significantly and recovered.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Choosing a business partner · Ideas from adjacent fields
Why is formalising partnership agreements linked to stress?
People are often significant irritants to each other, so the importance of formalised partnership agreements for co-owners is hard to overestimate. The body’s response algorithm to irritants is covered in the linked article.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
Why does the lack of an agreement keep co-owners in constant anxiety?
One person is a super-stimulus to another: the reticular formation wakes the body in hundredths of a second and cortisol readies it to fight or flee. Without formalised agreements a partner remains a source of threat, and the response stays on for years.
Original: Site blog
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Why partners avoid signing an agreement
Why is disappointment dangerous for a business partnership?
Disappointment breeds resentment, anger or despair and sets off the "Four Horsemen" that destroy relationships: contempt, criticism, stonewalling and threats. Partners therefore need to know its causes and manage it, not only expectations.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Disappointment in a partnership · Ideas from adjacent fields
How much does trust determine economic success?
In Yann Algan's research, about 45% of the variation in per-capita income is explained by the effect of trust. Trust in business rests on contracts, and for co-owners on a partnership agreement worked out in a partnership session.
Original: Site blog
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Partner misconduct and internal control · Partnership agreement · Partnership session · Trust between partners
Can the effect of trust on national wealth be measured?
Yes: using General Social Survey data, Yann Algan estimated that trust explains about 45% of the variation in per-capita income. For co-owners, trust rests on a partnership agreement discussed against an exhaustive list of issues.
Original: LinkedIn
Topics: Ideas from adjacent fields · Partnership agreement · Trust between partners
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