Take Your Home-Based Business to the Next Level by Graduating Your Relationship to a Partnership

If you are in a relationship and are up to creating something special within your home-based business it's imperative that your relationship graduates to a partnership. This is true whether your significant other is actively involved in the business or not. What's the difference between a relationship and a partnership, and why should you care? The concepts of course are related, but the difference between them is important to understand. Let's look at each concept a little more closely.What is a "relationship"?We're all in relationship with everything all the time. "Relationship" is simply where you are relative to where someone else is. It is any connection or association with another person. We are in relationship with others merely by virtue that we exist and so do they. We can't help but be in relationship with everyone we meet. There are different types of relationship of course - business, friendship, adversary, enemy, sexual, etc. These relationships are simply characterized by how you interact with people around you.What is a "partnership"?A partnership, however, is a special type of relationship. Dictionary.com puts it this way:"A relationship between individuals or groups that is characterized by mutual cooperation and responsibility, as for the achievement of a specified goal."A partnership is created by choice in order to achieve an end. A relationship exists by default. A partnership is about creating something with someone else. A relationship is simply your state of being relative to someone else. Partnerships are defined by common purpose. Relationships do not require a purpose.What does a "partnership" look like?Successful partnerships have these qualities:1) Common goals - If you and your partner are not headed in the same direction than, by definition, there is no partnership. You must both want to create the same thing. Whether it's building a home-based business, raising a family or putting money away for a dream vacation you need to be on the same page about what you are acting to create. But remember, having a partnership doesn't mean that you both people have to be active in the project. One person being supportive of the other person's goals even while not actively working toward the goal is an important form of partnership as well.2) Complimentary interests - Don't confuse common goals with common interest. The "goal" is what you want to create. The "interest" is why you want to create it. In a partnership each partner has to want to create the same goal. Your individual reasons for wanting that result, however, can be different. The reasons can be different, but they must be complimentary (i.e., all the reasons must be satisfied by accomplishing the agreed upon goal).3) Each member contributes their strengths - Partnerships are not about each person doing everything or one person assuming all the responsibility. Everyone has a specialty, and each partner should focus on what they do best. In a law firm, for instance, each partner specializes in a certain area of law and contributes to the team by maximizing return in that area. In our business, Donna's creativity, her training and her love of people make her especially strong in developing and leading our workshops. I have always been a good writer. Therefore, I focus on communicating our message in various ways. I also manage the day-to-day business operations. That's what makes a successful partnership - individuals contributing their own personal strengths toward achieving a common goal.What this means to YouIf you are up to creating something with someone else - perhaps a team member, or especially with your significant other - you want your relationship to graduate to a partnership. The strengths you contribute to your partnership include not only your learned skills, but also the natural ways of being you bring as a man or a woman.If your life partner is also your business partner things run most smoothly when you are both clear about what you are naturally best at as either a man or a woman. When this is unclear, couples that are up to creating something trip over each other and get in each other's way. How they relate makes the thought of working closely together toward a common goal uncomfortable if not frightening. They are foiled when their relationship gets in the way of their partnership.For example, Marie and her husband Bill operate a home-based business together. Awhile back they took the "Divine Dance of the Sexes" Couples Workshop. In Marie's words,"Before the workshop I had a concern that starting our business together as a couple may not work given our past patterns of conflict."After the workshop she was relieved."I now see that we can have an amazing business together even just by being clear on what I want and recognizing that he is willing to give me what I want."Today their business is doing very well. Marie emailed us several months after taking our Divine Dance workshop and said much of their success working together in business was because of the principles and techniques they learned during that weekend.Bill and Marie demonstrate the power of a partnership in which men and women drop into what they are best at and what feels best. A key point for a woman to remember is to embrace her desire and celebrate what she wants. For men it's important to get behind her goals and produce the result that will make him her hero.