Before you go into business with someone…take them to lunch and call them a bad parent!

Why do such a terrible thing? 

My wife (many others) is going to hate the title to this blog post and its content.  Why I am writing about it though?  Cause of this quote I came across.  “You can say what you think, or you can have people like you.”  So if you hate this just move on.  In this defiant light I love this quote too.  “What other people think of me is none of my business.”

Often when people go into business with someone they’re both putting their whole heart and soul into it.  They’re putting TONS of time into it.  They’re putting their family on hold.  They’re pouring tons of money into it.  I know several people who went into business with someone to only end up getting screwed out tons of money, sanity, and respect.  This is one approach to circumvent all that.  How do I know?  I shall tell you.

My brother is interested in 3d printing.  I happen to have a co-worker who sold and was deeply involved in 3d printing for years.  I thought it’d be cool to go to lunch all together to discuss it.  We discussed quite a few things amongst which was 3d printing.  What was interesting/revealing about this lunch was my coworker.  How do I even begin?

As soon as we started talking in line while waiting to order our food my coworker went off.  First it was claiming that his buddy had more production/manufacturing capabilities than my brother’s buddy who was/is helping my brother manufacture an idea of his.  Problem with this is that my coworker had NO idea how much capacity/ability my brother’s guy had in the first place and yet he claimed it no matter what.  Wtf?  Do you want to go into business with someone who thinks they have the best contacts when indeed they may not?  No.  Alright…further on down the line we went to get food.

Eventually we sat down and continued the conversation.  My brother is a fan of making bets, as am I.  He is also a fan of James Altucher.  Recently James did a blog post on answers to 100 questions readers posed to him.  One was whether or not to get a patent and another was whether or not to get an NDA, both of which my coworker “shoulded” on my brother to get.  Now I don’t know if these things were going through my brother’s head as we were discussing things during lunch, but they were going through my mind.  The answer James gave to both was an emphatic NO!  Well why not?  Especially if you have an amazing idea?  “Someone might steal it!” (scarcity mentality) 

Cause, as a whole…we’re friggin’ lazy.  Like Mike Rowe says on Dirty Jobs, “People shun opportunities because when they show up it’s dressed in coveralls and looks like work.”  I love that.  What was interesting is that my brother then asked my coworker what his best idea was.  It took him a second to drum up a couple.  Then when he spoke he legitimately had some good ideas.  What was interesting is that while these ideas are legit he’s not even close to beginning to work on them though they seemed pretty legit in my opinion.  Now for the next interesting part.  Notice how I said I thought the ideas were legit?  Notice how I have no real desire to implement and pursue his ideas?  Well if you didn’t now you do.  And noooow you see why James says what he says.  Forget this “traditionally” smart entrepreneurship crap and just go go go! 

People are very reluctant to let go of old paradigms and are able to embrace new ways of thinking and again I blame this on the scarcity mentality.  This is an especially interesting mentality to be found amongst the LDS community as we often hear in church how the earth was prepared to have enough for everyone/thing and to spare.  I just came across that thought as I writing this.  Sad.

In a lull in the conversation I told my brother that I sold my tv last night.  My coworker found this really interesting/surprising.  He revealed that he’s got over 800 movies on his external hard drive that he loves to just plug into his tv to watch whenever he needs to relax.  That is the “thing” his family “does together”.  Trust me watching a movie is not an interactive experience one has with another human being.  He also revealed that they’ve got several laptops, Netflix, hulu, internet, all the kids have smart phones, and two xbox 360’s.  I don’t even remember if he said they have ipods/pads, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did.  He said that when the internet goes down that, and I quote, his kids “freak”.  I told him this was a problem and asked him if he thought that that was normal.  His response was mumbled and unintelligible. 

We then talked a little more about schooling and how I was planning on having my kids home schooled.  He couldn’t believe that either and started saying that kids are missing something when they don’t get to go to school.  Yes he would be right.  They’d be missing out on all that great indoctrination.  Not to mention all that bullying that we’ve been hearing about that has been so good for those kids killing other kids and committing suicide on bridges in front of their “friends”.  He said that he thought that getting pushed around/bullied was a good thing and helped them.  I wholeheartedly disagree. 

If someone berates me and is rude to me when I have the ability to stop or change it do I continually go back and ask for more?  Heck no.  That would be ridiculous.  In a de-briefing phone call with my brother after the lunch he correctly stated that that was indeed not necessary and that kids will get plenty of that w/o having to deal with it in school.  He also wasn’t probably too far off with his statement that it was a defense mechanism of sorts since he was probably picked on in school and that nobody was there for him and to protect him and so he was saying what he was to validate his crappy experience in school.  Sad diagnosis, but I think it isn’t too far off of one.

What I got out of this exchange is that my coworker wouldn’t have even remotely listened to my reasons for home schooling, which are many, even if I presented them in a non-bias factual manner because his experience was “good” and couldn’t possibly be improved upon.  Why is this a problem to have in a business partner?  Say I want to present my partner with something new and innovative that will cut costs and boost revenue.  Problems though might be that he started the business, been there longer, is the president, etc and could give a rat’s behind as to what I’m saying because what is working currently is enough to survive and is “good”.  Consideration for something better though wasn’t considered and that is a problem when you’re trying to win and innovate in business.

On the way out of the restaurant I confirmed that we don’t have internet at our home and we don’t have smart phones.  He could not believe this.  Later on down the road he tried to mini-shame me by saying, in response to my saying that I’ve cut off violent and sex movies, “Are you a monk or something?”  My brother pointed that out to me.  Why is that a problem in business and a business partner?  In this case my reasons for getting rid of my tv and smart phone and what not is for improvement and progress.  If in business I tried, with my business partner, to try and cut waste and focus on more productive activities and they were shaming me the business would flounder quickly and slow to a crawl.

We talked about his kid’s electronics usage.  He said that we don’t have kids and couldn’t possibly understand what it is like.  We don’t understand that you just need to shut them in their rooms or in the basement so that mom and I can have some time to ourselves.  Well…actually I do.  One, I was kid.  Two I grew up with two parents, thankfully.  The amount of time his kids were/are putting into electronics though boggled my mind and he deflected responsibility for it (and his 800 movies previously mentioned) as a way to escape.  That is when I called him out...“You can say what you think, or you can have people like you.” 

I straight up told him that he was a bad dad and needed to fix it.  I then quoted the above quote.  He deflected his responsibility and doesn’t want to own up to it, and unfortunately it sounds like, to a degree, that his wife is the same way.  This is a problem in a business partner because if you can’t rely on them to handle their portion of the business, if their contribution is vital enough, you may well be out of business sooner than you think.  If they blame their lack of performance on the weather, the internet being down, the game was on, or any other million things that could go wrong how are you ever going to survive and thrive?  You’re not.

The last thing we talked about was how he’d come across questionable material on his kid’s phones.  He then said he had taken things away.  I laughed and said that that totally futile as even kid addicts can get things they want with or without the monitoring of their parents.  He asked us both, rhetorically, mind you what one was to do then if you can’t always monitor them and control them?  We almost unanimously responded saying that you must teach them correct principles and let them govern themselves.  In a business partnership having a controlling, micromanaging partner will very quickly erode the trust and growth of the parties involved and the business will flounder.  You do not want this.

You do not want any of this.  So what I want you to do before you go into business with someone is to go to lunch.  Then while you’re there say something provocative, even if you really don’t mean it or believe it, to see what kind of response you’ll get out of the person and then compare it to my notes here and see if you’ll still be ok going into a partnership with this person.