Successfully married to the job

Working with your partner can be a mixed blessing.

“It’s an awesome thing working with your best mate every day, working with somebody who really cares about what you do and you caring about what they do. If you really feel that way, are connected and aligned and just can’t get enough of each other, then I can’t see how it’s a problem.”

Adam Benson, owner and co-director of Sydney-based Recognition PR, says his company has no policy on relationships in the workplace. The “no policy” policy has paid off. He met his wife and co-director, Liz Marchant, in 1997 when she first started working at Recognition, but it was five years before the two became an item.

Marchant, group manager at the time, was uncomfortable being involved with a company director, left and worked for a competitor. Eventually the couple agreed it made no sense to pitch against each other for clients and decided to join forces professionally. She returned as a company director in 2004, the year they married.

Benson believes their union has only benefited the company: “When Liz came back I had a huge weight taken off my shoulders. For the first time someone had my back. Our personal goals were perfectly aligned, we enjoyed spending time together and could spend more time putting our heads together and coming up with cool and interesting things to do.”

Defining areas of responsibility was critical. “We put some demarcation in at management level. I have a natural skill set which is more sales and new client development but before Liz came back I was also trying to run the operational side of the business. They’re very different skill sets, one is a farmer, one is a hunter.”

Playing to each other’s strengths benefits the bottom line. “The first year after Liz joined as a director the business made some serious money for the first time.

“Sales people are really optimistic, we convince ourselves that every conversation we have is going to turn into a new deal or a new opportunity. But if you want to run a business well you need pragmatism and rational analysis, and to calm the optimists down. Liz is operationally superb and I was able to get on and do what I do and that strengthened the business.”

Clear communication cements their bond. “Blokes are a bit simple sometimes when it comes to communication. It took me a long time to work out I was getting business feedback from Liz when I thought I was getting personal feedback and misreading it. I found that hard. I’d expect a pat on the head from my life partner and then I’d get 100 questions about why I did something that way and why it wasn’t good enough.”

Taking time off is tough. “If we take holidays, we’ve really got to pick the time and make sure everything’s set up. We’ve embraced mobility in a huge way. BlackBerries are on, laptops are on, we’re constantly plugging into wireless networks wherever we are in the world. When you’re running your own company, you can’t just pretend it’s not there for two weeks.”

Clients are under no illusions about their relationship. Marchant says some see it as a bonus. “The business has two directors that are always on and always thinking, and that’s fantastic. Our clients can talk to either of us, it’s seamless. They know our whole family has a vested interest in everything going well.”

Yet she grapples with perceived assumptions. “Sometimes as a woman I struggle. I want to make sure everybody knows I earned my place here and on the board. I worked hard to get here, it’s not because I married in.”

Professional and personal opinions are separated. “You have to have a very strong relationship and be extremely confident because in a work environment you have pressures and discussions that need to happen professionally. It can be challenging when we need to give each other feedback. You have to keep it professional.”

Other borders are more fluid. “You spend a lot of time working because you don’t ever turn it off. Work flows from work to home to middle of the night thoughts with no boundaries. It can be fantastic if you love working but it can also be draining if one of you is on a roll and the other one’s having an off day and wants to just read a book.”

Marchant knows her storybook ending is atypical (just 5 per cent of workplace liaisons result in marriage, according to CareerOne.com.au) and cautions those on the brink of romance: “Be careful. If you’re about to start a relationship with a colleague and it’s not your own business, you put a lot at stake. Think it through. What if the relationship doesn’t work out? Think how your working life will cope, think how your colleagues will react whether it’s working well or not. It [affects] those people and how you can be perceived in the workplace.”

John Aiken, relationship psychologist and author of Accidentally Single: The 15 Mistakes That Ruin Romance and How to Avoid Them, says it’s natural to find a partner at work. “So many single people say ‘I don’t know where I’m going to find the right person’, and a lot of the time they’ll be sitting in front of them at work. What a great way to get to know someone without committing too quickly.

“You’ll have similar interests, you can work with them, see how they operate in a team, see how they deal with obstacles and disagreements, and see them in an office social scenario as well. You learn and see if they might fit with you. If the case is yes, you move forward. But you have to be cautious and know the consequences are a little different from normal when you break up.”

Benson concurs. “Love is what love is, you can’t manage it. People have to keep their eyes open and be aware of what could happen if it all went south.

“But it’s very hard to have that conversation when you’re madly, deeply in love.”