Boardroom meets the bedroom

Lousie Woodbury has seen the lot. There have been shouting matches, temper tantrums and rivers of tears. Some have stormed out in frustration and others have simply clamped up, refusing to utter a word.

Coaching couples who are in business together can be similar to refereeing a war, but Woodbury and her partner William de Ora think they’ve discovered the treaty of living, loving and working together.

Their warts-and-all guide, The Invisible Partnership: How To Work With Your Spouse Without Getting Divorced, shares their own personal journey from the brink of divorce to a successful business and happy relationship.

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Together for more than 15 years and running their own small business coaching firm Quantum Dynamics since 1995, Woodbury says she and de Ora have faced all the common pitfalls and problems which plague couples who run companies together.

For many, private time can transform into boardroom meetings.

In a survey of 100 Australian couples who work together, Woodbury and de Ora found the number one place for discussing business is in the car (82 per cent) with meal times the next most popular (71 per cent).

Even the bedroom isn’t sacred, with more than one third admitting they allow business talk in bed.

Woodbury says unrealistic expectations, overinflated egos, power plays and poor preparation for the mammoth task of merging marriage with business leads even the most level-headed operators to emotional outbursts and nervous breakdowns.

“There are arguments, shouting, storming out, screaming and crying,” she says.
“The worst is when they both shut down and can’t discuss a particular issue. It just goes into the too-hard basket.

“A lot of it is to do with ego – and not just on the male side of things.

“If there are children involved in the relationship, things get even more complicated.
“The guy tends to feel like he has to manage everything on his own and ultimately he doesn’t cope.

“When a crisis or problem hits, the wife and mother, who works part-time hours, is expected to suddenly and simultaneously be in the business all day and get the kids from school.

“Many small business environments have the psychology that you have to be hands-on but we need to be realistic about what one human being can actually do.”

Woodbury says the first step in merging a happy marriage with a successful business is to forget about trying to create boundaries between home and work.

“For example, people are commonly advised to keep home and work life separate.

From our perspective this doesn’t work. You each end up suppressing your feelings, never resolving issues, like a volcano waiting to erupt, and this then becomes your normal way of operating,” she says.

“One of the easiest traps to fall into is wrongly believing that the rules for marriage will work for the business, and vice versa.”

About 80 per cent of small businesses in Australia are run by husband-and-wife teams and yet the facts are stacked against them.

About one in seven small businesses fail each year and every third marriage is predicted to end in divorce.

Nevertheless, Woodbury says practical, simple steps can lead couples to happiness at home and work.

“The philosophy of The Invisible Partnership is that when couples work together in their own business, they both should have equal leadership and responsibility, with no compromise or domination by either party,” she says.

“Individually, entrepreneurs can achieve to a certain point but, together, you’re able to achieve so much more.”