Who’s the Boss?
For the second time in as many days, the question of who’s in charge has come up. The first time, my friend asked which one of us is the boss; and today, one of Jason’s former employees asked what it was like to work for him (note that he did not ask what it was like to manage Jason). This will sound odd, but it’s true: we haven’t talked about it, at least not seriously. When it comes up, Jason usually jokes that it’s clear that he works for me.
On the incorporation documents, which by law require you to fill specific offices, like one Chairman/President/Ceo and one Secretary/Treasurer, I put Jason down as President and myself as Secretary. These titles do not need to correspond to how you actually structure the organization, and I obviously wouldn’t put that title on my business card. When we were at the Wells Fargo branch to open our bank account, however, the young man asked for our titles and I said mine was Secretary since he had our Articles of Incorporation right there in front of him. I’m pretty sure he thought this meant that I pick up Jason’s dry cleaning and sort the mail. For the record, I do the laundry but Jason handles the mail.
Regardless (or as Paulie Walnuts likes to say, irregardless) of titles, we’ve been working collaboratively. It’s been obvious who drives a decision or we talk it through until we get consensus, which doesn’t take as long as you might think since there are only two of us and we’re both aware we don’t have time to sit around and debate all night.
I think that if, no, let’s be realistic… when we arrive at a true impasse, as long as I feel that Jason’s listening and respecting my input, I should be able to disagree and commit, as we used to say at Intel. Besides, if I concede the occasional Ballhype disagreement, he’ll probably feel compelled to give in on questions of where we spend the holidays.
Posted by Erin 
21.Mar.07
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Trust me. You need to solve this NOW. I started a business with my wife 6 yrs ago. It grew from a hobby to a million dollar operation, fueled by our teamwork and energy.
Then one day, we were confronted with a fork in the road and she wanted to go one way, and I the other. It was either A or B, and no way to compromise, due to the nature of the issue. So we did neither. And the company suffered, we lost staff and sales due to the missed opportunities, and eventually, I ended up selling the company to her.
All because we didn’t have a way to break the 50-50 tie. Fix it now, while you are all abuzz with launch fever.
Thanks for the advice - sounds like it was a costly lesson to learn.