Ben Lynch: Here he is.

Jack O'Brien: Good day. Good morning. Good evening. Good night. Hello. Hello. In the blazer again. Oh, I'm sick of getting fashion advice from you Muppets. Who'd have thought I'd be taking advice from a man whose wife selects his wardrobe for him? She's got good taste. She has much better taste than you do. We know that.

Ben Lynch: G'day, good people. Welcome to the Grow Your Clinic podcast by Clinic Mastery. Here's what's coming up inside of this episode.

Jack O'Brien: I don't care. Yes. Do it. Do it. Yes. If you don't, you will be navigating a business divorce at some point. You want to be critical, not cynical or critical, not skeptical. No one becomes a food critic because they hate food.

Ben Lynch: You know, when people say there's no mistakes, there's only lessons. It's only a lesson if you've actually documented the lesson so that you can kind of learn from it moving forward.

Jack O'Brien: A big marker of healthy business partnerships are ones that actively rage against drift. We all say what we think individually is what Ben needs to work on. Spelling. Counting. Spelling.

Ben Lynch: This episode will be right up your alley if you've got a business partnership or you're considering it. Stick around for when we talk about some of the most awkward experiences that we've had. Plus, you'll want to hear Jack's take on a few subtle changes in how you operate as a business partnership that could unlock meaningful growth. Before we dive in, today's episode is brought to you by AllieClinics.com. If you're the kind of clinic owner who loves to feel organised and stay ahead of the chaos, you'll love Allie. Think of it as your digital clone. It's the single source of truth for all your clinic's policies, systems, and training. Test it for free at AllieClinics.com. And in other news, applications are now open to work with us one-on-one at Clinic Mastery. If you want support to grow your clinic and bring your vision to life, just email helloatclinicmastery.com with the subject line podcast and we'll line up a time to chat. All right, let's get into the episode. So it is episode 311. Today, we're going to be talking about business partnerships. A couple of welcomes to kick us off, Jacobren.

Jack O'Brien: Yes, welcomes. We had some folks join us in the Business Academy this month through the month of July. So welcome to those folks. We've got Alana, Jasper, Gabri, Apologies if I said that incorrectly. I have so many visuals running through my head at the moment. I just keep swimming. James joined us and Phil, so welcome to those folks who are joining us. Francis is rejoining us. We actually have so many members, Ben, rejoin us. Maybe there's a season where things change, circumstances change, but they come back. Everyone seems to come back. And so, if you are a previous member and you've been thinking about coming back, just send me a message. I actually got a message from Kay. I'll keep it anonymous, but Kay sent me a message just this week and they're interested in returning. So, super to have so many clinic owners investing in themselves, their business growth and joining us to grow your clinic.

Ben Lynch: Well done, that's awesome. A couple of mentions as well on the Allie front, Kate, Alex, Nia, Sam, Celine, Dr. P, and Steven as well. Thanks for testing out Allie and installing it in your clinics. Well, let's talk about business partnerships here, Jacobren. I heard this quote from someone reasonably close to us many years ago. They said, the only ship that's destined to sink is a partnership.

Jack O'Brien: I've heard similar advice.

Ben Lynch: At the time, I was a little taken aback. We're part of a partnership. We're still standing to quote a little bit of Elton John, though there's been some challenging moments. And today we might get into some of those moments and how we've handled them and the lessons that we've had, but also helping a lot of other clinic owners go through similar patches. And maybe it ends in divorce. Maybe it ends up in a renewed sense of energy and vitality and commitment to one another. But I thought we could unpack that. Where do you think clinic owners go wrong in partnerships?

Jack O'Brien: Where does it start to break apart? I guess the fundamental component where things break apart, in my perspective and opinion, having worked with hundreds of business partnerships now and been involved in a number myself, I would It really comes down to communication, expectations and honesty. And we've had different discussions about honesty at different times. And it's not that people lie. but it's the degree to which we can handle the truth. You know, what's that movie? You can't handle the truth. The degree to which we can handle honesty and the degree to which we can handle truth makes a massive difference. So communicating upfront, preempting, making sure values are clear. These are all things that I see can make or break a partnership.

Ben Lynch: So expectation, communication, and honesty. Where do we start? Let's pull on a thread. Which one of those, if you were to pick one, is like the linchpin to it all?

Jack O'Brien: Let's say expectation. Okay. So where do people go wrong? Now, people, I've heard it said that business partnership is like a marriage. And in some regards, it is like you spend a lot of time together. There's a lot of intertwined assets. There's a lot riding on a business partnership. I think the difference The difference that I've observed is that when you enter into a marriage, you're entering into a lifelong covenant. This is a lifetime commitment. At least that's the intention. It should be the intention. A business partnership doesn't have to be a lifetime commitment. And so I think one of the things that we've done well in our partnership, and we've seen others either do well or do poorly, is set a timeline to review the partnership. Like let's set an end date. And if you don't have an end date, it can feel like handcuffs, you know, you're chained to it, or it's difficult to reset or recalibrate expectations. So I think that expectation of date or time commitment at least from my perspective, has been a linchpin in our business partnership, and I've seen it in a bunch of others. What do you think to the timeline of expectation?

Ben Lynch: That's a really good point. I was reflecting on what are some of the elements that have worked between us so far, and to give some context, we're in our 10th year of business partnership. And as I mentioned, there's been great moments, meaningful outcomes. There's been challenging moments and friction, but I really want to unpack some of the things for us to show you what we've learned, the mistakes we've made, but also in helping a lot of business partnerships today. So your question around expectations, I think is a really, really good one. Specifically, you spoke about the commitment side of that. So one of the things that we have done periodically, essentially every three years, is say, okay, for the next three years, here's where we're going. We're essentially committing for the next three years. We get to that end of the three-year period, and it's always been set up in a way that's like, hey, if anyone wants to move on, they feel this is not right, or circumstances change, this is kind of the off-ramp after three years. But we're committing at least for this time period. And then around that three-year mark, we get together again. I want to talk about rhythms of getting together as well. that we can have these big discussions and dialogues typically, well, always, they're in person and they're multi-day meetups, especially for us because we're remote. But nonetheless, I still see people working together where I encourage, go away for the weekend, go away for a couple of days and spend the time, spend the evenings, break the bread, go for the walk and discuss these things. The other thing that I would add to that, JB, I think, over time, you and I have definitely debated this and had our moments of friction, but in a really robust and respectful way, which is around roles and the contribution. So one, you're talking about expectation of commitment. Two is expectation of contribution or role. Because as a business owner, you're like, I kind of do everything. And so when you're in a business partnership, how do you distinguish and delineate who does what? Do you want to go down the line of some of the learnings you've had for us and then by extension, clinic owners about getting clear on the role that they own in a business partnership?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, we see it so often in a clinical context that if it's a business partnership, often they are clinicians. And so you really end up playing multiple roles and sometimes they can be weighted differently. Maybe one of the co-owners, say there's two co-owners, one is on the tools 20% of their week. and the other might be on the tool 60% of their week. And someone's maybe working four days because they've got kids and someone else is working five days because they've got some more flexibility. There's all these variables. And as the great man, Shane Davis would often say, there's many ways to be right. We just need to be open and clear about that. And so I think one of the key principles to think about when you're talking about your partnership and your contribution is that you In an ideal world, you get paid for your contribution, you get salaried for your contribution, and then your profit, distribution, share, whatever you like to call it, is a reflection of your ownership. You get a distribution for your ownership and a salary for your work. And that salary should be essentially market commensurate. What would you pay a senior therapist to do your clinical role? What might you pay a general manager or a CFO or a CEO to do your CEO role? That's your salary for the work you do. And the profit is for the business share that you own.

Ben Lynch: It's a really great point. And then moderating that even on experience, because someone will say, I take the marketing hat, but you're a therapist that's worked your way into marketing. You might be reasonable at it, but you might not be a senior marketing executive at a company and you're anchoring to this, you know, multi hundred thousand dollar salary. So there's always that nuance.

Jack O'Brien: And you've got to run it through your own business too. If you're only turning over a couple hundred thousand bucks a year, you can't pay yourself a couple hundred thousand bucks a year.

Ben Lynch: Yeah. That distinction, though, on the profit distributions, the dividends being a reflection of your ownerships, a really important one. And speaking with Shane Bennett over many years, he used a great analogy of, you know, I can invest in Woolworths or Coles or BHP or pick any ASX listed company or wherever you are in the world. And I can invest in that and receive dividends, but I'm not expected necessarily to go and work there. Subtly different. It's your own business. Of course, you've got skin in the game. You want to make it work. But delineating what you do, your role, your work and what you get paid and distinguishing that from your profit share is a really good one.

Jack O'Brien: I think Shane Davis would often say to just pull on that thread a little bit further. In a public company, the example plays true. But in a small business, there are expectations that go alongside your shareholding that are just not remunerated. You are expected to keep this ship afloat. You're expected to go over and above your salary work. And that's not like, we expect this of each other. It's like, This is a standard that I hold myself to and that we want to hold ourselves collectively to is that we go over and above, you know, we're paid to do a job, a salaried job, but as an owner, it's like you got skin in the game and you drive this thing and make it work.

Ben Lynch: So it's good. So we've got expectations specifically around the role, and a really practical one to do is actually have your role expectations documented, a position description, really simple. And you might have a couple of documents that outline, you know, this is what I do in a marketing capacity, in a therapy capacity, in an operations capacity, that just sets the expectation. Then you're talking around commitment to one another. Let's just go a little bit deeper on some of the key docs that you might want to have set up. I'm talking like shareholder docs. While we're not legal professionals, just practically in the real world, a lot of people don't have these set up. Unfortunately, they go through some friction times and they want a divorce and all this comes to the surface. What are your recommendations around formalising some of these, especially because people leave it they're like it's all going well ah we're happy we're working well we'll do it later so what are your recommendations around um yeah formalising some of those agreements

Jack O'Brien: Yes. When it comes to formalising, you want to do this for worst case scenario, but do it from a time of best case scenario. Ideally, when things are rosy and the sun's shining, it's a great time to document how we're going to behave or how things will happen if the proverbial hits the fan and when it comes worst case. So that at that time, we're removing emotion and we just follow the agreed upon process. So, this is all about worst case scenario. Now, hopefully, as the saying goes that we do up this document and we put it in the bottom drawer, the bottom shelf, and it just gathers dust, that would be ideal. Do it from a place of health so that come worst case, you're ready to call upon it. And the second thing that comes to mind is that agreement can look however you want it to look. It can reflect your relationship. Now, there are some standard approaches and ways clauses typically look. Use that to inform your relationship, but ultimately you get to decide how things are going to pan out. And so make sure you talk through those, talk through all the different scenarios that might play out. And then it's also really good practice. We've been going through this recently ourselves, is to actually review that document on a semi-frequent basis to make sure what is documented reflects the relationship that we want to have. Because ultimately, whatever's on that piece of paper just is a reflection of your relational commitment.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, we would do it every couple of years. It's probably lined up every three years or thereabouts, personally in our own context, to do that again as part of the next sort of three-year commitment. I'm not sure where we got three years from. I don't know if you recall, but it was kind of maybe a Goldilocks

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, that's right. Not too long, not too short. It feels like it's a long enough commitment that we can get work done, but not a lifetime handcuff. And so life changes. I think when we kicked off Clinic Mastery, it was, we're all in the stage of young kids and having babies and a couple of us still had clinics on the side. And so you're in a very dynamic environment. You don't want to do it every year. It's too short to make a meaningful long-term commitment. also don't necessarily have to be chained to this thing for 10 years at a time.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, it's a great point. And so probably my advice is for people to spend the $5,000 to $10,000, whatever it ends up being, but it's somewhere in that range for a legal professional to actually create these documents, to work with you on nuancing them to your scenario. I think people go, oh, I don't want to spend that money and we're all going well anyway, but it's so worth it.

Jack O'Brien: Well, you will spend at some point. You either spend to get it set up properly to start or you spend to untangle the mess. And I'm no legal expert, but I can guarantee that untangling a mess is far more expensive than proactively setting up parameters.

Ben Lynch: Yep. And these docs can take a little while to finish and formalise. There's a lot of discussion, bit of back and forth, et cetera. They may take several months, maybe, depending on how you're going, how many people there are in the team to be able to do. So that's one part, as you said, expectation, communication, and honesty. We've spoken about expectation, getting clear on your role, your pay and your commitment to one another, I think is really important. And then in terms of rhythms, this maybe bleeds us in and dovetails us to communication around the frequency and the formats that we use for communication. Let's go straight to the meetups we've found super useful. Do you want to just detail some of the useful things part of our meetup structure that you think are fundamental to, you know, greasing the wheel, keeping the relationship functioning at least and ideally strong?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, you might be able to help me. I'm thinking of some of the books or influencers that have contributed to this. Pat Lencioni has been a big one. The death by meeting and the weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc. Those types of rhythms. You've gone with clouds and dirt. Are there any other particular influences that come to mind?

Ben Lynch: When you said Pat Lencioni, I thought you were going to go with five dysfunctions of a team, which is a really good one. That visual and the triangle there is really great. The layers that you build up to ultimately a version of high performance, I'm blanking on and maybe we could pull it up on the screen here. But it starts at the base level with trust, which is created through vulnerability, which is essentially created through connection. And what's going on in your world outside of the office space? Yeah. Oh, I didn't realise, you know, so-and-so's sick in your family. You got this, you know, obligation to family or friends or, you know, there's so much that happens outside of work that eventually shows up and you realise, oh, heck, I realise why you've been short with me or stressed. We just haven't had the moment to go deep on understanding what's happening. So I think part of our connection has been allowing time for connection. And that has kind of been the purpose. What does that look like? Practically, it means a pretty scaled back agenda. Like it's not like every minute accounted for. And it allows a lot of time for lengthy discussions that we don't have to go to the next thing. So it's kind of doing less doing physical in-person meetups, typically three days, typically twice to three times a year. For us, it's over a common love, which is golf. We all love golf. So, I think those things help. Like, we do a common activity. Do you know what I mean? We're not sitting in an office talking about business. Like, so much comes from doing an activity together or an experience together.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah. And you build these almost traditions in a way, you know, we love getting takeaway pizza, you know, like in the Airbnb and the hotel. That's one of the things that has become a real, now a bonding moment. And in some sense, it's a tradition for our ownership team is that we would share a great pizza or game of golf for a consistent meal. But once you build these rhythms, you build almost family traditions amongst the team.

Ben Lynch: I gave this recommendation to a clinic that got three owners, three directors, and I said, you know, for you guys to get some alignment, it's so worth you carving out a couple of days to go in person somewhere that went to, I think, the Blue Mountains. And they came back and they're like, we got so much done. And not just work, but the connection and the alignment. They're like, now we're doing this ongoing moving forward. And their families sort of came towards the end and they met up, which was, yeah, just heightened the experience for them. Super valuable. You got no distractions. That's the other thing, right? If it's like, oh, we're here nine to five, I feel like you can easily clock off, answer the Slack message, the email. So I highly recommend it. Let's get into the substance of some of the meetups because I don't want this to necessarily come across as, oh, you know, we've got it all figured out and these are just, you know, butterflies and rainbows, these sorts of meetups, because we've definitely had our fair share. And we actively encourage like these are the moments actually to speak the hard truths to your point about communication. And then the third point, really honesty. Just let's riff on some of the ways in which we've kind of, I guess, opened a can of worms or created the space for honesty to come out. What are some of the exercises or activities that you found useful?

Jack O'Brien: We do a form beforehand, often, or some version of pre-work.

Ben Lynch: I was literally working on ours this morning for the leadership retreat.

Jack O'Brien: Yes, I can't wait to send it up. But this is really important because it rages against groupthink. It's really easy to agree and think the same. Adam Grant, the author, keynote speaker, organisational psychologist, talks about how we have to rage against groupthink and people think better, clearer, the evidence suggests, when they do it independently. beforehand in their own time, in their own way. So there's a version of pre-reading or a form or write down some notes, bring a brief, whatever that looks like. So that work beforehand rages against groupthink. And then when it comes to the vulnerability piece, back to Lencioni, I was reminded of this recently. He talks about the phrase artificial harmony and how that is the enemy of progress. this fake pretentious harmony. And so we have to mind for conflict, right? And now we can only mind for conflict on the foundation of vulnerability-based trust. And so how do we do it? We do it with that pre-thinking. We sometimes do it with some provocative content. Maybe it's read this book, watch this YouTube, listen to this podcast. We've often had coaches kind of pre-frame these sessions for us. And then we often do a little bit of white-boarding or scenario building and just throw stuff on the wall and see what sticks. But we do give ourselves permission to speak openly, honestly. It's like, we're not gonna get offended. There's very low tolerance for offendability because we need to be able to discuss ideas without feeling like my identity is being criticised. We're talking about ideas and we can, we can hold ideas and hypotheses in tension without attaching ourselves to those ideas.

Ben Lynch: It's a good point around creating the safety in the space for that. I think the preparation is such a key one. We even do that in, say, practically team trainings. We use Slack, whatever product you're using, where people are asked a question, say, on the team. Could be about anything. You can use this in the clinic. And we say, hold up, don't press enter just yet. Let everyone think of their contribution, their answer, and then it's like, you know, minute on the clock, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, press enter. And then we get one, everyone's an active contributor. Two, they're not biased by the responses of others. And we get to really see maybe some signal from the noise. So yes. Google Form we use. You can use any form. We love doing that. The one that I was working on this morning, which I haven't shared with you unless you've been peeking through.

Jack O'Brien: I saw something, some activity.

Ben Lynch: Classic. Always got the finger on the pulse. is separated into past, present, and future. So there's three sections in the form. There's somewhere between seven and 10 questions in each of those areas. And the intention behind it is to think boldly, laterally, and critically. And it's specifically aimed at eliciting the explanations, the reasoning behind the answers, less so about the answer themselves on the face value, And going, ah, how did you get to that answer? Like, show me your thinking behind it. That will be part of the discussion. So, yeah, I love that independent thought. The other one, which we've talked a little bit about, for those watching can see me, is the vulnerability cards. Yeah. We've used this so many times now. We keep going back to it, however many cards there are, call it a hundred. Like you're going to come across a different question that you haven't answered before. And it's, it just is really insightful to create the connection, the vulnerability connection, then the trust, a great starting place. So typically our in-persons will start with something along those lines.

Jack O'Brien: Connection-based. sometimes it's unstructured, but it must be connection-based and it must build trust. Because every interaction will either build trust or resentment. And so we must be working towards trust building in a really active way. We're mining for trust. You're mining for vulnerability, mining for conflict, because it is those things that draw us together rather than artificially fake pull us apart. And so, yeah, Lencioni often talks about some of those exercises. We've done almost a 360 review of each other.

Ben Lynch: Yes.

Jack O'Brien: At various times.

Ben Lynch: Just explain that. Tee that up. Like, what does that mean?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, so there's a couple of variations, but Lencioni does talk about where you write down on your piece of paper the names of the other folks in the room and you write down what is the single greatest strength that they bring to the team and what is their biggest opportunity weakness to work on. And you write it down and then we go around and we all say our favourite thing about Ben. And then we all say what we think individually is what Ben needs to work on. Spelling. Counting. Spelling. There's many. The list is long. Don't unschool your kids when they're in primary school.

Ben Lynch: The list is long. Homeschooling is no chance in our household because I can't teach.

Jack O'Brien: No way. And so that's a simple version is, you know, what is their strength? What is their opportunity? Sometimes we can press into different domains of their work.

Ben Lynch: And sometimes we've done that in a way that like using the form as an example or a separate document. So you come prepared. You know, some people need a bit more time to think about these things. I'm looking at you. Not so good on the spot. And that's okay. I think we're trying to cater for different. We want everyone to be the best versions of themselves in those moments, to be as resourceful as they can. They've thought about it.

Jack O'Brien: So I think that's really good. We've even done like the hero hardship highlight. Great exercise. Tee that up. What is it? That's more storytelling. It's really just quickly tell for each person to quickly tell the story of a hero, a hardship, and a highlight of their life. It's a very open-ended, non-specific question that creates an opportunity for people to share and find connection, be vulnerable. So it's very simple, but it is really, really meaningful and it sets the foundation for the rest of the retreat.

Ben Lynch: Another version is goal-setting or desire statements, as we call them, a version of reflecting on the progress you've made on previous or current versions, and then looking at what is the renewed or future version of that desire statement. Again, to share some of those things that are non-work-related, deeply personal, but they create a sense of connection and trust. So what are we saying here, JRB? In these in-person meetups, We like to anchor. We start the event with some version of an activity where connection, trust, vulnerability are the key ingredients because it sets the stage for having some of maybe the robust discussions about the hard truths. Where are we not, you know, pulling our weight? You know, where do we want to go and what needs to change? So that is key.

Jack O'Brien: And we see clinic owners skip over this because it seems frivolous or superficial. Fluffy. Don't skip it. It might be your personality inclination to enjoy these things or to resent these things. I don't care. Yes. Do it. Do it. Because if you don't, you will be navigating a business divorce at some point. And that is far more unpleasant.

Ben Lynch: Speaking of which, when it does come to those really challenging conversations where the friction is high, what have you found as important ways to show up in navigating those situations? Because we don't always bring out the best in one another or ourselves when having those conversations. I can think of a few where that's been true of me. And I'm happy to share. But what do you think are essential ingredients for having productive dialogue when it is really tough or really personal?

Jack O'Brien: The way we communicate and the way we navigate challenging conversations, the values upon which those conversations happen is critical. And so, you know, to think about a couple of frameworks that might underpin it, Stephen Covey is a great place to start. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, a wonderful book. That's really for us has been fundamental to how we relate. And he talks about seeking first to understand and look for the win-win and how can we synergise. And so when I think about a challenging conversation, let's hypothetically, because you're perfect, hypothetically say, I need to bring something up with you. I'm going to seek first to understand. I'm going to assume that I'm probably wrong. I'm going to assume that I'm probably missing some context. And we're going to, the point of this conversation is not to point the fingers, The point of the conversation is to find a win-win forward that works for me, works for you, works for our organisation. That's the point. I'm not here to try and win an argument, prove you wrong. Seek first to understand, find the win-win.

Ben Lynch: It's a great one. I think that, above all else, has been the one we've anchored to most. The principle, that is, seek first to understand, which I think diffuses the situation significantly. Because it's your perspective of how you come.

null: 100%.

Ben Lynch: You're coming from the place of, maybe there's a piece of context I'm missing that's really important to this, but here's my observation anyway.

SPEAKER_00: Yep.

Ben Lynch: The other one, a couple, now that it's sort of coming out as I think about this, There's two, there's slow down the pace of conversation. I think Shano does this probably naturally. I mean, he's slower than I, surely. Is he slower than I? In those types of environments, yes. Normally he's slower than I, surely. We're going to have a talk-off anyway. I think when you actually slow the pace of the conversation, you can diffuse some of the initial knee-jerk rage or response, whatever it is.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah.

Ben Lynch: And it gives you time to clarify what you mean. The other one is, when you say that, what do you mean? I don't want to just take the sort of superficial… Not to say that it is superficial, but the first response as, I understand exactly what you mean when you say that. So when you say, I'm doing this or I'm not doing that, Tell me more. What do you mean? Those two, they come to mind. So that helps massively, I think, in those moments, getting clear on the definitions of what we're talking about.

Jack O'Brien: definitions matter, and how you navigate the conversation is just as important as the conversation itself. To your point around, you know, slowing down how much, how quickly you speak. Yeah. Easy for me. Very easy for you, less easy for me. What's your tone? What's your body language? You know, we would often try and find a room that has recliner, not reclining chairs, but you can lounge a little comfortable rather than like sit across the desk, you know, and interrogate one another. So maybe we just go for a walk or maybe we're sitting next to one another rather than interrogating. What's your body language of your arms folded and the way you smile, or even you don't have to answer a question like rapid fire. Let a bit of time sit between your responses. These things, how you go about it, really, really matter.

Ben Lynch: I can imagine a clinic owner saying, yeah, but I've got this business partner or person on my leadership team that just won't budge. They won't own these things for various reasons. We just can't get through and it just ends up at a standstill and we just don't make progress. To that person, what do you say, Joby? And as you think about that, Part of the reason we start with the vulnerability, the connection, the trust is I think that gives you a greater probability of being able to have open conversations just to anchor back to it. Because if you jump straight into these robust discussions, like people are on the back foot straight away. And often it doesn't happen just once. It's like, oh, we've never done this before. We tried it. It didn't work. You know, how much repetition is actually required here for this to happen is quite a bit. So to that clinic owner that says, yeah, easy for you to say, maybe you're all of a growth mindset, you're all open to being better, but I got this person that just isn't.

Jack O'Brien: Okay, there's two options that come to mind for that scenario. First option would be to state your intentions upfront. When people know the end point of a conversation, it makes it much easier to navigate a conversation. If you've been blocked, let's assume that your business partner feels blindsided, they feel attacked, their sympathetic response is on fire.

Ben Lynch: It's a great point. So in my mind, correct me if I'm wrong, what you're saying is and what irritates me to no end is leading questions where it's like someone's asking these questions and they're trying to take you there. And it's like, it'd be way better if you just tell me, all right, hey, this is where I want to get to at the end of this. But there's a whole bunch of understanding that I need. Is that essentially what you're saying?

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, exactly. It'd be like, hey Ben, I'd love us to have a conversation. In an hour's time, my hope is that where I'm uncertain, I've got some clarity and where I've got some things to get off my chest that you've got a little bit more context for where I'm feeling and we get to an agreement on the next three months. That's the conversation I want to have for the next 60 minutes. Is that okay? Okay, cool. I know where we're going. So make it clear what the objective of the conversation looks like will help to disarm potentially a resistant business partner. And then the second piece of advice I would suggest is get a third party in the room. It's so much easier to have a conversation, even if they're just a passive third party. Maybe it's probably a business coach is ideal in this scenario, or it might be a trusted colleague or other business owner around town. Maybe it's an accountant or lawyer, although they'll probably charge you in six minute increments. But have someone else in the room. It makes a really big difference to how you show up and how the other person shows up when there's someone else. Maybe they're watching, maybe they're referring and mediating the conversation, maybe they're contributing, but it really does make a big difference.

Ben Lynch: So let's say a business partner is just not pulling their weight and it's been going on for a while and you're like, I've had a few goes at bringing it up, but still things aren't progressing as we'd like. And I'm really contemplating, should they stick around? Should we stay together? How should they go about navigating those circumstances where they've been at it for a while?

Jack O'Brien: So hopefully there's a position description or some agreement on expectations of roles and contributions. And if that's the case, you really want your business partner to get to the conclusion themselves that you want to get them to. So you become a bit of a coach in a sense. Now you don't want to be condescending or patronising or leading questions. But if let's again, hypothetically say it's you and me, you're not pulling your weight. I'm not going to stand here and go, Ben, you're not pulling your weight. I want to have a conversation that says, Ben, how do you think you're going? Like, you know, we talked two years ago about your role being ABC and kind of the KPIs of your role being XYZ. I'm curious on how you're seeing things play out. Are you proud of the way you're showing up every day? Are you confident in the results that you're bringing for our business? Give me some perspective on where you're at. And ultimately, you're trying to… Lead the horse to water isn't the right analogy, but you're trying to get them to self-reflect.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, it's a good point. I think of Shane Davis as an example where there's been various questions, various sort of statements along the lines of, you know, like, let's say, hey, Jack, it seems like you're not really enjoying your work at the moment. And that's that's the impression that I've got. And I just want to understand what's going on, because, you know, compared to three months ago or six months ago or 12 months ago, here's the things you were doing that were fantastic or lighting the team up as an example. It just doesn't seem you're in that same place at the moment. I want to understand what's going on. So I found that sort of angle useful. which is sort of a play on, um, when you're at your best, what are you doing? You know, it's like, it might even just be health habits, like I'm, you know, getting full, you know, eight hours of sleep. I'm going to the gym three times a week. I'm eating well, you know, got date night with my partner, da-da-da-da-da. And it's like, yeah, none of those things have happened because of this turn of events or, you know, I've just let my habits slip. So I found that really useful, um, as a way also to ask myself, like, you know, when I'm at my best, what am I doing? Uh, really dropped the ball on these things here. Um, cause that's going to happen.

Jack O'Brien: Um, okay, great. So we kind of, I think also, you know, if you want to, it's okay with one thing to want to address par the past, if that's difficult or confrontational, or they're not going to receive it. You're probably better off if you're the proactive, open-minded, abundant clinic owner, and you've got a stuck-in-the-mud partner. You're probably better off engaging in a goal-setting and commitment activity for the future so that you've got something to come back to. really excited for us to cast forward. Let's do some budgeting, forecasting, committing. Let's talk about where we're going. And so that when we have our next meetup in three to six months time, we can look back on what we've agreed upon today. And so I realised that that kicks the can, it opens the timeline a little bit. But you've got to set these things up and play the long game sometimes.

Ben Lynch: It's a good point, because one thing that Daniel Gibbs has often said, and for those that are unfamiliar, Jack, Dan, Shane and myself, we've been doing this for 10 years in partnership. So there's been a lot of debate and discussion and challenges and friction moments. And there will be into the future as well. And that's I think that's a great thing. I think it brings the best out of one another. But I remember Dan saying a long time ago, and he's reiterated it time and time again, there will be periods where you feel like you are doing the bulk of the work and your business partner or partners are just not pulling their weight. And there will likely be periods where you're slacking off and they feel like they're pulling the organisation forward. What we want to do is, one, be aware of that. Two, have some grace in those conversations, because maybe there'll be a time in the future where you're in that seat, and the others are sort of questioning your work ethic or contribution. So have that grace in the conversation. That doesn't mean lower your standards. It doesn't mean adjust the expectations significantly for an under performer. But have some grace.

Jack O'Brien: Measure, that's right.

Ben Lynch: Yeah, be measured about it. And that's why I love that. seek first to understand, then be understood principle from Stephen Covey. I think it's a great place. And how often do we actually mention that, like call out the obvious thing? I think that's what I found useful. I continue to be reminded of that. Say the obvious thing. It looks like you're not enjoying what you're doing at the moment, rather than sort of beat around the bush. Actually just state it. And if I'm wrong, that's okay. But that's my impression.

Jack O'Brien: And that's the point of the honesty, right? We need to have cultivated an environment where it's okay to say the obvious thing, to don't beat around the bush. And now we all like, you know, a compliment, but platitudes aren't compliments. Platitudes are artificial. And so bring your gratitude, you know, observe the positive things, but also bring your constructive criticism. I heard it said recently, you want to be critical, not cynical or critical, not sceptical. And the example was that no one becomes a food critic because they hate food. actually become a food critic because you love food and you bring your criticism to the restaurant's menu, to the dish because you love it and because you want it to be better. The same should be true of our business. We want to be critical of our business because we love it and we want to be critical in our feedback to one another. Not criticising, but critical because there's an opportunity to be better. Now, we need to be able to have those honest conversations. Say the truth, be plain, be simple. Don't use superfluous language or point fingers. Say the truth, say how you feel, say it plainly, and then allow the dialogue to happen. You know, this isn't a monologue. It's let's put something on the table and discuss it.

Ben Lynch: What helps, I think, is when there's some practical solutions also suggested. Otherwise, it becomes a bit of a whinging fest. Do you know what I mean? Like, here's blah, blah, blah. These are all the wrong things. And you need to do something about it. And I think I should be part of the solution if I'm giving you that feedback. It's like, here's one to three things that I think you could do. You know, feel welcome to use them or not. But just to say I'm here to help as well, I want to ask you this. What's a notable conversation that we've had? I want you to think of a notable conversation. Any conversation could be recent, could be a while back. And, um, give us a little bit of an insight into that conversation, what you learned and what changed off the back of it about how you ensure we have a strong partnership together. I'll think of one as well.

Jack O'Brien: Hmm. Yeah. There's a, there's a number. Oh yeah.

Ben Lynch: Yeah. Yeah.

Jack O'Brien: And that's a good thing.

Ben Lynch: I think, uh, It's not a leading question, by the way, because, you know, I hate them.

SPEAKER_01: Yes, of course. Of course.

Jack O'Brien: I'll say, I think of a time where we were away at an apartment by the beach and we'd missed some targets. And particularly me and my department in my role had missed a few targets. And We all look at things a little bit differently. I'm probably more of a realist in amongst our partnership arrangement and others might be more optimistic or positively minded. I don't think I'm pessimistic. I just think I'm realistic. Nevertheless, definitions matter, right? That's what a pessimist would say. And the crux of the discussion was that we'd set… My perspective on the conversation, you might recall it differently. We'd set some targets and commitments that were very optimistic and very positive and my perspective was that they maybe should have been a little more grounded in reality. And so, if they were grounded in reality, perhaps my performance wouldn't have been appearing so terrible. Because the targets were so optimistic, I looked like a Muppet. And so, there was this kind of misalignment of expectations. And so the outcome of that conversation was, look, I had to pull my socks up for sure. There was opportunity for me to execute better and show up better in my role. And there was an opportunity for me in particular to be able to say the honest, plain thing. And that not be seen as being negative. It was being seen as kind of just honest. Honesty isn't negative. Honesty is honest. So that was an interesting one where we had this kind of misalignment of expectations around positivity and realism.

Ben Lynch: Yep. I think another practice that came off the back of this is many years ago. This conversation, now I recall it. One of the practices that came out of it was around our model for forecasting and projecting into the future. So I think you know, to lean on, you know, let's make these conversations productive, not just, you know, complaining or whinging fest. People feel shitty and they kind of come out of it the other side. And, you know, we hope they change. It's like, okay, well, we're collectively part of the solution. What is what is several solutions and then maybe we just start with one and go there. So I know that was probably one of the things that changed to your point around being more on the same page as well. Yeah.

Jack O'Brien: What comes to mind for you?

Ben Lynch: Yeah, many. There's many conversations. I think of actually a Now this isn't necessarily, I wasn't the focal point of this one necessarily, but I was part of it. Oh no, I just thought of another one, which was a change in the structure that we were running with and shareholders in the company. And so without giving too much away and respecting various folks, there was a glaringly obvious miscommunication. So to your point of the three things, expectations, communication and honesty, there was an assumption made. We often talk about using assumptions really well, but intentionally and consciously and actually articulated so that we can debate them, use them moving forward. But there was an assumption that wasn't mentioned, that the obvious thing wasn't said. So it led to then this snowballing effect of an error that was made. And so what is the lesson that I had from that? And there was a significant part of me making that assumption. And there were others also involved in that assumption as well. But I should have called it out earlier. I should have just sort of checked, hey, this is the assumption I'm running on. Is this true or not? I realise this is reasonably vague and I'm mindful of this is a pretty significant story, part of our story. But One that we've learned from and really proud of getting through as well with the team of being open enough to go, OK, I made the mistake here. I certainly made a significant contribution to the mistake. Therefore, moving forward, here's the process that's going to change. And we did. We came up with a structure, an annual structure that we would follow for these types of conversations moving forward. But yeah, that was a visceral, intense experience. What I love is, and recently I've been thinking about this a lot. You know when people say, there's no mistakes, there's only lessons. And I'm like, okay, let's take that at face value. It's only a lesson if you've actually stopped, paused to think about the lesson. I, in my opinion, documented the lesson, so that you can kind of learn from it moving forward, share that story. Yeah. And then like practically what's changed rather than just say, Oh, I made a mistake. I learned from it, but then you forget about it moving forward. So, um, yeah, I've been thinking a lot about that recently of the mistakes. Cause I love the writing process. It certainly helps me distill my thoughts. I don't know if you've got anything on that.

Jack O'Brien: The, to that point of assumption. You need to over-communicate in a business partnership. Things happen. We're humans. We tell ourselves stories. We have different perspectives. We can both observe the same event and see it from two different angles and see two different things. The more you can check in with one another, and if you have a rhythm of check-in, that negates the need for an ad hoc check-in. An ad hoc check-in is a bit uncomfortable. A regular rhythm of like, hey, just making sure we're still good for this. We said this. Is that still going ahead? Are we going to change this? Is this okay? Is this okay? Is this okay? That's a really fundamental practice that you can't skip by. And whether that's in a business relationship or a personal marriage relationship or any other relationship, you've got to check in because the nature of The nature of things is to drift, right? It's to separate. Things drift. And so, a big marker of healthy business partnerships are ones that actively rage against drift and make sure there's alignment. Are we rowing in the same direction? Are we going the same? Are we still on the same page? Are we still on the same page? Mission critical.

Ben Lynch: Part of that, again, practically is for us, we use Slack. So, we have a couple of different channels, private channels within Slack, where there's often asynchronous updates or reports given. Like, hey, here's the State of the Union with this. Here's an update on that. and then meeting rhythms as well. What's part of your annual operating rhythm? Do you meet, you know, once a fortnight for half an hour? Is it once a month for an hour? Do you have, you know, longer quarterly meetings? Those things I think are really useful as well for having a safety net for conversations, not to sort of fester.

Jack O'Brien: Yeah, well, you know, when you You need to embrace transparency. In a business partnership, transparency is huge. If you're expecting transparency from someone else, the best way to get it from someone else is to first be transparent yourself. Show your work. Often, we're dividing and conquering. What I've learned is that I know that Ben's doing great work or Shane or Daniel, Pete, Andrew, Shane. I know they're doing good work, but I just want to see it. And not because I don't trust them, but because I do trust them and want to celebrate them. And so if you're in a clinic owner arrangement and you take care of the marketing and your business partner takes care of the recruitment and nurturing of your team, if you're in the marketing, show what you do. Say, we spent this much on Facebook ads, this much on Google ads, we spent this much time on our referrer nurturing, partner nurturing, and this is the fruit. This is the number of new clients we've generated this month. And what the hope is, is that then your business partner will say, oh, yeah, well, this is a recruitment pipeline that we've been building. And these are the mentoring sessions I've been having with my team. And we're on the same page rather than me sitting over here going, I think they're doing the nurturing. And they're on the other side going, oh, I wonder what they're doing for a market. remove wonder and show your work, be transparent with one another. So you can celebrate where it's going well, or so you can support where there's a need for support. Like we're not here to point fingers, we're here to lift one another up.

Ben Lynch: It's a great point. You share a number of different things, but one that just came through, I think this morning was say the fortnightly update typically ends up being fortnightly, right? Here's where we're at in these different areas. Bang, bang, bang. It's a, five-minute video that you can watch asynchronous, comment underneath, ask questions underneath. And it just keeps everyone up to date. They can watch it at their own time. It doesn't need to be at a meeting. I think that's really useful. Show your work is a really good one. In fact, in the form for our leadership retreat that's coming up, I've got, I think it's one of the first questions uh which is what do you want to acknowledge yourself for um over the last 12 months and then my description underneath there was um please don't assume people know what you're doing and have seen your work take a moment to actually celebrate these are the things that i've done that i'm really proud of having done uh because that no matter how much you update there's always stuff that's going on just not across and just um i haven't seen it so um yeah that's a that's a wonderful opportunity celebrate or support that person on your team and the trigger there is an asynchronous sort of update. Because so often people will say, you know, how do I create a sense of accountability in my team or, you know, for my business partner or leadership team? I personally believe accountability is taking ownership of your own actions. And so that means doing the video, doing the report, sending the quick update in Slack, saying, hey, guys, here's what we're up to. Here's how we're progressing in this. You know, if you want more information, click here, you know, to a dashboard, a document or whatever. But I get the headlines of where we're at. And I do that myself. The other thing that I think about is set the standard. You kind of mentioned it there before around transparency, I think was, you know, if you want it. Be it, show it. So I think if that's not already the case, you're like, hey, no one's feeding back to me what's going on. Can you show me that you've done that or what good looks like in your opinion?

Jack O'Brien: And show where you've dropped the ball, where you've missed the mark. Own your work, whether it's elite or it's lacking a little bit. Because if that's what you expect from others, then you've got to leave with that. Take responsibility. It's such a key because we want to create environments where there's trust. And I need to be able to say, this is where I've crushed it. But I also need to be able to say, I missed it. And can you, like, what, what don't I see here? Or I need support from someone else. So there's these factors going on, but don't, do not hide your errors. And this back to the honesty, show your, be honest. Now there's a time to be positive and optimistic and abundant minded. Maybe if we're, if we're thinking about vision or values, or maybe some of those, uh, more intangible things. But where it's tangible, be honest, be plain, own your wins, own your errors, and let's collaborate. Let's work together.

Ben Lynch: That's good. I think you have read this Google form that I've been doing, because that's question number two. Celebrate your wins. What do you want to acknowledge yourself on? Then the second one is essentially, where have you dropped the ball? Where have you lowered the standard? Where have you, you know, not being your best self, own your mistakes? Good question, Ben. Yeah, it's great. Look, hey, we're aligned.

SPEAKER_00: We're aligned.

Ben Lynch: These are really good. Joby, is there anything else? Part of today's discussion feels like a little bit of navel gazing or something. We're talking a lot about ourselves, but I think we've been in business for 10 years in a partnership. We've had hardship and adversity. We've had robust discussions and quite a number, and we've always found a way and learnt about how we do the next one even better. It's also what's allowed us to support, as you said, hundreds of business partnerships, by extension, thousands of clinic owners individually who are considering bringing a team member on as a second location owner or a business partner in their clinic. Or we've helped dozens now go through a business divorce and try and keep it amicable. So I wanted to just tap into, you know, what are some of the experiences you've had? What are some of the notable things that come to mind when you think about the success of good business partnerships? Is there anything else that you would add to this? Someone that's listening in that either has a partnership or is thinking about having a business partnership so that they succeed moving forward?

Jack O'Brien: Yes. The good partnerships is and poor partnerships where things go south. is it is a relationship and relational skills, interpersonal skills are something that you can get better at. You can practice, you can learn. And so my advice and encouragement to clinic owners is to read, watch, practice, get some coaching and advice on your interpersonal skills, your relationship skills, your communication skills. The more I've invested and the more I've seen people invest in the skill, of interpersonal relationships, the healthier those relationships get. And so, you know, we mentioned a bunch of different authors, say Rene Brown, Pat Lencioni. Jefferson Fisher is a newer author, brilliant in communication. Adam Grant on organisational psychology. Jim Scott, Radican. Absolutely. A student of these things and watch your business relationships and personal relationships flourish.

Ben Lynch: I like that. That's so important. You've got to grow together. You've got to grow in your learning and understanding together and share those learnings. I think the communication piece really hits home for me. It kind of covers all these things. You know, expectations is just how are we communicating what we expect of one another. The honesty piece comes back to it as well. So how frequent and how clear is our communication? How often do we meet? How often are we sharing those updates? That is kind of the basis for all of this. The seek first to understand and be understood is, you know, closely linked to that in my mind of communication. How do we want to communicate?

Jack O'Brien: Agreed.

Ben Lynch: Well, that's it. That's all we got, at least for today. Hannah will be back soon. But this is really good. If anyone is listening in. Of course, they're listening in. We're getting lots of people listening. For you who is listening in, let me rephrase that, thank you. If you're contemplating a business partnership with somebody, if you're in a business partnership and it's maybe a bit of a challenge or you just wanna take it to the next level and you're looking for some guidance, please reach out. Jack is giving out his email to everyone, jackatclinicmastery.com.

Jack O'Brien: Certainly. Happy to. I love conversations. I would love for you to get in touch via a Google review or a Spotify review, Apple iTunes review, wherever you are. So yeah, please do get in touch.

Ben Lynch: Yep. Sounds good. We'll see on another episode very soon. Head over to clinicmastery.com forward slash podcast for all the show notes and references. All right. We'll see on another episode very soon. Bye bye.

SPEAKER_03: Bye now.