04/ 02/ 2007
Working wisely when your partner is your partner
Dori Smith and Tom Negrino have been married for six years and working as business partners for 10 years, writing a total of eight books together, including their latest, JavaScript & Ajax for the Web, Visual QuickStart Guide, Sixth Edition (Peachpit Press, 2006).
When it comes to balancing their lives as husband and wife and as business partners, Smith and Negrino seem to have it down. Their secret? Set ground rules, but stay flexible.
Together, they've found three critical areas that have been vital to making both their personal and professional relationship work. A few of these include:
Role and responsibilities
When working with a spouse, or even when working on a team with other employees, let each person play to his or her strengths. Smith jokes that Negrino is better at "schmoozing," so he's usually the main client contact for phone calls and face-to-face meetings. Smith likes to code and edit, so she does more of the nitty-gritty work down in the book-writing trenches. If you're considering running a business with your spouse, the couple suggests posing and answering questions such as: Who will serve as the main client contact? Who will get the credit? Who's the project manager on this particular project?
Work style
"It's OK to be different," Negrino stresses. Perhaps one person likes to listen to music while working, and one needs total silence. Maybe the answer is separate offices, or separate rooms if you're working from home. As long as such styles and needs are discussed and respected, working with a spouse can be a successful endeavor.
Boundaries and balance
Smith and Negrino suggest that couples working together lay some ground rules about the work/home situation. "Our toughest challenge has been figuring out where to draw the line between the work sphere and our personal lives, negotiating those boundaries and then working to stick to them," Negrino says. "It's an ongoing process because things are constantly changing."
Smith and Negrino suggest talking to your spouse before going into business together to set some of those boundaries in advance. For Smith, an important rule was no work talk after 10 p.m. They also set business time and family time. They don't allow business phones to ring in the house. And there is no business allowed in the bedroom.
But rules don't have to be set in stone.
"Learning to recognize when we need to make changes, before pressure builds, has been a big challenge that I think we've succeeded in solving," Negrino says.
What advice would they offer to couples working as business partners or even considering it? "Communication, communication, and communication," Smith says. "The more you talk about responsibilities and priorities--especially before they become problems--the better off both your professional and personal lives will be."
For more information on Smith and Negrino or their partnership, check out http://www.javascriptworld.com.
