Author: Kathy Marshack

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Beat divorce statistics: Communicate as mate, not business partner

By Kathy J. Marshack, Ph.D., P.S.

I got a call this week from a journalist (Business Week) wanting information on entrepreneurial couples who face divorce. When journalists call for an interview I get a queasy feeling in my stomach. I’m not worried about a Sixty- Minutes-Expose where I’ll say something so embarrassing that the whole nation will think I’m ignorant. My concern is that there are the inevitable questions about statistics. As we all know statistics are often about as confusing and useful as software manuals written by Korean engineers and translated into English.

It’s not that I can’t reel off statistics with the best of them. I am a researcher after all. I have graduate degrees . . . two of them! But when it comes to statistics about families in business, or entrepreneurial couples, the numbers are thin. The SBA does not keep statistics on these populations. The National Association for Women Business Owners reports on women-owned businesses, but not on couple-owned businesses. The most fascinating thing about this lack of information is that it is estimated that over half of the gross national product comes from family owned firms and half of American works in them! So where are the numbers?

To make matters worse this particular journalist wanted statistics on divorce rates among entrepreneurial couples. Further she wanted to know the statistics on those couples who get divorced and still choose to stay business partners. This is a pretty narrow segment of the population. As exasperating as these requests are for statistics (i.e., I get requests for such interviews about once a month) what this tells me is that there is a rapidly growing interest in the subject. Not just the media, but the public wants to know more about entrepreneurial couples . . . how they do it, how they survive it, how they prosper, how they keep love alive in the fast-paced cutthroat world of the national/international marketplace.

If you also want statistics, I will disappoint you too. I just don’t know how many entrepreneurial couples out there get divorced or avoid divorce. However, I can confidently tell how to manage it either way.

First, if your marriage/business partnership has already disintegrated to the point of divorce and you really feel there is no turning back, seek the advice of a competent matrimonial attorney. Your business attorney cannot help you here. A marriage is unlike any other business contract you have entered. Most sophisticated business people are shocked to discover the entanglements created by being married and business partners. Your matrimonial lawyer will help with the marital and business division. But it will be costly and take more time than you could possibly conceive; certainly more time than it took to sign your marriage license at the courthouse.

But let’s assume that things have not gone this far awry. In fact, let’s assume that you two are happily married and the business is thriving and you would just like to prevent trouble. Simply, the best insurance against divorce is to attend to the relationship first, the business second. Sadly, the opposite seems to be what most entrepreneurial couples do. The pull of the business is strong, immediate and concrete. The pull of the marriage is strong too, but not as immediate and certainly fuzzy. Because it is easier to react and answer the phone call rather than remember to say something loving to one’s spouse, the typical entrepreneur opts for responding to business needs first. But the truth is it is pretty simple to maintain a relationship and much more complicated to run a business, so it seems the average entrepreneur could work both into their hectic schedule.

Business is about competition and marriage is about love. In business the goal is to compete, to win, to make a profit. In marriage there is no goal, but rather a process . . . that of exchanging love. Being loving and receiving love are the basics of a healthy marriage. How much work is love anyway? How much effort is there in telling your spouse he or she is loved? How hard is it to carve out one night a month to go on a date? Is it such an extravagance to bring home flowers for your sweetheart or treat him or her to basketball tickets? Along with all of the other e-mails you respond to each day, would it take so much of your precious work time to send an e-mail of appreciation to your spouse too?

It’s not that entrepreneurial couples don’t have time for their loved ones. It’s that the goal orientation of the business takes over. Always in the competitive mode from dawn to dusk, the entrepreneur ticks one item after another off of their daily agenda. Being loving is not on the list. Accomplishment is. In business the point of any conversation is the bottom line or the close. In a marriage the point of the conversation is rapport, staying emotionally connected with one another, or feeling loved. When there are not only one but two entrepreneurs in the marriage, such as with entrepreneurial couples, the focus can be so much on the business, and on the business mode of communication, that love is left in the dust as the couple races to out distance their competition and create financial independence. With this approach, however, they also risk total independence from each other as well. One day there may be statistics on the number of entrepreneurial couples who end their marriages. But if you don’t want to be one of those divorce statistics then immediately implement this simple plan. Put the marriage first by doing one loving thing each day for your spouse. You can do battle and conquer all day long in the business world, but at the end of your day, switch modes and have a conversation about nothing at all with your spouse. Don’t search for the bottom line. Don’t anticipate the close. Instead hold her hand, look into his eyes, talk a little, and congratulate yourself on how lucky you are to have a business partner who is the love of your life.


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Master the art of listening to overcome your communication problems


By Kathy J. Marshack, Ph.D., P.S.

One of the first things that most people ask a psychologist is for help communicating. Jimmy and Brent were no different. Jimmy wanted help developing a succession plan so that one day he could turn his profitable business over to his son Brent when Jimmy was ready to retire. Retirement was about ten years away so there was plenty of time to develop the plan and begin training the successor. The only problem was that the communication between father and son was atrocious.

Jimmy as a sole proprietor had run his business very successfully for many years. He had built it from the ground up with little help from anyone, bankers or friends. He and his wife raised their three children while growing the business. Two children were off working elsewhere and with no desire to come into the family business. Although they had worked summers and after school for Dad, they determined in college that their interests were elsewhere. The middle child Brent, however, worked steadily for Jimmy over the years. He never worked elsewhere in fact and was now identified as the successor.

The communication problems surfaced as the succession planning evolved. Brent had an employee mentality and seemed unaware that he needed to begin demonstrating leadership skills. Afterall, he had never had management responsibility until now, so was unaccustomed to it. In the course of training him to run the business Jimmy began turning over projects to Brent. However, Brent waited for guidance from Jimmy and never completed the projects. This infuriated Jimmy who lashed out at Brent. Brent withdrew and did even less work. Jimmy started making lists for Brent. And it went on like this until the two were thoroughly alienated.

To unscramble a communication mess like this it was necessary for Jimmy and Brent to begin listening to each other in a new way. Communication is more about listening than it is about talking. And communication is mostly about listening to the real meaning intended behind the words being spoken or written. For example, when my daughter Bianca was just three, she looked up at me with a very serious expression on her little face and said, “My neck is tight.”

Three-year-olds have limited life experience and an even more limited expressive vocabulary. Taking this into consideration I wondered if she was trying to tell me something but was using words in a way unfamiliar to me. Further, she was coming to me with her problem, so she must have thought telling me this would be of some help to her or me. Third, I asked myself how it might feel if my neck were tight. Then the light bulb went off. I asked her if her neck was tight on the inside and she nodded an affirmative. So I explained that we called that feeling a “sore throat,” and I gave her something to soothe the irritation.

There are a few simple tips you can begin practicing immediately to clear up communication problems you are having with your loved ones, employees, friends and business associates. First, listen for what the other person means not just what they are saying. Bianca was trying to tell me she had a sore throat and that she wanted help. Brent through his actions was demonstrating that he didn’t understand what leadership means. Jimmy can’t assume that Brent will catch on quickly if he has never had the opportunity to learn or practice this skill.

A second tip is to ask yourself “Why is he or she telling me this?” When people communicate they unconsciously and many times consciously identify a certain person to talk with. The person is chosen because the speaker needs a certain kind of feedback that they hope they will get from the person. My daughter Bianca chose to tell me about her sore throat because I am her mother and a person likely to care and to help her. Jimmy chose Brent to be his successor because they are father and son. Jimmy’s impatience with his son is because he expects Brent to understand him better than others and because he is the heir to the business. Jimmy cares about his son, not just the business. He wants his son to succeed, so he pushes.

Third, assume that the person has a very good reason for telling you their story. It is often easy to dismiss another person when they don’t make sense to you or perhaps are talking about something uninteresting. Often the only reason for talking is to connect with another person. If the other person is telling you something you already know, or sharing a tidbit of local gossip, or asking you questions about yourself, it is quite possible they are “just making conversation.” But this is no small thing. There is nothing small about “small talk.” It is a quick way to build rapport and trust between people. Often in our busy lives we skip the small talk and get on with the agenda.

Jimmy and Brent were more successful with their communication when they realized that at work they had seldom engaged in small talk. In the past, Brent had quickly learned to do his assignments and not interrupt his busy father. Thus when Jimmy began turning over important projects requiring more communication of an executive nature, Brent didn’t know what to do. He expected his father to give him an assignment, not ask for his opinion. When the two started to talk as peers, to engage in chitchat, Brent began to understand that his opinions mattered. He began to engage in more creative thinking which eventually lead to developing his innate leadership abilities.

Communicating is an art. It is a complex never ending process that requires your attention. If you assume because you are in the same family, or because you work in the same industry, or because you are both native English speakers, that understanding each other is simple, you will create confusion over and over again. On the other hand, if you try these three tips . . . listening for the meaning, noticing why the speaker chose you, and accepting the meaningfulness of all communication no matter how small . . . not only will your communication effectiveness grow, but your relationships will improve too. Doesn’t it feel good to be understood? Try giving that to others.

Kathy J. Marshack, Ph.D., P.S., Licensed Psychologist and Family/Business Consultant is the author of ENTREPRENEURIAL COUPLES: Making It Work at Work and at Home (Davies-Black, 1998). She can be reached at (360) 256-0448 or www.kmarshack.com. Look for her new website especially for entrepreneurs www.executivecouples.com.

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Keeping secrets in your family or business creates a tangled web

By Kathy J. Marshack, Ph.D., P.S.

“It’ll just make things worse if I tell him.”

Janice was getting more and more anxious as the days and weeks went by. The bills were mounting, the creditors were calling, the first bank note was due in one month, and sales were miserable. Janice and her husband had just begun a business expansion that they had dreamed and planned for over the last five years. They were positive it was a winner and were thrilled when the bank backed them up. While Cary blazed ahead with building, hiring, warehousing and so forth, Janice as CFO handled the creative financing.

Unfortunately Janice was just a little too creative with the financing. Because the dream was too important she stretched things further than they could be stretched. Cary never questioned his wife and was unaware that they were heading for financial disaster. Janice on the other hand kept trying to pull a rabbit out of the hat.

When Janice first discovered her miscalculations, she was mortified. She was too embarrassed to tell Cary, so instead tried to solve the problem on her own. As the financial problems increased, she started shifting money from one account to another, staying one step ahead of her creditors. She convinced herself that Cary was too busy with the project to be bothered by the financial problems. She rationalized that these problems were temporary because any day now she would find a solution. Janice loved her husband and didn’t want to disappoint him either. She felt he would be crushed to discover that not only would he have to halt the expansion, but that the entire business might go under. So she lied and she hid the truth in a variety of ways.

Since Cary was not very computer literate and left all of the number crunching to his wife, the secret was not hard to keep. Until of course, the bank called the loan. Then Cary and Janice had two problems to face. The financial woes were their immediate focus so as business partners they busied themselves untangling the mess that Janice had concealed. But as the dust settled from the financial nightmare, husband and wife had a to face a more serious crisis . . . how to restore the broken trust between them.

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

Even a surprise birthday party may be a secret not worth keeping, if the guest of honor doesn’t like them. It is rare that secrets are a good idea and yet they are commonplace in family firms. The major reasons for keeping secrets are (1) to avoid disagreement and confrontation, (2) to protect someone from hurt feelings or even physical distress, (3) fear of punishment or embarassment for a wrong doing, (4) or just because you made a promise not to tell.

Why are secrets so bad if they don’t hurt anyone? This is usually a rationalization. If you have to keep a secret, then it obviously affects other people. The content of the secret may or may not affect the other person adversely, but the question is, will keeping the secret affect the other person adversely? As we saw with Janice and Cary both the secret and keeping it powerfully affected the business and the relationship. There is no telling whether the couple could have saved their business had Cary known earlier of the miscalculations. However, by keeping the secret long after she should have told Cary, Janice seriously damaged the trust and the love between the two.

“But he’ll get mad at me if I tell him the truth!”

No one likes an argument but it is foolish to think that you can go through life, build a marriage and a business without having disagreements. As compatible as family members may be, they are bound to disagree on some things and sometimes these disagreements escalate into angry confrontations. Therefore it is useful to develop conflict resolution skills, rather than avoid the anger.

The excuse that the other person will get mad if you level with him or her is a poor one. First, you never know if he or she will get mad. Second, even if he or she does get mad, the discussion doesn’t have to end. Be brave and venture into conflict resolution. Third, the person may have every right to be upset that you withheld information (or fibbed) that affects his or her life. Think about it. How do you feel when a secret is kept from you, especially if your decisions depend upon the hidden information?

“It would be mean to be honest.”

There is often the fear that you will hurt someone’s feelings if you tell the truth, or worse that they will have a heart attack and die. The problem is that you have no right to assume responsibility for the other person’s life or life decisions. When you keep a secret that affects the life of another, you are robbing them of the opportunity to take responsibility for their own destiny. Because Janice loved her husband, she wanted to insure the success of his dream. But by lying to Cary, she kept him ignorant of the information he needed to make a mid-course correction. He may still have failed had he known earlier what the financial picture looked like, but the success of the business and his own destiny would have been in his hands.

Essentially it is disrespectful to keep secrets. You are treating the other person as if they are incompetent to handle the truth. What makes you better able to handle the truth than the other person? Sometimes the truth hurts. Sometimes it is embarrassing. Sometimes the truth is a powerful leveler without which you would never know you are in over your head. When I received the phone call telling me that my ten-year-old daughter had just missed the cut for the soccer team, I had to tell her the truth. Not only had she failed to make the team, but that she wasn’t quite good enough to play with this team. She cried and sobbed and was heartbroken over the failure. She even refused to eat dinner and went to bed early. However, the next day she obviously had learned an important lesson. She asked for new shinguards and went to the backyard to practice for next year’s tryouts.

“I won’t tell you unless you promise to keep it a secret.”

Signs of maturity are honesty and reliability. When we give our word, we feel a strong compulsion to keep it, to be consistent with our image of an honest and reliable person. However, it is important to realize that promising to keep a secret is not a demonstration of maturity, but actually quite childish. As a businessperson, your success depends upon flexibility. Decisions made in 1982, while accurate at the time may no longer fit the business in the year 2000. You would be foolish to hold to old decisions just because you once made a promise. You are just as foolish to keep a secret just because you want to maintain an image of consistency.

Emerson once wrote, “foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” To make a promise to keep a secret in the first place is foolish, but you double your foolishness by keeping the secret when the evidence shows how damaging it can be. To cover for an alcoholic in the family business brings destruction on everyone. To withhold information from your spouse because one of the children has asked you is disrespectful of your spouse and the child’s ability to handle the problem out in the open.

Oh what a tangled web we weave . . .

There may be short-term gain in keeping secrets, but the long-term outcome is not worth the risk, especially when working with the ones you love. Openness in all things is the answer, even if it is embarrassing, anger-provoking, or hurtful. Don’t keep secrets, but if you already have, break them. Admit your failure, apologize to those you have lied to and make a promise you can live with. That is, promise to be responsible for your own actions, and allow others access to their own destiny through the truth.

Kathy J. Marshack, Ph.D., P.S. Licensed Psychologist and Family/Business Consultant is the author of ENTREPRENEUERIAL COUPLES: Making It Work at Work and at Home (Davies-Black, Palo Alto, 1998). She can be reached at (360) 256-0448 or www.kmarshack.com.

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Are You An Entrepreneur?


By Kathy J. Marshack, Ph.D., P.S.

Oddly this question came to me while I was attending a conference on entrepreneurship and small business in San Antonio in February. The reason this is odd is that there were few entrepreneurs in the audience. Instead the attendees were professors of business schools from across the country. These are the professors at prestigious business schools such as Harvard, the University of Michigan, Stanford, and UCLA that teach courses on business, marketing and management. They even teach courses on entrepreneurship, but most of these professors don’t own their own enterprise. They study entrepreneurs. They develop theory about entrepreneurs. They even teach courses for entrepreneurs, but they don’t “walk the talk.”

Until fairly recently entrepreneurship has not even been a topic of conversation in the nation’s top business schools, for the simple reason that business schools are primarily about training professional managers and future professors. The graduate students from these schools go on to work in corporate America, working their way up the career ladder, hoping to reach the presidency some day, or at least earn a key to the executive washroom. It’s not that these professional managers are not talented, nor that they lack leadership qualities. They are creative and innovative too. However, they are not entrepreneurs.

If you are an entrepreneur, or are married to one, or know one personally, chances are the entrepreneur did not go to business school. Or if they did, they dropped out (i.e. Bill Gates) when they learned that business school was not going to open the doors of opportunity. A few entrepreneurs managed to stay to graduation, but they were probably bored out of their minds, just biding their time until they could do what they really wanted to do. My brother-in-law Rick is like this. To please his father, he went to law school, even joined a law firm after graduation. However, soon he realized that he was too restless to work for anyone else. Before he turned 30, he was heading up his own firm and well close to achieving his dream of being a multi-millionaire.

True entrepreneurs don’t come from business schools. They come from engineering, medicine, anthropology, the arts (all of them), psychology, computer sciences. They are liberal arts majors, history majors, athletes, general studies majors, high school graduates, even high school dropouts. They come from all walks of life and have as varied life experiences as is humanly possible. This is why the entrepreneur has been so hard to define. You just can’t fit them into a category. Psychologists have been trying to do this for years, but there is no reliable personality test for the traits of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs aren’t a type of person. They are people who are entrepreneurial.

The closest I can come to defining the entrepreneur is that this person has vision. They are able to see the big picture like no one else. And they are determined to accomplish their vision. In other words they are extremely hardworking and tenacious. They are no more intelligent than others; no more creative either. But this vision is a special gift that puts the entrepreneur light years ahead of the ordinary person. With vision the entrepreneur is able to see opportunity before others.

Even more important than vision is purpose. The vision is a like a bright beacon that guides the entrepreneur toward his or her goals. However, to determine those goals in the first place, the entrepreneur has to have purpose. Most entrepreneurs will tell you that they “just had to do it.” They have known what they were about since they were children. Their purpose is not always clearly defined in a business plan, but they have been pursuing it nevertheless. The successful entrepreneur is true to his or her purpose for a lifetime, regardless of the enterprise they engage in.

One local entrepreneur loved to build things as a little boy. He went on to get a degree in engineering and eventually started a manufacturing plant. But his purpose is deeper than that. He doesn’t just like to build things; he has to. And he doesn’t just like to build things; he has to contribute to the community. Although this man is an engineer by education and training, he is really a builder of ideas.

Not all entrepreneurs are millionaires either. Another local entrepreneur is a minister and artist. Since she was a little girl she loved to draw and paint and sculpt. She never really fit into the mainstream, but she always blamed it on her dysfunctional family. Now she realizes that she was preparing herself to carry out an important purpose in life. Through art (her own and that of those she counsels) she helps people discover their spiritual mission.

The saving grace of the conference was the noon keynote speaker on Friday, Marjorie Alfus. I was so inspired by Marjorie’s speech, that I jumped to my feet after her talk and started a standing ovation. At 78 years of age, Marjorie epitomizes the American Entrepreneur. Although she has made her wealth and could retire, she can’t stand being bored. She is taking her twentieth century entrepreneurial experiences and translating them into the twenty-first century, by creating a web business. Marjorie made her wealth by outsourcing and just-in-time inventory, when other twentieth century entrepreneurs were putting their money into brick and mortar. Now she can use that good common sense to succeed at her new venture, www.golfgizmos.com. With a modem, fax and world wide merchandising contacts, Marjorie will probably clean up.

If you don’t have a knack for vision or you are not sure of your purpose, take heart. You may still be an entrepreneur who is holding back. It takes a lot of courage to follow your heart and create a dream that no one else can see or support. All entrepreneurs have one more thing in common. Before they are successful, no one really understands them, but with success they are much appreciated.

Kathy J. Marshack, Ph.D., P.S., Licensed Psychologist and Family/Business Consultant is the author of ENTREPRENEURIAL COUPLES: Making It Work at Work and at Home (1998, Davies-Black). She can be reached at (360) 256-0448 or www.kmarshack.com.

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It takes three things to be a successful business woman leader


By Kathy J. Marshack, Ph.D., P.S.

What does it take for a woman to be a successful business leader in Clark County? I have been pondering that question for some time. It’s not that I don’t know what it takes to be a leader. It’s just that the qualities of leadership are not defined by gender.

What we psychologists know about women leaders is that they don’t test out any differently than men leaders on various personality characteristics. As entrepreneurs or business leaders both women and men are achievers, driven, tenacious, and independent. They are both unafraid of hard work. They strive for excellence in whatever they undertake. They can be impatient with the insecurities of others because these insecurities slow down the process. On the other hand these leaders are very good at encouraging excellence in others because they have a powerful belief in their cause. Leaders also believe in their abilities to accomplish whatever they put their minds too. This is probably the defining characteristic of leaders. Strong belief creates charisma and charisma creates followers.

So if female leadership and male leadership are not really different what does it take for a woman to be a successful business leader in Clark County? What I realized as I sifted through the characteristics of leaders is that the difference between male and female leaders may be in how those characteristics were acquired. In other words, women business leaders probably developed their leadership from quite different life experiences than their male counterparts. And these life experiences do distinguish leadership styles if not the basic leadership qualities.

Before exploring those typical female experiences that encourage leadership it is important to understand that a leader is born with something special. Just as one child seems particularly athletic and another child more musical, even as toddlers, parents are aware of leadership abilities in their child at a relatively young age. When I was six my parents attended the open house held at my school. They toured my classroom and admired the work of all of the children, but of course were particularly proud of little Kathy’s accomplishments. But what impressed them most and is a family story to this day, is when the class of six-year-olds assembled ourselves into an orchestra with our rhythm instruments and performed for our parents. Little Kathy wasn’t playing the maracas, or the triangle, or even the drums. No little Kathy was the conductor!

People either have leadership ability or they don’t, and you can see the quality almost from birth. But that doesn’t mean all people born with this quality become leaders. The quality needs to be nurtured for it to grow and flourish. Just as soccer camp and piano lessons nurture the young athlete and young musician, so must parents help their young leader find experiences to help her hone this skill. For girls and women this is not always easy since our cultural model for leadership is male.

To be female and to be a leader usually means heartache for girls before they come to accept how unusual they are and consider it an advantage. I would wager that most of the women business leaders in Clark County can relate to this. How many of you felt like an odd ball growing up? Over the years how many of you have been told you were too aggressive or unfeminine? How many of you outperformed your male colleagues only to watch the men be promoted at your expense?

I laugh now at the angry epithet thrown at me by my ex-husband shortly before our divorce. He said, “Do you know what’s wrong with you? Do you really want to know what’s wrong with you?”

I thought, “Well why not?” so I yelled back, “What . . . what do you think is wrong with me?”

He snarled with confidence, “What’s wrong with you is that you think like a man!”

Being only 22 at the time, I didn’t really understand what he meant, although I knew he didn’t like me for some reason. But I was confused about what was wrong with my thinking. And I wondered if I did indeed think like a man, was that really so bad? And maybe what he meant is that I think for myself, or think I should be able to whenever I want to. Is that thinking like a man, or like an independent person?

Since then whenever I have told this story to a group I have noticed that the women leaders laugh because they have similar stories to tell. Women leaders who have overcome their fear of thinking like a man, ore behaving like a man, know they are women. Furthermore they know that each woman leader is a unique human being who brings her own particular personality to the organization she is leading. Like male leaders, female leaders are more definable by their leadership qualities than their gender.

For girls to grow up to be successful women business leaders they must conquer the fear of being unfeminine. The same qualities of leadership that are demonstrated by the boys in class are considered inappropriate for girls. So unlike boys who are leaders and encouraged to be leaders, girls who are leaders must pursue leadership by breaking the rules. If you don’t like breaking the rules, you can’t be a leader if you are female.

In a recent psychology study, participants were asked to describe the qualities of a male leader. They listed such qualities as strong, decisive, charismatic, aggressive, goal oriented, tall and so forth. When a separate group was shown this list of characteristics and told that this described a woman, the participants considered her unfeminine, unlikable, angry and manipulative.

I have had more than one job where I outperformed my co-workers. When I was just 19 I was a salesclerk for a department store. I worked in any department that needed an extra hand and one day they assigned me to Men’s Wear. I remember having fun helping customers find just the right suit with shirt and tie to match. I had never worked in this department before so it was a challenge. By the end of the day I was surprised to learn that I had sold more merchandise than any other salesperson. Thinking that this would make the supervisor happy you can imagine my dismay when I was told that I could no longer work in that department because I was considered too pushy.

Again how many of you have similar stories to tell from childhood or youth? The problem isn’t having these experiences. The problem is what to do with them. If girls are to grow into leaders and if women who are hiding their leadership abilities are to come out of the closet, then they need to be willing to rise above these negative female stereotypes. And they need to break some rules. In the case of the department store that couldn’t see the advantage of my sales skills, I didn’t give up. I just recognized that I was underemployed. By the time I was 30 I had had so many of these experiences that I decided to start my own business.

In a nutshell the answer to this question is that to be a Woman Leader in Clark County, and anywhere else for that matter, requires that you “think like a man,” that you are “pushy,” and that you “break the rules.” At least that is how many women leaders are seen. However, I prefer to put a feminist spin on this definition and to relieve future women leaders of some old sexist baggage. For the twenty-first century to be a Woman Leader in Clark County requires (1) pride in independent thinking, (2) fearless determination to accomplish your goals, and (3) a willingness to create opportunities where others see limitations.

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Can competition at work cost you your marriage?


By Kathy J. Marshack, Ph.D., P.S.

Toni and Vance were really startled by how quickly their marriage was disintegrating after they started their small business together. They loved and enjoyed each other tremendously before they opened their shop but after working together for less than a year their relationship was tense and loving communication had ground to a painful halt. They considered that the stress of a start-up was getting to the two of them. They took a short vacation to the coast to get away from it all and found that they could indeed enjoy each other again. Yet when they returned to work, the tension started to build again. Why couldn’t they keep the positive feelings alive?

Working together long hours to make a new business successful certainly can be a reason that a marriage starts to fail, but there’s more to this problem than most young or even seasoned entrepreneurs take into consideration. The major reason entrepreneurial couples begin to experience the loss of love in their relationship is that the worlds of work and home are radically different in many ways. Think about it. The world of work is where we kick into high gear; where we drive ourselves to succeed; where we thrive on competition; where we want to express our talents in concrete ways such as producing a sale or a piece of art. The world of home, on the other hand is where we seek comfort, love and safety; where we nurture our loved ones and want their nurturing; where we kick back instead of into high gear.

There are similarities between these two worlds such as the facts that both require attending to details; that both require teamwork; and that both require problem solving. But the essential difference that can lead to marital failure is that work is the world of competition and home is the world of nurturing. All of us look forward to relaxing at home at the end of a hard day of competition in the work world. We want to regale our families with our accomplishments, our “coups,” but after that we really want to take off our suits of armor and put on something more vulnerable.

When a couple works together both at home and at work, they can become confused about the roles they should play in both of these worlds. Often the aggressive pull of success and the push of competition eradicate the more subtle pull of love. Only when pushed by a chronic lack of intimacy or the pain of impending divorce, does the couple begin to recognize that they have lost something precious.

How does this problem begin? It’s pretty simple really. Most of you picked your spouse because you love her or him, because he or she makes you laugh, because he or she is a “knock out.” It is very unlikely that you chose your spouse as you would an employee or a business partner. You probably weren’t thinking about money or competition or how to advance your career when you married. And when you set up housekeeping together you probably didn’t write up a business plan to make your little love nest profitable.

Neither were you concerned about marketing, designing your letterhead, or the tax ramifications of an LLC. Instead your attention was on how to make the other person happy and how happy they made you feel. You sought affection, emotional support, and intellectual compatibility. Even sharing the household chores was not a major item on your list. Those things got taken care of somehow. And when it came to decision making, sometimes he got his way and sometimes she did.

As marital partners the more easy going style of most American couples will work fine as long as you don’t become business partners. When a couple crosses that line into the world of work by becoming business partners, they must be prepared to do some major alterations to the relationship. In marriages where husband and wife both have a career but they don’t work together, it is much easier to switch hats from work persona to home persona. You give your spouse a kiss goodbye in the morning and go on your separate ways for the day. You may make a phone call midday to catch up on private matters or just to say hello, but essentially your activities and identity are solidly ensconced in your work world. When you return home, you give your spouse a kiss, change your clothes, do a little catching up on each other’s day, and prepare the evening meal together. At home your activities and identity are defined by your home world and your relationships with your spouse and children.

In other words for couples who don’t work together, they have an independent identity at work and a partnership identity at home. With career-minded people the work identity is also a leadership one, involving authority for decision making. At home, these same independent leaders switch hats to become equal partners who share in the decision making. This is the norm in most American homes of dual-career couples. The problem arises when these equal home partners go to work with each other, either expecting to be equal partners at work too, or expecting to each be the decision maker as if they worked separately.

When you worked apart you may have enjoyed your spouse’s stories of work achievements. You may even have taken pride in how aggressive or decisive your spouse was in his or her career. However, when you work together, that strong aggressive leadership quality may now look like arrogance. The two of you may tangle because you expect to be included in decisions that your spouse has already run with. When you come home at the end of your workday, you may feel that you have had enough of your spouse for one day. You don’t desire anymore togetherness if you have to be bullied or ignored.

At least this is how it can go if you don’t pay attention to the different roles husbands and wives play in the different worlds of work and home.

The solution first is to acknowledge that these two worlds are very different. Second recognize that daily conscious effort is required on your part to maintain a harmonious relationship with your spouse. If the two of you enjoy being equal partners at home, and wish to try being equal partners at work, then consciously design a work partnership where decision making is equal on at least the major decisions. This makes some things move more slowly, but it can be very effective for keeping love alive. If you are comfortable being home partners, but really prefer one person leadership at work, then acknowledge that too and set it up that way. No sense in trying to be equal partners at work, when one or both of you would gladly defer decision making responsibility to the other spouse. If you are somewhere in between these two styles, play with the structure for awhile until you discover what works in your marriage/business partnership.

Bringing competition home is probably the worst thing you can do for a marriage. Keep competition and achievement needs at work. When you work with your spouse in your own enterprise, keep in mind that you will be crossing the competition barrier daily. It is hard to stay kind and loving with the one you are competing with. We tend to take competition personally. The following are some ways to diffuse the tension of competition between spouses:

  • Set up separate work areas within the business.
  • Reward each other often for your individual successes.
  • Take breaks from each other often. Make a clean break from work at the end of the day. This latter recommendation is vital. Do not discuss work at all at home if your business requires that both spouses be leaders and you are both highly independent and headstrong (sound like anyone you know?).

The most important thing to remember when you work together is why you chose your spouse in the first place. This is someone you love and trust and want to spend the rest of your life with. These qualities are not bad either for the kind of person you want as someone to help you build your dream in business.

Kathy J. Marshack, Ph.D., P.S., Licensed Psychologist and Business Consultant is the author of ENTERPRENEURIAL COUPLES: Making It Work at Work and at Home (Davies-Black, 1998). She can be reached at (360) 256-0448 or www.kmarshack.com

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