Throughout my entire adult career, I listened to many of my co-workers express that they could never work with their wives. I always thought that either that person could not separate their personal and professional life, or they simply did not understand business. Perhaps it was both. In any case, I worked with my wife at my side for 20 years and I can tell that if you can treat your wife like any other business partner, you will never find a more loyal partner.

YOUR WIFE AS A LIFE PARTNER AND AS A BUSINESS PARTNER
Your wife is your greatest advocate and there is nobody, not even your mother, that wants you to succeed more than your wife does. Moreover, your wife is loyal to you and does not think in terms of self interest when she is working with you as would another business partner. Your wife has the strongest sense of “we’re in this together” that you will ever encounter because she understands deeply how much is depending on your success. And if you think that, as a businessman, you can be ruthless, just watch a woman who is protecting her family or her husband when she feels they are being threatened. Nobody will watch your back better than your wife.

CLEARLY DEFINED ROLES AND AUTHORITY
The most important aspect of working with your spouse is to have clearly defined roles and lines of authority. This must be discussed thoroughly and a commitment must be made that while at work you must not allow yourselves to fall into the roles that you play at home. I once made the mistake of circumventing a business process that we had developed because I wanted to meet the needs of a customer. However, it put a dent in our inventory tracking, disrupted our service tech scheduling and generally caused about 3 hours of additional labor costs to fix. She let me have it, too. Right in my office.

And I dared not say one word in my defense because I was wrong. Interestingly enough, she never once circumvented me. The point is, with clear lines of authority and responsibility, it is much easier to manage your personal and professional lives. It sends a clear message to your employees, too. The last thing you want is for the authority wielded by your spouse to be demeaned through the lens of nepotism. It is your responsibility as a leader to ensure that this does not happen.

BEING PROFESSIONAL
As my wife and I started our second business (we sold our first), we truly had developed a mutual respect for one another and what we brought to the business separately and as a whole. In fact, we never called one another “Dear” or “Honey”. We absolutely maintained an atmosphere of professionalism with little conscious effort. I became quite aware of this one day as I was having a conversation with an employee who had been with us for about six months. We were having a casual conversation when she commented that she thought it was great that I car pooled with our Director of Operations.

I replied “well, there is no point in taking two cars” when she asked how long we had been working together and how we split gas, etc. She was thinking of car pooling with one of the other people in the office. I suddenly realized that this new employee had no idea that the Director of Operations and I were husband and wife. I was absolutely astonished, but replied that we pretty much split out expenses down the middle. About a week later, this same employee let me know she had found out and we had a good laugh. Mission accomplished.

KEEPING IT AT WORK
Finally, what happens at work remains at work and this is admittedly not easy. My ego got bruised the day my wife yelled at me in my office. And when we got home that night I wanted to let her know it. I began to speak to her about how she had undermined my authority, etc. And this was when my wife really showed me how much she was committed to our agreement. She listened supportively we were preparing dinner.

After I was finished, she turned to me with a supportive gaze and said to me “it really sounds like your Director of Operations is a real bitch, but your company seems to be running pretty well. You could get rid of her if you can’t handle a strong personality but you better ask yourself one question”. And it was here that she looked down into her wine and then gave me a look that had steel in it. “How would you feel if she went to work for the competition?”. I considered that for about a nano-second. “You’re right honey”, I said. “ I am going to go into the office tomorrow and give that woman a raise to make sure she never leaves…”

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