Being Proactive About Business Owner Relationships Could Save Your Business - Michel Zelnick (J0317)

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To match with a licensed therapist today, go to Talkspace.com and enter promo code S80. Welcome to the Exit Coach Radio show, the show for baby boomer business owners who are looking for cutting edge information as they plan their 3 to 10 year business succession and exit. Every week we interview top professional advisors for their best tips, strategies, and precautions so you can be well planned. And don't miss our one minute exit coach tip of the day on Exit coach. Radio.com. And now here's your host, the exit coach, Bill Black. Welcome back, everyone. I would like to introduce my next guest is Michelle Zelnick from the Zelnik Group from La Jolla, and, uh, Michelle is a business therapist, and he's gonna talk to us about why business partnerships and family businesses fail and how he helps them out. Michelle, welcome to the show. Thank you. Nice to be here. Ah, we always like to start off, ah, by asking our guests something about their background and some, ah, how you got into this profession and this particular line of work, Michelle. So tell us about yourself. Sure, um, I started my career, um, in the business side. I was, I'm a former CPA, um, attorney and a, uh, and a business leader, and then. After about 20 years, I decided to make a change and so interestingly enough, I just became a couples therapist and so for the last 10 years I've been doing couples therapy and one of the things I noticed is that uh there's a lot of common themes that happen between what business partners and and families and relationships and so I tried. I, I thought I'd just transition and see if this would apply to business relationships, and darn if it didn't. Well, they're, they're all people, right? Right. They all have issues. So what are, uh, what's a common problem that you find a business partner would have with, with their other, with their partner? So it comes down to the same things as with personal relationships, you know, communication, not understanding each other, uh, trust breaking down. Ah, and then, you know, sometimes it's just simple things of respect and feeling unrespected and, ah, and just they need a way to work together to rebuild it, but they just, you know, they simply can't do it together or alone. So things start off well, always, right? And, um, oftentimes, uh, time goes by and maybe one person's not pulling their weight or the other one feels like they're not. People often ask me what's the, what's what's the most common thing that I see and it's usually first of all, feeling underappreciated, uh, but most often it's just an imbalance between what people feel they're contributing and, and, and what they're what they're getting paid, either a percentage of ownership or whatever and and it's just as, you know, circumstances change, people change. And usually people go in together fifty-fifty or whatever the relationship is, and then things just change over time and and they don't make those changes as they go and then eventually one or more partners are just unhappy with the situation and but they, you know, and then they want to generate a change. Is is there's a what's what's referred to as a 7 year itch in a marriage. Is there a 7 year itch in a partnership situation? You know, it's not 7, but there is. I mean, my, my common, common client, you know, attributes are they've been together for 10 or 20 years, usually a round number. Uh, and, and, uh, and they're often 40 or 50 or 60 years old, uh, and they're at a point where they, they, uh, they just need to make a change and, uh, and it's just simply look I, I just noticed over time that that's just the common theme. It's so, so knowing that there might be some preventative things that they should think about at intervals maybe. Leading up to those time frames, so maybe hopefully to avoid those types of situations, what are some things people can do to avoid some of these pitfalls? Well, first of all, you know, as you get frustrated, uh, what happens is we speed up, and so what you need to do is slow down, uh, you know, your own, your own reactivity contributes to the problem, you know, we get, we get expedient and then what happens is the best version of ourselves have to be there to address the situation, but it's not there and so it's, it's, it's an irony. The best version of you has to be there, but it's not there and so you have to sort of increase your tolerance, uh, for certain situations. That's one, and then secondly, um, you know, take responsibility for your own contributions. No one's blameless and but we tend to focus on the other person and the minute you focus on the other person, um, you know, then, then really the situation just got whack because everyone thinks they're right. Um, and then, uh, thirdly, you know, just take time to understand the other partner's issues. Uh, most people just don't feel understood and, and they spend their time shouting at each other thinking that that'll that'll get there. Um, and then, you know, keep your role separate and clear, uh, being an owner, being a partner. Uh, being a leader, being a family member, they're separate roles, and they have separate demands, and people often confuse them and then they, the roles get all mixed up and, and lastly focus on the future because the past is the past and, and, uh, when you focus on the past, then, then you're really disregarding what it is you need to do to go forward and I help, I try to help my clients do that. Well, some of that's easy to say but hard to do, isn't it? I mean, especially the role playing your roles at the office versus especially if you're, ah, married to the person and, and now it's even more complex, or their sons or daughters or other children are involved, um, how do people, uh, segregate their roles? Are there, are there specific exercises that you find are helpful for that type of a thing? It's interesting. It's something that I sort of come up with over time I actually tell people to wear different hats when you're a business owner. Uh, you're an owner. That's a legal relationship. Uh, I own 50%, you own 50%. That's, that's determined by law. But as a leader, that's more subjective. Who's running things? And so I can own something but answer the phone, right? Uh, the third role which I try to keep separate is what is my economic value of my contribution? In other words, again, I could be answering the phone and you could be running the business. I'm still a 50% owner, but my economic value is different. And the and the and the real, um, you know, sort of fly in the ointment is, is that when you're a family member because, uh, that'll distort things because somebody could be a family member and often they'll either be over or underpaid just based on the fact that they're family members or have a role that's greater and you have to separate those roles because otherwise that role would make no sense if it wasn't your son or wasn't your father. What about the conflicts when you see, let's say 2 or 3 children in a business and dad's starting to think about who's going to take over? Do you run into that a lot as far as who's, uh, uh, I, I mean I've run into some situations where they want to do a committee, and that's not, you know, that's too many cooks, ah. In the kitchen, right? Absolutely. And, and again, uh, unfortunately, you may be, you may again as you may be equal as owners. Let's say there's in the in the typical example there'll be 3 kids, 3 kids in their 40s or 50s, 3 kids having shared ownership, but in terms of who's the best qualified to run the business and what is the economic contribution they make, that that is really where often people get stuck. But in reality, if you keep those things separate, uh, then it's more palatable to let one sibling run and not run the business, but people have to feel like they're being treated fairly. Absolutely. So what we're gonna do is, um, we're gonna take a short break, Michelle. It's been, this is, this is fast. I could talk about this for hours because of the situations I've seen and it's so important to have someone to come in and, and help people deal with these issues. We're going to take a short break and when we come back we're going to talk with Michelle Zelnick of the Zelnik Group about some stories, some tips, ideas, and precautions so our listeners can get some real good ideas from you, ah, and we'll be back after this moment. Your place of business is your company's image to the outside world and an essential part of your company's culture to your employees. It's also one of the biggest expenses on your profit and loss statement, so spare yourself the exasperation of spending countless hours of your staff's time finding the right location and negotiating in the dark with more than 30 years of experience in the commercial real estate industry. Can trust Aaron Weiner from Baylis and Associates to be your advocate for mission critical real estate decisions. Call Aaron Weinner at 310-445-4303. Want to grow the value of your company? Start with the values of your company. To stand out in today's overly commoditized world, your company must stand for something. Bigger than what you make. That's the work of Values Institute. Our social science model of values-based culture development will help you grow the value of your company by growing trust, your most valuable corporate asset. To learn more about our proprietary process, visit the Values Institute.org and start growing the value of your business today. Yeah, welcome back, friends. Just a reminder that to hear highlights of this interview and to listen to all the interviews and highlights of our many past guests, please visit us online at exaoachradio.com, where we upload new content every day at 6 a.m. and 1 p.m. I'm talking with Michelle Zelnick. He's a business therapist with the Zelnik Group, and Michelle, when you go into a situation, ah, there must be all kinds of different things we can talk about, but give us a story of someone who Ah, invited you to come in, what their situation was just generally, and, uh, how you helped them and, and how long did it take to produce an outcome. Sure, so, so, uh, recently I ended up working with two partners of a law firm who were quite successful in their practice, but were, were, were different enough that the differences between the two of them. Uh, was causing personality problems, um, almost like a Felix and Oscar of the odd couple, um, by the time I was introduced to them, uh, they were no longer speaking to each other. They had separate practices within, within their firm, and it was causing friction and silos within the firm so that half the half the staff worked for one, half the staff worked for the other. They were being disrespectful towards one another. And uh fortunately, uh, one of the partners met me and uh and persuaded the other partner that perhaps I might be able to help. And then what I did was I I basically I worked with them for about 3 months, uh, got a chance to understand their different perspectives and and how they got to where they are, uh, and then, and then from there sort of for lack of better word turned them into relationship athletes, uh, that is that, you know, being a, you know, being a business partner is a skill, uh, no different than being a lawyer or or being a radio broadcaster. And so, and, and those skills can be learned. Some people are naturally talented at collaborating with other people, but even those people, uh, could be, you know, to become athletes, uh, you know, need to actually perfect those skills and so that's, uh, that's what I try to teach them before we start even working together. So you would come in with them and teach them some uh training or some methods to train and and work up on this relationship athlete, which I like the term of that a lot, uh, and, uh, communication skills and then how long does it take to turn the ship or you know, what are the expectations as far as, uh, the ship, the ship turns relatively quickly, but it is. Ship and so uh my my first obligation is to uh make the partners feel safe with me and understand that that my only objective is is their endeavor, their success, uh, otherwise I I don't have a dog in the hunt. And so when they understand that and they trust me then they allow me to work with them to slowly change how they think about how they think, how they relate, and then how they relate to each other. And then believe it or not, it's like alchemy over time what happens over a relatively quick period of time they start feeling more hopeful about their situation and that sense of hope makes their interactions more positive. They, they no longer interpret their partner's behaviors as negatively and quickly, it's safer and then in and of itself, it creates a virtual cycle of good, you know, good interactions and then over time they just start to, you know, remember why they were partners. So addressing some of these issues early on, when's the right time for people to get involved with someone like you? When when's the first sign when they should probably start thinking about getting involved? When, you know, people usually call me and I'm usually the last person they call and they've usually exhausted every remedy before they, before they call me. Uh, an ideal situation is one when you start being uncomfortable and when you start running into situations where you're not talking about things that are important or you're talking to other. People and not each other and that's the first sign of trouble because what happens is from there people become more and more distant people become more and more uncomfortable and the people around you become uncomfortable and then it affects the entire organization. So the first sign is when I guess the day or the month that goes by where you, you try 2 or 3 times to talk about something important with your partner or your partners and you haven't been able to do it and you end up in the same place over and over again, you need somebody else to come in, someone like me to come in. And what's the first thing that you do with them when you, when someone calls you in? What's the first? Well, first of all, I try to assess the situation because frankly change is difficult and people only change when they have to, so I try to make sure that people are motivated. Uh, all the things I do if people aren't prepared to accept responsibility and and prepared to change, isn't gonna work. And so I try to qualify my clients to see how motivated they are to change and part of. Do with how much pain they're in and if people are in pain, you know, they'll go to the gym or they'll stop smoking or anything else. And so, uh, that's the first thing I look for. Uh, the second thing I look for is the person's capacity. Some people simply can't change, uh, or some people can't learn or and whatever, so I have to work with where people are at. But if I feel that people are all my clients are intelligent, all my clients are successful, they're just stuck about this one thing and they're confused because. I can't figure out why this thing isn't working when everything else works. And so once they sort of understand that this is different and they trust me, then from there we can do some really good work together. That it must be tremendously rewarding to, to know that you've fixed something that was, that was so uncomfortable and so broken, and especially when it involves a business because it does involve so much of a person's life in the in the day to day operations. If I were to ask you for some tips, ideas, or precautions for our listeners, um, what would you tell us as far as just some things that they should either look for or look out for? Well, again, like I mentioned earlier, it, it, you know, when you find yourself getting excited, you know, just slow down and listen. Uh, it's amazing how just listening to your partner and and stop, you know, stop trying to control the situation, how much that really helps reduce the amount of tension that happens between people and then just. Accepting the fact that and I get in these situations too, uh, where I simply have to accept my responsibility for the fact that I've contributed to this problem. I'm not necessarily, it's not about blame, but the fact that you and I are different than you and another person and so that special chemistry between us is both good and bad and but is unique and sort of look at it that way and say what is it I need to do to create that space between us so that we can be successful and then lastly really focus on the future because uh I find the one common thing that all my clients do. Is they focus on the past, which is nothing you can't do anything about it and we're always gonna argue about the past because who remembers anything accurately. If you get people to focus on the future, then you can see whether you should be together or not like any couple, right? Sometimes there's no reason to be together anymore, but you want to take the emotions out of it because at the end of the day, the business is your kid, right? The business is your children and for almost all my clients, their business is is one of the most important assets in their lives and you don't want to screw it up. Just because you're angry at somebody, you want to get away from what's right and wrong and fair. You want to figure out what is it that I need to do for me and my family to be successful. That makes a tremendous amount of sense, Michelle. I know that you work mainly with owners of companies and ah and patriarchs and families and things like that, but what's your take on some of the human engineering kind of surveys that are out there, for instance, the Brig Myers and the Colby's and the other things where, where people say, hey, let's get this employee to take this test. Let's see what kind of a team we have with these types of things. Can you validate those kinds of studies or do you use them yourselves or what do you think? I think they're really invaluable as part of a suite, right? There's some people that think that that answers everything. But I use the Myers Briggs, for example, uh, uh, but it is just a starting point because it is a way to create patterns because once you can show people what they do and what their, what their colleagues do is in the form of a pattern, then it depersonalizes it. So it's not about your character anymore. You and I are different. If you and I have different scores on the disc or the Myers-Briggs or any of these others, we can anticipate places where we would agree and disagree, cause problems for each other or not, even if we never had any history together. And once you pull that out. I, I, it's amazing how powerful that is for people to look at it in terms of patterns, not the person, and so that you can all of a sudden things become predictable and, and then, and then from there you can create tools to collaborate with each other. If for example you like to make decisions quickly and I take my time and everything, that's gonna cause problems between us. uh, but if we know that in advance, then, then we have, then we know that's gonna be a stressor, and then we can negotiate the best way to handle the problem. Absolutely in that in that way. We might know better how to train you based on how you receive information as well and not expect you to be a a quick decision maker. Maybe you need more, more details and facts before you get going, but you're gonna follow up on things really well. Exactly. And I think the mistake that's made often with these with these um instruments is that they reduce things, they put people in a box and then what happens is, is you say, well, you are this or you are that. And people stop listening, so you have to make sure that I have to make sure that my clients understand that it's a pattern. It represents preferences, things you're likely to do under pressure, things you prefer to do, but it doesn't describe you as a person and you are not those letters or those colors or whatever because sometimes it's treated as a weapon or an excuse and not a way to really understand each other. So the adviser has to really use these tools wisely. Excellent. Michelle, in the last minute we have here, um, how do people reach you? How do they find you, and what do they find when they get to your website, for instance? OK, so, uh, you can look, you can actually Google uh the Zelnikgroup.com. Uh, I'm in San Diego. Let's spell that out. Z E L N I C K. OK, the Zelnik Group. Um, I'm based in La Jolla, California, but I basically work all all over the Southwest and I have clients all over the country. If the stakes are high enough and, and, and the matter matters to you and, and the outcome is a bad one, if you can't figure out some way to talk to each other, it's usually worth bringing me in. Great, thank you very much for joining us today. I think a very fascinating interview. Um, this is a topic that, ah, I, I'm always interested in, and I hope you'll come back and join us again someday, ah. Thanks very much for coming on the show. I've been talking with Michelle Zelnick of the Zelnik Group. We're gonna take a short break and when we come back, our guest is gonna be John Brown of BEI so please stay tuned. Thank you for listening to Exit Coach Radio. It's true that some things change as we get older, but if you're a woman over 40 and you're dealing with insomnia, brain fog, moodiness, and weight gain, you don't have to accept it as just another part of aging. And with Miti Health, you can get help and stop pushing through it alone. The experts at Mitty understand that all these symptoms can be connected to the hormonal changes that happen around menopause, and Mittie can help you feel more like yourself again. 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