When the two people who run a company start arguing about strategy every week, the strategy is often not what they are fighting about. The argument is about who gets to decide, and neither of them has said so. My rule for any partnership at the top of a company is simple: say out loud who decides what, and say it again every time one of you grows.
That is worth a few minutes of your week because the arrangement between partners usually gets made early and never gets looked at again. A recent column in Psychology Today on founder partnerships describes the pattern well. In the first months, partners work out who leads and who defers without ever saying it, and when one of them outgrows that arrangement, the fight moves somewhere easier to have. Strategy is about the safest topic a leadership team has.
The deal nobody wrote down
Every partnership has one. One of you leads with customers while the other runs the numbers, or one of you has the last word on hiring and the other on money. It worked, so nobody wrote it down.
Then the company grows, and so do the people in it. The partner who used to defer on sales now has a view on sales, and a good one. The partner who used to make every call is now the reason calls wait a week. The old deal says one thing and the work says another, and because talking about power feels personal, the two of you argue about the budget instead.
Watch what keeps coming back
Pay attention to what people do more than what they say. In a partnership, what they do is the pattern of the arguments. If the same disagreement keeps returning on different subjects, the hiring plan in March and the pricing change in May and the new market in July, it is probably not about any of those.
Ask each partner, separately, which decisions they believe are theirs. Where the answers overlap, you have two people who both think they hold the pen. Where there is a gap, decisions sit until somebody gets frustrated enough to make them. Either way, you have found the argument.
The column makes a point worth repeating about why this stays hidden: partners talk to each other in targets, roadmaps and tasks, and none of those leaves room for one partner to say they have outgrown the role they agreed to play. So it comes out sideways, as a fight about something else.
Agree the roles again, in plain words
The column's advice is close to what I would tell any two partners: one direct conversation, then a specific change in who decides what, written down and reviewed. My addition is where it lives. Put the result where your managers can see it, and put the review date on the calendar before you leave the room.
The conversation itself does not need to be long. Before you sit down, do what the column suggests and think back on what you counted on your partner for at the start and what you gave in return. Then, together, say what has changed, agree who makes the final call on the decisions that matter, and do the thing you said you would do.
Your managers need one answer
The cost of an unsettled deal does not stay between the two partners. When the people at the top disagree about who decides, everyone below them learns to take a question to whichever partner is more likely to say yes. Decisions slow down, good managers start picking sides, and the agreed path the company is supposed to be walking turns into two paths.
Purpose comes from working toward a goal you agreed on together, whether the other person is your boss, your peer or someone who reports to you. A partner is no different. Agreeing the roles again is how both of you get back to working on the same goal, and how your managers get one answer.
When roles are not the problem
Sometimes two partners agree completely on who decides and still disagree about where the company is going. That is a vision problem, and no change to the roles will fix it. Settle the destination first, then the roles.
And if you have redrawn the roles twice in a year and they still do not hold, the question is bigger than who decides. It may be whether the partnership still fits, and that deserves its own conversation, with your advisors in the room.
Start with a list of ten decisions
This week, each of you write down the ten decisions that matter most for the next year. Next to each one, write the name of the person who makes the final call. Then compare the two lists. Where the names match, leave it alone. Where they do not, that is your first conversation.
The same rule holds one level down, which is why I wrote about getting a decision from the leadership team through managers to the work. Agreeing who owns what is the first step in how an engagement works, before any plan gets written. If you and your partner keep having the same argument, I am glad to talk it through.
John Wyatt · John Wyatt's page · All posts · RSS