Business…is personal.

Do you operate a business with one or more partners? Are you finding yourself beating your head against a wall? Do you find yourself telling yourself “It shouldn’t be this hard”?

It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that the host of preferences, biases, likes and dislikes that we bring into the world of our friendships and intimate relationships should bleed into our professional lives. What’s even more interesting, some people I’ve worked with find surprising how different they are at work versus with friends and family; this disparity between how different we are in certain social contexts is what can make it harder for us to recognize and find help for our interpersonal work behaviour — the very people we go to outside of work for guidance may not ever see it.

In the beginning, being in business with other people sounds great, right? Synergy! But, let’s face it, starting a business takes hundreds of hours before anyone can really know how prosperous it will be. There are bound to be disagreements, or even differences in philosophy. It can go deeper than that: what if your business partner has a habit of disappearing in the middle of the day without saying where they’re going? What if you find yourself becoming defensive and angry when someone is innocently seeking clarity on something innocuous? We reach a point where we stop and admit to ourselves: it shouldn’t be this hard.

Have you thought about Business Therapy?

Business Therapy is an initiative of mine to help people in business with each other find ways to work with issues that go beyond the nitty gritty of keeping the lights on. It is structured in a way that is open-ended and catered to your partnership’s needs, but is careful to look at all the angles. I draw from my extensive experience working with individuals and couples, from many walks of life, my training and independent study and in fields such as sports psychology, as well as from my twenty year history of project management prior to when I changed careers.

What kinds of issues can this address?

Relationships • Accountability • Communication Issues • Mediation • Anger Management • Why Can We Never Manage to Meet Regularly? • Workplace Compliance, among other concerns.

Note: if you’re looking for a business strategy/growth consultant, I would look elsewhere.

What’s my style?

Informal, curious and conversational. I’m not a financial analyst, however I care about the success of your company as well as the mental and emotional wellbeing of those who make up the ownership. While that might seem straight-forward, sometimes those two things — success and wellbeing — can come into conflict with each other. I want to know more. I want to hear about you and your partner(s), see how you are together in the same room, what you have to say and how you say it. As well as team sessions, having one-on-one sessions can also allow you, as individuals, to share more delicate aspects of your lives — family background, substance use, good ol’ childhood trauma — the sorts of things you may not want to spring on your business partners without getting a handle on it first. Unlike individual psychotherapy, which has a fairly standard structure, the way and shape of Business Therapy truly comes down to the situation at hand.

If you’d like to arrange for a session, or to get more information on how this might apply to your organization, please feel free to get in touch.

Please note: my no-charge initial consultation does not apply to Business Therapy. Thanks for understanding.