Helping a frayed partnership find a harmonious solution
At a glance
When a three-way partnership at the helm of a fast-growing marketing research firm began to dissolve, Centrum Associates helped the owners strike the balance that enabled each to find a satisfactory resolution and the company to accelerate its growth and success.
A partnership fallen out of symmetry
After eight years of joint ownership, the three partners of a strategic marketing research consultancy found they had diverged in their passion and vision for the business.
“One of my partners was burned out,” recalled the founder and CEO, who frequently found herself at odds with the third partner.
“It had gotten to where we couldn’t make decisions independently,” she recounted. “Everything had to be run by all three partners, so we’d typically go with the least painful option.”
Frustrated with the continued opposition to her ambitious plans for the business, the CEO resolved to buy out her two partners—even though the third partner had voiced her preference for a 50-50 partnership.
“I had no idea how to do it,” said the CEO. “We had eight years of hard conversations and frustrated feelings.”
The search for an equitable solution
The CEO decided to engage a mediator. “I wanted someone to come in and just listen to the conversation,” she recounted.
After preliminary meetings with several mediators, she reached out to Centrum Founder and Managing Principal Jeff Husserl.
“Jeff stood out immediately,” she said. “He was incredibly thoughtful, but he also asked me some pretty hard questions. I appreciated that—I wanted someone who was going to be fair to the three of us. It was clear that he wasn’t simply going to do my bidding.
“Jeff told me that I needed to put my agenda to the side,” she recalled. “He said there might be a way forward that would be less financially and emotionally painful…a way for us to work together harmoniously. I liked that kind of honesty.”
Husserl’s candor was in sharp contrast to the mediators the CEO had previously considered. “The others we talked to told me, ‘Sure, we’ll get you out of there,’ without really thinking everything through,” she recounted. “I appreciated Jeff’s more thoughtful approach.”
Striking balance
“Jeff understood what we were going through and recognized not just the logistical challenges but the emotional underpinnings,” said the CEO. “He wasn’t just mediating a contract—he was mediating personalities.”
Husserl’s decades of experience as a human resources executive and entrepreneur affords him a valuable perspective in mediating business conflict. “He could reference his own past, his challenges with former partners, his own journeys to business ownership,” recalled the CEO. “We all felt like we were talking to someone with a lot of empathy and appreciation for how difficult this was.”
Husserl guided the CEO and her partner to work their way to a harmonious resolution. “What he did was ingenious,” she recounted. “He showed us all the options—50-50 partnership, splitting the company in two, one of us becoming a minority partner, all sorts of scenarios—and then he led us through conversations that enabled my partner and me to close the door on one option after another.
“Each door we shut narrowed the path,” she continued, “and we finally got to where one of us would exit the company. My partner didn’t want to assume full ownership, so together we landed at our decision—and there was no longer any ambiguity.”
The CEO and her partner then entered several months of contract negotiations, which went smoothly because of the work that had preceded it. “There was never a point where my partner questioned the decision to leave,” the CEO noted, “and that was because Jeff was so thorough in walking us through every option until we ourselves saw that it was the only path forward.”
Extending the engagement
During the mediation, the CEO and her partner began leadership development coaching with Husserl. “Jeff had us do Hogan Assessments on our personalities, and we had 360 reviews with our staff to get data,” she said. “Jeff gave us the tools to measure and analyze ourselves, and that opened up a lot of good conversations. Our scores gave us a language to talk about that.”
The CEO continued to undergo leadership coaching after she had assumed full ownership of the company. “Now that I no longer had partners, Jeff provided an objective sounding board. He’d help me walk through the consequences of major decisions, again sharing his own business experience and perspective.”
The CEO has extended Husserl’s leadership coaching to a number of her top executives and re-engaged his mediation expertise to resolve an employee conflict to the satisfaction of all parties.
Results across a range of metrics
“Jeff has been an integral part of our business success for the last three years,” the CEO declared. “Since I took over the company shortly after Jeff started working with us, we doubled our revenue and our staff—all during the pandemic.”
The company’s staff has responded very positively to the change in leadership. An employee study conducted by MatchPace shows that 100 percent of the team feels that senior leadership is honest about the state of the business, and 92 percent feel the expectations held by senior leadership are clear. Honesty and trust rose more than ten points from 2020 to 2021 and the company successfully launched two new products.
“There are a few things I can point to that have made a direct and positive impact on my company,” declared the CEO. “Jeff and Centrum Associates are among them.”