DARE - Because Entrepreneurs Do

How to make it work?
It all starts with respect. This rule of personal relationship also applies in the professional sphere. “Respect is another name for love. It is hard not to love someone if you respect him/her,” says Dr Rajendra K Misra, practicing Psychologist in the US. He adds that giving each other personal space by having overlapping schedules and not same work hours may work well. “Offering your spouse a cup of coffee, without him/her asking for it, dusting her/his work-desk, without re-arranging things, and giving her/him a peck on the cheek whenever you accidentally bump into each other are sweet gestures of love,” says Misra.

Respect is also about understanding each other’s professional compulsions and not making a fuss about it. “If Kaushal has to take a call from the client at 3 am, I would not crib about it. I know the expectations of the business. Similarly, if I am at office at 2 am, Kaushal would not tell me that I have to come back and look after the children,” says Parul of Motif.

“We would want the young entrepreneurs to understand that although time together is important, so is not crowding each other. As a couple, we need to work together very well with well-defined roles and boundaries,” says Upendra Giri who co-founded AstoWix, a project management firm, with his wife Seema. Clarity of roles at work makes things easier. Agrees Anupama of Mobera Systems, it was soon after she and her husband Puneet started out that they realized there were things to be worked out. “We can’t be just shooting off in whatever direction. If we were venturing into each other’s territory, we had to find a way out,” she adds.

Couple entrepreneurs can induce a lot of confidence among VCs and employees that they are there for the long haul. K Ganesh TutorVista

Preeti and Rohit Gupta, co-founders, Pragma Communication, a public relations firm, preferred to undergo counseling to have a more clear perspective on what theywere planning to do. The counseling session helped them with a key input towards avoiding inter-personal conflicts, dividing tasks between them and maintaining a clean overlap between their activities. Having well-defined corporate governance code can send out the message that despite having a team of husband-wife entrepreneurs at work, there is no place for nepotism in the company. In their startup, it was clear that Ganesh, despite being the CEO, would not apprise his wife Meena, the COO of the company. Instead, they have a director on the board to do the job.

Having appropriate conflict resolution mechanisms in place also helps a lot. But it requires open communication and trust, with each partner willing to part with some authority. If both look at the bigger picture, ie, the growth and the best interests of the company, it would be easier to resolve issues. “Sometimes agree to disagree,” says Kaushal. He cites an example of one such incident relating to having a dress code for Motif employees. Parul and the HR department believed that employees should have a dress code. Kaushal, however, was in disagreement. After a meeting of the senior management that saw a 50:50 division, Kaushal agreed to disagree, and the dress code came into existence at Motif.

Challenges
It is not always easy to keep your personal and professional relationship separate. Many a times, personal differences could spill over and spoil a mature professional relationship. Both partners would need mental maturity to be able to thrash the personal or work-related differences out through effective communication.

Keeping work out of home could be another big challenge. Says Anupama, “The harder thing for me to do was to put a boundary around work. I personally tend to think and talk about work a lot. And Puneet is good at saying it ends for me here and I am switched off for the day.” She adds that she had to work on it to ensure that she did not make it an all-consuming thing.

Sometimes challenges could be a blessing in disguise and could strengthen the bond. “Having worked together, we both eliminated our respective differences and the bond between us has matured and grown stronger. I would say that the quality of our personal lives has improved drastically since we started working together,” says Preeti.

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