JOIN OUR RESEARCH

SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS COUPLES BOOK PROJECT

Introduction

Intimate Leadership: The Power of Couples in Business Together describes the phenomenon of the emergence of co-preneurial (couples partnering in self-employment ventures), co-executive (executive couples who own or work with different companies), and co-professional (professional couples in the same or different professions) couples. The 50 couples whose inspirational and instructive stories are featured in Intimate Leadership provide readers with new ways to create success in their personal, family and business lives. In addition to these valuable insights, Intimate Leadership offers provocative questions for readers to ask themselves.

The way couples work together in business today is strongly influenced by the interplay of numerous social forces over the last 30 years. Although co-preneurial couples make up a fast-growing sector of family businesses, data on these business owners is often difficult to locate. That's because businesses frequently list only one owner, while it is actually the couple who operates the business. Other couples may be either the same sex or not married, and reluctant to share or list that information.

The US Census 2002 Survey of Business Owners (SBO) shows that there were almost 2.7 million firms owned equally by males and females, with a total of $731.7 billion in receipts. The SBO Company Summary interprets these statistics on joint male/female-owned businesses in a different way: "Equally male/female-owned firms accounted for 11.7 percent of all businesses and 3.2 percent of all receipts." According to Valerie Strang, project manager for the 2002 study and section chief in the Census Bureau's Economic Census Branch, this statistic was calculated from a sample of 2.5 million businesses out of 23 million nationwide.

Entrepreneur Magazine (July 1, 2002) offers yet another tantalizing statistic: the Census Bureau noted that its 1997 survey counted 2 million husband-and-wife partnerships. According to published and unpublished data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 14.4 million US workers, or 10.5 percent of the workforce, were self-employed in incorporated or unincorporated businesses in 2002 (Monthly Labor Review, July 1, 2004).

Now that the Census Bureau is collecting and tabulating data that allows us to gain some insight into this fast-growing sector of our society, we will be able to draw comparative conclusions after the next census is complete. In the meantime, while the data certainly does not indicate that all 2.7 million male/female-owned firms were run by co-preneurs in 2002, it is quite possible that couples who own and operate businesses together comprise the majority of this population.

While there are not yet specific statistics on co-executive or co-professional couples, we do know that in March 2003 there were 26,445,000 married mothers with children under 18 in the United States. Of those, 66% (up from 60% in 1995) or 17, 383,000 were part of dual-career couples. And some percentage of those dual-career couples represents couples in business together.

There are many compelling reasons for couples to launch and develop businesses together. Corporate bureaucracy, alienation, downsizing and layoffs have pervaded all sectors of the economy, motivating people to reinvent themselves and to design more satisfying ways of working. One major contributing factor is the power of the Internet to support the development of global businesses. Another significant influence is the emerging voice and power of women and minority business owners. The growth of the entrepreneurial spirit over the last 20 years has inspired people to create meaningful work that nourishes their family and community life. In addition, younger men and women who are the sons and daughters of divorced parents have seen the demands of work tear their families apart. They are committed to creating a different experience for themselves and their own children. Finally, in this more complex and anonymous culture, couples need to be increasingly collaborative in raising children in a business environment, much akin to the cooperative lifestyle required in farm families and other family businesses of the past.

Who are these couples?

These couples are often successfully running one or more businesses, having an intimate relationship, raising a family and actively participating in their communities. They are heterosexual and same sex couples of all ages and backgrounds, in the U.S. and abroad, who have chosen to be both life and business partners. They may be copreneurial—creating and growing a business together—or they may be co-executive or co-professional couples.

Great satisfaction and big challenges coexist for these business couples. Some of the most satisfying aspects of copreneurial couples' lives are:

		sharing work and most of their time with the person they love the most
		creating something new that comes out of their passion for work and for each other
		shaping their own flexible time schedule

Satisfaction for co-executive and co-professional couples includes:

		sharing a passion for creativity and contribution in the workplace
		understanding the nature of both work demands and family responsibilities
		creating financial freedom for personal and social benefit

Some of the most challenging aspects of all these couples' lives are:

		balancing work and family time and responsibilities
		creating effective structures for resolving conflicts quickly whether in the business or in the intimate life partnership
		developing clear boundaries between work and family life

Why tell these stories?

This book will accurately reflect the richness, the challenges, the rewards and the complexity of the lives of successful business couples. What they have to say is inspiring and instructive to couples who may be too busy or too isolated to know whether their business and personal concerns are not only shared, but are being actively and effectively addressed by others. Their stories may also contribute to couples who either are considering going into business together or already have an enterprise underway.

The purpose of the book is to open pathways for couples in various configurations to consider the possibility of creating an extraordinary work life within the crucible of an intimate partnership. Ms. Hawley and Mr. McIntyre offer ways of working wherein both individuals in the partnership consciously choose the opportunity to test their personal and professional limits together and to grow beyond them in the interest of creating a more deeply satisfying and rewarding life.

What is the unique contribution of Enlignment?

Nancy Miriam Hawley and Jeffrey R. McIntyre are the cofounders of Enlignment, Inc., and successful life and business partners for more than 30 years. In this book, they first present a comprehensive framework for couples to distinguish their relationship issues from their business issues. Further, they use extensive interviews with successful copreneurial, co-executive, and co-professional business couples to detail the stages couples go through in creating and concurrently developing both a relationship and a business. They address the action steps couples need to take in order to successfully pioneer new models of intimacy, communication, and collaboration in both environments.

Click the following link to read biographies of Nancy Miriam Hawley, LICSW, and Jeffrey R. McIntyre, LMFT.