Introducing the guy standing next to me as my “partner” has created a few awkward moments over the years.
Working in the partnership form of business for the past eighteen years means that I have had a number of these uncomfortable encounters. Despite the occasional misunderstanding, there is no better way to describe the relationship I have with my colleagues. We are partners…in business and in life. We have bound ourselves together to achieve a common vision and share the thrills and spills along the way.
Partnership defines how we treat one another. A true partner is one that flies across the country on a day’s notice to help you acquire a new client, steps into a sticky project situation on your behalf, covers for you when you get overcommitted, tells you when you are screwing up, and does all these things without keeping score or expecting anything in return. That’s partnership.
Choosing to admit a new partner in the firm is one of the most consequential decisions we make. The partnership structure is brilliantly conceived to perpetuate itself. Our job is to build an organization that is constantly being regenerated as partners retire and bequeath their roles to a new and even more capable generation of professionals.
A great partnership is organic; always growing, continuously improving, and ever changing. What doesn’t change is the common set of core values that bind us together in friendship. I am very proud of my partners at Kalypso and the team we have built. So proud, that I would gladly introduce any one of them to a stranger as my “partner”.
