The Power of Partnership

Monica Reyes, Esq.
Partner, RKE Law Group

When I got the itch to start a law firm, somehow I knew intuitively I needed someone to start it with. Not everyone needs someone, and not everyone can work well with others.  I didn’t think I was the partnership type (and I know my mom would agree), but I know now it fits me well. What matters is not just personality, but how you relate and complement each other. How you fit as puzzle pieces making something much bigger and more powerful than you could be if you were to stand out on your own. This is the Power of Partnership.

As you know, I have 2 beautiful and talented partners that I own RKE Law Group with. We have been together for 4 years and we are still happily partnered. We are definitely a success story. I have heard horror stories and have seen them myself. It’s a relationship, so you need to care for it and cultivate it or else it can go sour, FAST!!

My partners are 2 of my best friends. They both know me almost as well as my mother does, and we have all gone through so much together both professionally and personally. Our partnership is based on a foundation of honesty, communication and love. However, when we started, it wasn’t always rainbows and butterflies. It took a lot of work to get aligned how we are today, a lot of conversations, and a lot of reevaluating.  Funny, once we figured out what we were doing wrong, all it took was a shift.

The key to our success (I wish I could say we did it all on our own), started when we hired a business coach. I would give her a shout out, but I don’t want to embarrass her (Jody Johnson we LOVE you!). She’s kind of a bad ass in communication and conflict resolution and she specializes in partnerships in business. We didn’t know that when we met her, but it was clear once she became our coach because she had the magic touch.

The first thing she made us do was take a variety of personality and behavioral assessment tests. One of the tests she had us take was the Gallup Strengthfinder test:  (https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com). For $10, you can find out what your top 5 strengths are (out of 34) aka what you are naturally good at. I have Ideation as a strength, so I am an idea machine. I have ideas every hour of the day (not all good ones) and I have what’s called pattern recognition. It’s a strategic strength, so I am good at seeing opportunities, and creating unlikely opportunities. One of my partners has Woo as a strength. So she is an influencer and can “woo” or win people over easily.

When you are working in your strength, you feel like you are in your flow. You feel energized and maybe even happiest. Knowing this type of information as you can imagine, can be quite powerful. As an individual, this was incredibly empowering for me.  It honed in what I was good at and what needed to be refined. Anything to get myself closer to my passion and my purpose- SIGN ME UP!!

As a team, taking these tests was one of the best things we ever did for our company. This gave us a starting point in developing roles, what accountabilities were needed, and most importantly, what our weaknesses were. We knew right off the bat what the 3 of us DIDN’T have and what we needed in order to close the loop. Put us all together and we make a semi-circle, with a small gap that was missing. Luckily we had someone in our staff that had strengths that could fill that gap. If we didn’t, we would’ve known exactly what strengths we needed in a person to hire so nothing fell through the crack. Talk about efficiency!

So now we are happy and working smarter not harder. We understand that everyone has weaknesses, and someone would be better placed in a role that is aligned with their strengths. Otherwise, you have someone who is “miscast”, and it is frustrating for EVERYONE. We have used this same technique for most of the hiring we have done. It all has to do with our wiring as human beings, so whether you like it or not, you can try to make a weakness into a strength, but it will take A LOT more work and you will feel the unnaturalness of it.

There truly is power in the partnership. As a trio, we are way more marketable, we have way more fun, and more to bring to the table. The key is to fit each other until it clicks, otherwise you have unhealthy competition and a partnership is about being a team. So if you’re thinking about going out on your own, I hope I’ve given you something to think about. If I had to do it all over again, I would do it exactly the same way. I love my Sisters-in-Law and in Business and I know the unique value they bring. Whoever said three’s a crowd was definitely not referring to business!!

Do you have a story about a partnership you’d like to share? What was the biggest lesson you learned? I’d love to hear about it!

Until the next time…

Monica Reyes (The "R"), RKE Law Group

Chief Visionary Officer, Attorney and Head of the Entrepreneurial Development Division