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Nasir and Matt welcome author Meg Hirshberg to discuss her recent article about firing your spouse. They address, "I run a business that hinges on customer service. My son is home from college and can't find a job. Is it worth me taking the risk of hiring him knowing he probably won't be good for the business?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: And this is where we cover business in the news and also put on our legal twist and also answer some of your business legal questions that you, the listener, sends in to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com. Very good. MATT: Good intro, too. NASIR: I’m talking about myself – my intro. MATT: Yeah, good intro today. Good job. NASIR: Great. We are going to cover a nice little topic about families and businesses and spouses. I was thinking about this. I probably have at least I can think of four or five different clients that literally it’s a husband and wife operation as far as ownership goes. I always wondered how the dynamics filled that line. Today, we have a guest, her name is Meg Cadoux Hirshberg. She is the author of For Better or For Work and we found her. She actually got an article picked up on Inc.com which I thought was great. It’s called “I Love You but You’re Fired.” I thought it was a funny title. Well, of course, the link is on our show notes. Meg, how are you doing? MEG: Fine, thanks for having me today! NASIR: Absolutely. Matt, I’ve been thinking about this, we talk about how partnerships are like a marriage but what happens when the actual partnership is a husband and wife? That can really change the dynamics. MATT: You’re exactly right. A partnership, you have to view it as a marriage. If your partner in business is also your partner in your personal life, I could see lots of issues of where do you draw the line if you spend all day together at work. Do you go home and talk about work all day? There’s just a lot of things that go into that. So, I do really enjoy this article. It has a couple of stories and, from what I understand, Meg, you once worked with your spouse as well, correct? MEG: Yes, I did. My husband, Gary, founded Stonyfield Yogurt almost thirty years ago. When I met him and we moved up, we decided to get married and I moved up to the farm, we were actually on a farm in New Hampshire at that time – no longer – but when I moved up to the farm, I started working in the business right away and we worked together for a couple of years at which point we decided this was not the best thing for our relationship. So, I backed away from the business and haven’t worked for it since. NASIR: Very good. I think one of the biggest issues – despite whether it’s a marriage or not – finding who the decision-maker is in a business is sometimes difficult. We have a lot of people that come up with their partners, 50-50 partners, but I always tell them, “Look, even though you make decisions together, there has to be one person that breaks the tie, so to speak.” It reminds me, of course, we have to bring in the show The Office, when Jim and Michael were co-managers of the office and just how that just did not work and it doesn’t work in any other business. There’s always at least one person making those decisions. Would you find the same, Meg? MEG: Right. Well, that brings up one of the key issues that kind of rise when couples work together which is that it’s hard to transition from a situation at work in which usually one person is in-charge, i.e. the entrepreneur, often the spouse. Most businesses that are run by couples are not started by the couple together. Most are started by one person, the entrepreneur, who has a dream, has a vision, and then, “I want to help out.” That’s usually the way couples wind up working together. The relationship in the business setting is not equal. Usually, there is one person in-charge. Transitioning from that back home to a relationshi...