In this Bible and Business podcast, Bill English explores how damaging affairs are to a business partnership, especially when they are between a partner and an employee. Watch the video here. Download the slides for this series.
[00:00:24.090] – Bill English
And welcome back. I’m Bill English, the publisher here at Bible and Business. I want to thank you for joining me today. You’re catching me in the middle of an eight part series titled The Eight as that kill Healthy Partnerships. In the previous series, I did the ten elements, or the ten C’s so to speak, that are needed to build healthy partnerships.
[00:00:46.170] – Bill English
But there are things that can also kill business partnerships. And in this series, I’m going over those elements that kill healthy partnerships. As you can see on the screen here, those elements are anger, apathy, affairs, abuse, addictions, arrogance, ambiguity, and autocraticness or being an autocrat. So this content is taken from my book a Christian Theology, a Business Ownership. An Introduction for Christian Entrepreneurs on what the Bible says about owning a business.
[00:01:19.890] – Bill English
I now have an abridged version out of this book that pulls out all the Greek and the Hebrew discussions and a lot of the quotes, and it’s kind of a faster read. It’s only about 150 pages, whereas the Theology book is about 350 pages. The Abridged version is titled what the Bible says about owning a business. You can pick up either or both of these at Amazon or many online retailers, both in electronic form and in printed form. So I trust that you’ll do that at some point.
[00:01:55.270] – Bill English
I just want to make a note that I’m making on every video in this series. If you have one of these A’s that kill partnerships, it’ll take more energy and cycles for you to have a good partnership, but it’s doable. It’s possible. If you have two or more of these days, and it really doesn’t matter which ones, then it’s going to be very difficult to have a good, thriving partnership. Three or more don’t even try.
[00:02:21.600] – Bill English
The partnership is going to die. If you’re in a partnership that has three or more of these days, I would advise you to start looking for an exit, looking for a way out of the partnership, and maybe even cash in some equity in the partnership before it dies. But it will die if it has three or more of these as any combination of A’s in a persistent form. So before we get started, also, I just want to invite you to head over to Bible and Business.com. And if you’re enjoying this series, I’m just going to ask that you go ahead and subscribe to my YouTube channel here.
[00:03:02.230] – Bill English
So let’s get started. What about affairs? How do affairs harm business partnerships? Well, let’s first of all, just talk a little bit about affairs in general. They can be emotional, or they can be physical, or they can be both.
[00:03:20.060] – Bill English
Emotional affairs are sometimes harder to detect, I think, than physical affairs. And almost all physical affairs start out as emotional affairs, and then they culminate in physical sexual activity. Nearly all affairs represent hurt and pain in a marital relationship or in another relationship. In other words I’m getting from you here at the office something that I’m not getting at home. And it’s usually not sexual.
[00:03:51.490] – Bill English
It’s usually emotional. It’s esteem needs it’s maybe mental interaction needs something. But there’s something wrong in another key relationship, in that person’s life that is leading them or allowing them room to have an affair at the office. Affairs are rarely about sex itself. I think our culture is wrong on that point.
[00:04:16.840] – Bill English
Culture often views affairs as sexual. I view them much more as emotional. That results in sex. But they’re rarely about sex by themselves. And look, while a person’s private life is their private life, when it comes to your business partnership, an affair represents potentially serious problems for any partnership when it’s the partner, one of the partners that’s involved in the affair.
[00:04:43.950] – Bill English
And so you really want to pay attention to that. And I’ll just also come in and just remind us all that, you know what? Christians can have affairs too. Just because we’re followers of Jesus Christ does not mean we are immune to the temptations of the enemy. Now, what are the effects of affairs?
[00:05:09.450] – Bill English
Here are some of the effects. And this is not an exhaustive list, but certainly introduce lying and deception into your partnership. I know of one partnership that has turned out to be a really good partnership for both of the folks involved. But I also know that one of them had an affair with a direct report, and the other partner never found out about it. And so there’s this lying and deception that is ongoing in that affair or in that partnership.
[00:05:39.970] – Bill English
I’m not sure it needs to be brought up at this point, but it’s certainly something that once it starts, you kill the honesty and the integrity or at least a portion of the honesty and the integrity of the partnership. And that’s never good for a partnership. You’re also going to create significant exposure to legal liability, especially in the area of sexual harassment. Look, the reality is there’s a power imbalance between partners and employees. And when a partner has an affair with an employee, no matter how consensual both parties might think it is, there is inherently a power imbalance.
[00:06:25.380] – Bill English
And that power imbalance is what can lead to exposure to legal liability. I remember all the way back in the 90s when President Bill Clinton had his affair with Monica Lewinsky, and he got away with it because he was a politician and he was well liked. But had he been a CEO of almost any corporation, he probably would have faced both criminal and civil lawsuits as a result. And there was, by the way, there was a huge power imbalance between the president and an intern. I don’t care how consensual they thought it was.
[00:07:02.020] – Bill English
That power imbalance existed, and it cannot be ignored.
[00:07:08.960] – Bill English
If rumors spread around the office, there might be complaints of favoritism. And those rumors, as you know, will have a tendency to grow and it will create bad attitudes and really a lot of what I call bad juju in your culture and you just don’t want that. It will distract your staff, it will waste their time and energy and it will lower workplace morale. So the effects of these affairs, especially if they’re known, is really bad. I know of one company where the daughter of the owner is kind of like the general manager of the company.
[00:07:50.560] – Bill English
The owner, he is older and she’s probably in her 40s, but it’s well known that she sleeps with three or four of different managers and salesmen on a regular basis. And she has what is called an open management style, for lack of a better term. And it really creates a lot of favoritism, spreads a lot of rumors and of course, their morale and their culture is not very good at all. How can you manage affairs in the office? And I think you do need to manage them.
[00:08:22.840] – Bill English
You don’t necessarily shut down certain types of romantic relationships, but one of the ways to manage them is to make sure that you’re not getting too close physically with someone in the opposite sex and that I have a no touch rule, so you might want to have a no touch rule too. I used to be kind of this sideways hugger guy. When somebody did good, I’d put my arm around him and give him a pat on the back kind of thing. I don’t do that anymore. I just don’t touch.
[00:08:56.290] – Bill English
And I always use words to affirm. I would say a good policy in your company would be to never allow members of the opposite sex or if their orientation is to samesex, never allow members with an orientation to have, whether they’re same sex or opposite sex, to have somebody that they’re oriented to in a visually closed room by themselves. So in other words, I never meet with females in my office alone with my door closed unless my door has glass in it. And there’s a sidelight. Now, happily, in my office my door is almost all glass and there’s a sidelight as well.
[00:09:44.200] – Bill English
So I don’t have a problem closing the door with a female in my office and just she and I meeting. It’s also helpful for me to have this protection because out of the 54 people in my home office I run a health care company right now with almost 600 employees. But there’s 54 people in the home office and of those 54, 52 are female. And so I am meeting with women on a regular basis throughout the day, usually by ourselves or maybe with one or two others. But that’s why my door has complete glass and it has a side light and that way anybody can see what I’m doing at any time, even though they may not be able to hear it.
[00:10:29.980] – Bill English
So this is kind of the Billy Graham rule. Some of you will notice as the Billy Graham rule, just never be. And I think Mike Pence actually did this too. As vice president. Just never allow yourself to be in a room alone with a woman, or if you’re a woman with a man behind a closed door where nobody can see you.
[00:10:49.160] – Bill English
That’s not a good place to be. I would suggest have regular training about affairs and sexual harassment. I think most companies do that anyways. I would say have a strong company policy that direct reports cannot date each other. If they’re going to date, they must disclose.
[00:11:07.480] – Bill English
And that disclosure could result in one or both of them being reassigned within the company so that they are not in a direct report relationship while they’re dating. The policy should also allow the company to terminate one or both employees should there not be a way to reassign them. So while it might seem a little harsh, I think that kind of policy would be a good idea. And just a few more notes here. Your partner agreement should directly discuss affairs and divorce.
[00:11:43.600] – Bill English
Your partner agreement should very much talk about what happens if one of the partners does have an affair or what happens if that affair leads to a divorce. Your partner agreement should already discuss how to handle that. You do need a process to manage positive relationships in the workplace that protects your company and allows for growth in those relationships. I want you to remember that about 20% of marriages in the United States start in the workplace. So again, if they’re direct reports and they’re starting to date, they need to be reassigned.
[00:12:19.840] – Bill English
I think at the point where they decide either to move in if they’re not direct reports and they decide to move in together or they get engaged, then I think they should be required to disclose that to human resources and just so that everybody’s on the same page with what’s going on in that relationship. So affairs affairs and partnerships are a bad idea. And partners should really never become romantically involved with employees. It’s not good for the company. It’s not good for morale.
[00:12:51.580] – Bill English
It’s not good from exposure to liability standpoint. Partners have a duty to control their emotions and frankly, control their bodily and sexual urges. Partners should have an explicit duty to disclose should a relationship happen. They are usually affairs are usually highly damaging to a partnership and a business. And as soon as you learn about affairs in your office, whether it’s with your partner or with employees in your office, you need to face into that right away.
[00:13:25.540] – Bill English
You really need to get on top of that and say, we’re going to protect the company because there’s a lot of liability that can happen there. Okay, next episode, next week we’re going to talk about abuse. How verbal and physical abuse in partnerships kills partnerships and frankly, kills your company too, and your culture. But we’ll talk about abuse in our next episode. I’m Bill English, the publisher here at Bible and Business.
[00:13:57.460] – Bill English
I want to thank you for joining me today. If you are in an affair at your workplace and you don’t know what to do and you need somebody to talk to, drop me a line. I’ll be happy to spend some time with on the phone with you. You can just email me at bill@bibleandbusiness.com bill at bible and Business.com. So until next week, I hope you have a great week and I hope that you place your faith and trust in the Lord.
[00:14:26.980] – Bill English
And I hope you go out and make it a great day. Take care.