What a Match!
Be Your Own Boss. Published by Entrepreneur magazine

Mark Henricks

This story praised the benefits of having partners, while cautioning about the risks. Writer Mark Henricks noted that entrepreneurs by the millions decide that starting a business with a partner is far better than going it alone. He wrote, “The good news is that when it works, it works well. ‘Companies that start out with partners tend to be the most successful,’ according to David Gage, an Arlington, Virginia, business mediator and author of The Partnership Charter: How to Start Out Right With Your New Business Partnership (or Fix the One You're In). Henricks' story reflected many of the suggestions for partners contained in the book.

…Work With a Partner (Year After Year After Year)
INC. Magazine

Patrick J. Sauer

INC. magazine featured The Partnership Charter: How To Start Out Right With Your New Business Partnership (Or Fix The One You're In) by David Gage. To illustrate some of the points in the book, INC writer Patrick Sauer interviewed the renowned comedy-magic team Penn and Teller, who discussed their way of conducting their partnership, which has kept them together and thriving for thirty years.

David Gage tells author Patrick Sauer that the duos' collaborative approach is "the essential ingredient of a great partnership" — along with shared values, understanding one another's personal style and carefully thinking about the future.

Resolving Disputes among Business Partners and Owners
California Psychologist

David Gage, John Gromala

When business partners arrive at an impasse with one another they have many options including mediation, arbitration, litigation, facilitation, seeking expert business advice, and even therapy. The authors, David Gage and John Gromala, discuss these options and present their thoughts on why a multidisciplinary, co-mediation model is the most effective method for addressing the complex mixture of financial, legal business, and interpersonal factors that come into play in disputes among principals.

The Hafts and Mediation: Lessons for Businesses
The Washington Business Journal, Commentary

David Gage

Wealthy partners have more to lose when they fight! The Haft family partners' interpersonal and business conflict erupted into multiple lawsuits that cost them around $40 million. More than that, however, businesses were destroyed and the privacy vanished as their sparring became front-page news. Most tragically, relationships among parents, children, and grandchildren suffered dearly.

The highly regarded judge who presided over the case, Judge Rufus King III, spoke with David Gage about business partner conflicts. “King believes that mediation is much more appropriate than litigation in most business partner conflicts because, he says, 'Even a 'win' in court can be a loss for everybody involved.'“ King explained that even judges or arbitrators with the best intentions “won't be humanly capable of understanding the nuances of the business the way the owners do.“

This article helps to clarify some of the many differences between mediation — a truly collaborative process — and litigation and arbitration, both of which are strongly adversarial.

Finding Venture Capital Close to Home
Washington Post Business

Marianne Kyriakos

If financial investors in a company are not officially co-owners, they are a close as you can get to having partners. Borrowing money from friends and family can complicate relationships. A Washington Post reporter, Marianne Kyriakos, interviewed David Gage and others in 1991 about the specific steps entrepreneurs can take when borrowing capital to help ensure that it is a positive experience for everyone involved.

Mediating Personality Differences behind Internal Business Disputes
The CPA Journal

John Gromala and David Gage

Many partners struggle through their partnership needlessly. With a little assistance from mediators who are experienced with the range of issues that business partners must face, partners can learn to discuss and negotiate the issues that get in the way.

The editor of The CPA Journal asked John Gromala and David Gage to describe how BMC's conflict prevention tool — a Partners' Charter — is different from hiring a consultant to make recommendations, or a psychologist to do therapy. They offer an example of how it worked with a workaholic and a golfaholic, 50/50 partner team. The mediators worked with the partners' perceptions, expectations, and hidden agendas in order to “harness their personal differences into a positive force.“