I was in a meeting the other day with Troy McClain (he was the first season winner of The Apprentice), and he spoke about something he called the “horse pull.” Initially I was confused and he went on to explain that when one horse is in a pulling power contest, it can pull about 4000 pounds by itself. The interesting thing came next: when a second horse pulls with it, instead of doubling the amount to 8,000 pounds, they ramp up to be able to do almost 12,000 pounds together. He said that this is true of dogsled teams as well.

I asked him whether this phenomenon was explainable by physics or if it was some indefinable X-factor that made the difference. I was excited to hear the answer was of the X-factor sort. I love that stuff. I love situations when science can’t explain things because I get to draw my own conclusions. It could be the competition between the horses; it could be some sort of energy flowing from one to the other. What ever it is, it’s intriguing and inspiring.

The reason this is blog worthy is, as Troy concluded, it can be the same in business. Not only can two people combine different talents, they can also capture the X-factor. I know I have always felt better having a partner, but until now I never really knew why. I’ve recognized the intangible power, but could never put my finger on what it was. I still don’t know if I can, all I know is, it works.

This is why, for me, partnerships must to be founded on relationships. I don’t think the X-factor is optimized when there is no connection through relationship. I’m not saying that you can only do business with people that you’ve seen in their underwear, I’m just saying conducting business with someone with whom you have a relationship is not only more fun, I believe it’s more powerful. Negotiations become discussions. Business meetings become a time to catch up, and shared profits become fun trips to Africa with partners and their families. That’s delicious stuff. That’s the stuff of ONO.