Scott Leonard's 2-1/2-year boat odyssey around the world is followed by split with his partner

It is hard to imagine going away for so long and not coming back to issues — Mike Byrnes, President of Byrnes Consulting, LLC, www.byrnesconsulting.com

Running the firm with two silos would suggest Trovena was not as much a merger as it was a shared marketing plan. If two colors of paint are mixed together, it is messy and nearly impossible to separate them later. Structuring the merged firm for an easy separation may have saved a friendship, but appears to be a self – fulfilling escape hatch.

As more firms and individual advisors navigate their way through succession and continuity planning, we will see more failed attempts at both mergers and acquisitions of mismatched business cultures. Firms merging to 'scale up’ to accelerate growth must buy into a shared vision and commit 100% to the strategy. I believe it was Richard Branson who was recently quoted that he never had a plan B for any of his endeavors.

Congratulations to both Scott & Christopher who have built high quality practices, based on integrity and client service.

It really isn’t as predictable that two different types of people would partner and last together for many, many years. That, IMO, is the sign of a good partnership and something more firms would be good to look at — to partner and hire with people who are different from the owner.

Personally, I’ve seen business partnerships last like that for many years — although some don’t last because both parties want to change something or either party has a different vision.

However, when visions collide in a partnership, in your team member, etc. and the visions of partners are miles away with no middle that makes sense, or the vision of the owner is different from the employee that’s a horse of another color.

I commend Scott and Christopher for what they’ve done, how they’ve done it, and how they will take their updated visions in to the future.

Visions aren’t written in stone. They are there to guide us.