White/Pinkman: The Ultimate Business Partnership?

1 August 2014 by Catherine Holdsworth in Business and finance, Entertainment

In less than a year, the UK will have a general election and the infamous coalition (or business partnership) of David Cameron and Nick Clegg will most likely be dissolved, resigned to the history books as one of the most unusual political partnerships of the decade. Another recent partnership to disband is that of Walter White and Jesse Pinkman, an incredibly unlikely team who were incredibly successful.

Breaking Bad has sadly ended (though we wait in hope for the promised spin-off Better Call Saul) but what can we learn from Walter White and his accomplice Pinkman about running a successful business?

Perhaps the main reason that the White/Pinkman team worked so effectively was because there was no prior friendship or association to cloud the progression. Once they had ironed-out Pinkman’s doubts about his former chemistry teacher, they were (at least in the early years) an infallible team. One is reminded of the ultimate successful businessman, Godfather Michael Corleone, and his words to his brother, ‘It’s not personal, Sonny, it’s strictly business’. Corleone, however, was not half of a partnership, to his downfall, and was ultimately left standing alone. Mixing business and family is dangerous.

Unrelated to each other, Walt and Jesse were able to function on a business level, identifying their strengths (Walt’s chemistry knowledge and Jesse’s networking skills, aka contacts within the meth community) and exploiting them. Although the partners fell out on many occasions, only towards the end of Breaking Bad, as Walt became increasingly despotic, did the partnership go seriously awry. Arguably, by season 5, Walt looked on Jesse as a son and the line between family and business became blurred (remember when Jesse went to Walt’s for dinner?), although Jesse never called him anything but Mr White (unless you count ‘bitch’).

When running a business, exploit your assets and skills. Be pragmatic and employ those who are good at their job rather than somebody that you owe a favour to or who is your friend. There’s nothing worse than a corporate dispute that breaks up a family. Had Walt not involved wife Skyler in laundering the money, perhaps his business could have flourished for longer.

Focus on the reason for your business. For Walt, it was to pay for his health care and set his family up financially in case of his death. Becoming too involved in your business, at the expense of all else in your life, or losing focus can be very risky; eventually it became the only thing Walt cared about: ‘I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And, I was really … I was alive.’ But did it do him any good?

Invest in a reliable partner; someone not afraid to call you out when you overstep the mark and who can contribute something different to you. Diversity and a willingness to embrace change are key. You may not have a lock-up piled high with money … but then maybe you will!