Imagine you live in a small town somewhere – anywhere. And in that town live a bunch of bad guys, Call them mafia or drug cartels or gangs. A group of powerful bad guys get caught – sometimes on camera – doing bad stuff. Stealing, drug dealing, and violence.

This has been going on for as long as you can remember.

And one day, you see a group of very cocky bad guys from that group, who appear to be looking for a target. You step out on your porch and just look at them. No signs, no words, no posturing – just YOU letting them know that a man lives in this house. They look at you like you are a moron. They feel provoked, but we all know that they were just spoken to with body language. Defiance, in their view and no matter how subtle, is the same as a threat.

The next morning your car is gone. Just like that. You never had this problem in this area before. What the hell!

So you go to your neighbor, who happens to have a doorbell camera. Great person, awesome neighbor, they gladly download and send you the video. So you check it and it is indeed the clowns who walked by yesterday.

What to do?

You go directly to the police department and show them the video.

They ask if you can send it to them, so of course you submit the evidence.

They say “Thank you sir. We will have our detectives look into this.”

So you shake hands and leave.

The next day, the great neighbor who gave you the footage sees you and runs. A day later, you see that person and they scowl at you like you did something wrong to them. You don’t get it…. Until you realize.

Yeah. That.

What to do?

After about two months, and rejected insurance claims, you get pissed. REALLY pissed. You know the sort of feeling. We have all had it a time or two. And the feeling was something like “If I had a flamethrower RIGHT NOW!”

So you decide to start talking to the men in your community. One or two at a time. Your goal is to build a gang to retaliate. Most people in that area have been harmed in one way or the other by these gangs. So you spend about two years gathering a small cohort of like-minded individuals. YOUR gang.

You do some planning and training and your only goal is self-preservation.

One spring evening, one of your crew shoots out a group text- NEED HELP

So you run down the street and around the corner. Armed with a pistol. You arrive and see a gang of the bad guys surrounding your crew member. You show up, and in less than two minutes there’s about six men on your team at the scene.

The bad guys seem stunned. They turn to the threat – YOU – and things escalate. One of them, on camera, pulls a pistol and shoots. He misses, fortunately, but four of your crew shoot him dead.

Police. Cameras. Crowds.

They all immediately chant death threats at you. Police have to hold back the crowd.

One person with a bullhorn (I know, why does somebody at this random scene have a bullhorn?Good question next time you see this).

“Nazi!” Why did you kill him?

Sound familiar?

The internet is overflowing with countless messages regarding the relationship between a man and a woman in romantic relationships. Yet never once did I feel satisfied with what I heard.

Here are just a few examples of many:

• A woman is a man’s helpmeet because it says so in the bible
• A man is the captain of the ship and the woman is like a deck hand
• A man leads, a woman should follow
• A man should provide and protect, and a woman should take care of the household
• The relationship should be voluntary every single day. Anyone can leave at any time.
• The organization (family) should be set up such that the COO can resign but cannot take any part of the company’s assets with her. Ever. That would be stealing. She should, however, get a reasonable severance package. We don’t treat executives like animals. The more she contributed, the more she deserves on exit – this is only fair play.
• If the COO were to resign, it should have little to no impact on the operation of the company in the short run. The main burden would be on either a VP or the CEO to fill in the gaps in the short run. In the long run, the organization needs someone who can execute the CEO’s vision under his leadership.
• The COO is a member of the C-suite. She too is an executive and deserves to be treated with respect and deference as appropriate. It is a position of very powerful influence. She is, after all, the right hand of the top dog.
• As such, the COO must be qualified to do things most others cannot. They must possess good judgement, clarity of purpose, leadership abilities to command others beneath her in the organization, and many other intellectual, analytical, conceptual, and people skills. It is a formidable role. Hire carefully.
• When in doubt, the COO should always check in and touch base with the CEO. They must be on the same page at all times on major decisions. But she must defer to the CEO always.

I could go on, but you get the idea. There are many opinions on this matter to be sure.

So why am I wasting my time writing this? Because these and the myriad other messages are just not right in today’s modern world. So I would like to propose a new way of looking at the relationship between a man and a woman in a committed relationship (not marriage because once you sign that contract, the woman has all the effective power and the man has little to none).

In a corporation (usually) the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) serves as the highest-ranking executive. They have the final say on most company decisions and are responsible for overall vision, strategy, and leadership.

The COO (Chief Operating Officer) on the other hand, is the CEO’s right-hand person, in charge of day-to-day operations. The COO ensures the company's business operations run smoothly and efficiently.

The COO typically reports directly to the CEO. The CEO can delegate authority to the COO, but the CEO is still the ultimate decision-maker (unless overridden by the board of directors). In the case of a relationship, there is no board. There is just the founder and CEO – in the ideal scenario it is the man.

It is also important to note that the CEO can fire the COO, but not the other way around. Read that as many times as it takes to sink in. Under no circumstance should a COO be given the power to harm, refute, ignore, or otherwise disrespect the CEO. The only power she has is to leave. And that is fair.

Here are a few important things to consider:

• The relationship should be voluntary every single day. Either person can leave at any time, so plan accordingly. Few executives stay in the role forever.
• Instead of leading a woman, she should be seeking guidance and mentorship. She must do what the CEO expects of her, and the CEO should treat her with the respect and importance her role deserves. Especially to the outside world.
• The organization (family) should be set up such that the COO can resign at any time, but cannot take any part of the company’s assets with her. Ever. That would be stealing. She should, however, get a reasonable severance package. We don’t treat executives like criminals unless they are, in fact, criminals. The more she contributed, the more she deserves on exit – this is only fair play.
• If the COO were to resign, it should have little to no impact on the operation of the company in the short run. The main burden would be on either a VP or the CEO to fill in the gaps in the short run. In the long run, the organization needs someone who can execute the CEO’s vision under his leadership.
• The COO is a member of the C-suite. She too is an executive and deserves to be treated with respect and deference as appropriate. It is a position of very powerful influence. She is, after all, the right hand of the top dog.
• As such, the COO must be qualified to do things most others cannot. They must possess good judgement, clarity of purpose, leadership abilities to command others beneath her in the organization, and many other intellectual, analytical, conceptual, and people skills. It is a formidable role, so vet and hire very carefully.

When in doubt, the COO should always check in and touch base with the CEO. They must be on the same page at all times on major decisions. But she must defer to the CEO always.

This concept can easily be fleshed out more to be sure. But this should paint a very different picture of what a modern couple should look like. The “corporation” can be just about anything – either of them can have any job, career, or hobbies. They can have many or no children at all. But it is not the size or complexity of the organization that matters to this relationship. It is not the industry or the particular products, services, or technologies involved.

The main consideration is, and always should be, on the authority and power dynamic between these two very vital roles. Unless this is clearly delineated prior to the hiring process, the relationship it doomed to fail. File this away and act accordingly.