As consultants, nothing makes us sadder than receiving a call from clients stating, “We cannot work together and have decided to dissolve the partnership. Can you help us?” Situations involving clients breaking up a partnership (and often, a friendship) are an unfortunate part of doing business. In most cases, the relationship has been slowly eroding over time, and both parties feel it’s reached an unsalvageable breaking point before we are contacted. Regardless, we often wonder if we could have helped prevent this outcome if we’d been called in sooner.