News

If it wasn't already clear, the Coen brothers proved last week that they're a painfully awkward pair.

Accepting three Oscars, Joel and his younger brother Ethan appeared too bored for words.

They said little, fidgeted incessantly and maintained several feet between them.

Their performance only affirmed what entertainment reporters have been writing for years: Brilliant as they may be, the Coens are brusque, shy and even a little rude.

In interviews, they often pay more attention to picking their cuticles than answering questions.

When they do respond, they alternate clauses, rarely stringing together more than a sentence between them. But to truly get the Brothers Coen to clam up, one need only ask them about their working relationship.

"That's not an interesting question," Joel once told an Elle magazine writer who asked if the brothers ever fought.

But it is an interesting question, one that millions of siblings want answered. How have the brothers worked so closely for so long without any apparent desire to throttle one another?

"Harmony is remarkable when it happens," said Drew Mendoza, family business consultant and author of Making Sibling Teams Work. "Siblings know one another's hot buttons and how to push them because they're the ones who installed the hot buttons. Usually a falling-out is not a matter of if, but when."

The annals of art, politics and business are littered with the ruins of family dynasties that eventually imploded with bickering and acrimony.

Wallace and Harrison McCain feuded publicly over who would inherit the French-fry empire they founded in 1957.

Rudolf and Adolf Dassler happily made shoes together in the small Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach until a falling-out prompted them to start rival businesses: Puma and adidas. Sixty years of bitterness ensued.

The Britpop band Oasis was well on its way to earning its label "the next Beatles" until rancour between frontmen Noel and Liam Gallagher stalled several recording and touring efforts.

The Coens, by contrast, are a study in sibling tranquillity. In 25 years of award-winning filmmaking, their sets have become known among film crews as "The Coen Brothers' Summer Camp" for their collegial atmosphere. Actors refer to the brothers as "the two-headed director" for the way they tackle every task in lockstep.

This conjoined approach is the real secret to successful sibling partnerships, according to Mr. Mendoza.

In a survey of his consulting firm's sibling clients, he found that the most successful collaborations share three traits: a common workspace, often with their desks facing each other; an unusually high level of trust and respect for one another; and lots of recreational time together.

"I always tell siblings they need to spend more time skiing together, golfing together or even drinking together," said Mr. Mendoza. "It is counterintuitive, I know. My clients will say, 'You've got to be kidding me. I need my space.' We want to make sure they have a close enough relationship and have enough trust to get them through disagreements."

Calgary business partners Ravinder and Manjit Minhas know this all too well. "We rarely get away from each other," said Ms. Minhas, who, in 1999, founded a tiny liquor company with her brother that has since grown into a $60-million-a-year alcohol empire. "We have meetings all day and then in our time off we watch movies or go on family vacations together."

That strong kinship outside the boardroom means that business flare-ups never become personal. "When you disagree with a CEO in a normal business setting," said Ms. Minhas, "you have to posture and be careful with your words. Here, if I don't like what my brother says, I tell him straight up, 'You're full of shit.' At the end of the day you're still brother and sister and you can't wreck that bond."

In that way, sibling tension can actually become a competitive advantage. "Often siblings are better at performing a good-cop bad-cop routine in a meeting," said Toronto family business adviser Aron Pervin. "They'll often plan that going into a meeting and end up having their way."

Before they set up a partnership, siblings have to establish a few ground rules. One of the most important is agreeing on how much to tell their spouses about the family enterprise.

"When you start telling your wife things like 'My sister's an idiot,' it's going to make things a little awkward at the next family gathering," said Mr. Mendoza.

Most importantly, siblings have to set an enduring common goal for the partnerships, say family business advisers. Again, the Coens offer the example to follow. Their cinematic vision crystallized nearly 40 years ago when the young brothers took a suit, a briefcase and a Super 8 camera to Minneapolis airport and filmed a movie they titled Henry Kissinger: Man on the Go.

"What we are doing now," said Joel during his Oscar acceptance speech for best director, "doesn't feel that much different from what we were doing then."

Ditch the dysfunction

Sibling enterprises can make for bad blood. Family business consultant Drew Mendoza suggests a few ways to avoid turmoil:

Go golfing, bowling or drinking together so that the social relationship stays dry when the business relationship is in the toilet.

Set up a common workplace. As long as it doesn't descend into noogie wars and food fights, a mutual workplace helps siblings collaborate.

Have an informal judge or board of directors make final decisions when sibling disputes reach a head.

Don't bring up childhood. Let the petty sandbox battles of the past remain there.

Patrick White