I work with my husband and my sister. In the past my aunt and a couple of cousins have also been on my team. And I have a couple of sons that have aspirations to work in the family business when they are old enough. Running a family business is awesome. AND…it can be challenging. There’s definite pros and cons.
Pros:
- You can trust your team members to have your back.
- They know you in a way that only a lifetime and DNA can build.
- They are more invested into the success of the company.
- You get to build new and meaningful connections with the people you love most.
Cons:
- If you aren’t careful, your family business can have MORE conflict than a regular small business team. Those family dynamics are strong. And while we’ll go to bat for each other, we also don’t treat each other with the same level of respect as we do our non family team members.
- Business bleeds into family time.
- It’s really hard to fire your family. So when they are underperforming, it’s a struggle.
- When there’s conflict in the business, it has a tendency to turn to conflict in the family. Those family get togethers can be VERY uncomfortable.
So if you are running a family business and want less conflict, try these strategies.
- Be proactive about not letting conflict build up. Addressing concerns when they are small is ALWAYS a good leadership strategy, but especially important with family. If you want until the conflict is big, it will be too late to keep the conflict from carrying into family relationships.
- Don’t vent to other members of the family. Go directly to the individual you have concerns with. If you can’t get a resolution between the two of you, involve the boss. If you are the boss and you can’t get a resolution with one of your family members, stay tuned for tip number 5.
- Take time to praise your family members. This one is tricky for me, and my husband reminds me of it! Sometimes we put on our best business manners for our team members, and treat our family like… well… family. We are more consistent with the praise for our non- family team members. And we downplay the praise with our family members so we don’t appear to have favoritism. But let’s be honest, working without positive feedback sucks! You may want to create a different context for praising family members and you will have to make sure you are balancing out the praise. But don’t rob them of public celebration of their wins.
Create rules for communication that are similar to your personal communication rules Don’t argue or introduce important business conversations when one of you is tired. Instead of just springing a business conversation on a family member, schedule a time to talk. When you are upset, don’t bring up every offense that person has ever created. Stay focused on the issue at hand.- Fire family members when it isn’t a fit. And it’s better to fire sooner than later. I know how harsh that sounds. And let me be clear there is nothing worse than having to fire a family member. Well, actually, it is worse to have been fighting with a family member for months, getting to the point where you’ve both really hurt each other, and then firing said family member. I have an agreement with myself that I won’t hire anyone I can’t fire. And I tell family members that when they apply. I let them know that they will go through the same application process as everyone else. That they will have to contribute and uphold the corporate culture just like everyone else. And that if it doesn’t work out, I’ll let them go just like anyone else. And I ask them if they think that would damage our relationship. If they think it would, we should not be working together.
I value the family relationships a million times more than I value the business contributions. So it’s critical that we keep the workflow happy and healthy when we are working with our family members!
I truly love running a family business. It’s amazing! And it’s amazing because we work to create that context!