Mixing family with business can complicate relationships

I became interested in family businesses at an early age.

My first real job was as a stock boy at a local second-generation grocery store, owned and operated by two brothers and their wives. By the time I worked at the store, from age 14-17, there was considerable tension among the owners and you could tell pretty much how your shift was going to go by which partner was present and whether there had been any recent flare-ups. 

It was never boring.

Family businesses account for the majority of businesses in America, and yet fewer than one-third of these survive to a second generation. There are exciting examples of fantastic successes, as well as disastrous tales where both the business and the family relationships were destroyed.

The complexities of running a family business offer fascinating puzzles for an owner, therapist or organizational consultant. They can also provide some lessons for people who have not considered opening their own business, as you may see some similarities between running a family business and managing your own family.

Among the numerous challenges with family-owned businesses are issues of fairness and values and the failure of founders to create and adhere to clear succession plans. But perhaps the most pervasive problems occur in not clearly distinguishing between personal and business layers when facing a given issue – not unlike many of the routine “business” decisions most couples face on a daily basis.

The subject reminds me of the old Smothers Brothers comedy duo, who would typically sing a song or tell a story only to quickly devolve into arguing. Suddenly Tommy would erupt angrily, with the phrase, “Mom always liked you best,” which, of course, had nothing to do with their discussion or the song they were trying to get through. 

Certainly most personal conflicts within family businesses aren’t so blatant, but the personal dynamics among family members can be plenty confusing.

Running a business together while maintaining an intimate relationship – described in my profession’s literature as copreneurs – is a frequent subject in marriage counseling. The even broader issue of incorporating adult children and other family members into a business offers both rich opportunities and dangers. 

I have often seen these issues as an administrator, consultant and family therapist. But they became more meaningful to me after I left a multispecialty medical setting and ventured into opening my clinical practice, relying on the help of my wife and son, as well as the support of numerous friends.

One young married couple I worked with – we’ll call them Matt and Susan – struggled with balancing the needs of the business against the needs of the family.

Matt had primary management responsibilities with the business, and when he suggested investing additional funds in marketing, he was surprised to see his wife explode. This investment had made perfect sense to him in terms of their goals, but Susan felt he seemed to have time and money for everything but her and the children.

Susan complained about him never being home, never asking her out, missing important events for the children, and now he had the audacity to want to invest even more into the business.

While it would be unwise to make a business decision based on their home life, it would be more unwise to ignore the potential distancing in their relationship. The trick is to know which part of the problem they were addressing at any given point. Blending them into one subject can make both partners feel overwhelmed and hopeless.

Such issues of fairness, respect and attention in the marriage may prevent family members from feeling fully allied as business partners, and this will affect engagement and critical business decisions. Similarly, in the second generation of a business family, issues of favoritism, fairness, competition and loyalty can disrupt choosing a future management structure that is best for the business. 

As the business continues to develop and to involve more family members, these issues will be compounded. If the management team thinks they are strictly dealing with a business decision, but festering frustration and resentments go unaddressed, the danger of failure – both personal and professional – is high.

It takes strength and resolve to make a family business endure, but I hope that all of us remember the importance of family businesses and try to patronize them as much as possible.

The family business is a staple of the economy, and the family and community have a tremendous investment in each other. The founders and family members generally have personal connections within the community that far outweigh mere business relationships.

A large part of the success of the business may even be found in the personal connection of the family name to the service or product.

If you are part of a family-owned business that needs help separating the personal from the professional, there is plenty of help available through educational, state and private organizations, along with a wealth of books, journals and articles dedicated to this subject. Couples and family members are often simply too close to the problem and need to involve outside consultation to help define and organize the variety of issues affecting a business impasse. 

Attending to relationships and engagement is important to any organization, but it’s absolutely necessary to a successful family endeavor.

Mixing family with business can complicate relationships

Mixing family with business can complicate relationships.

How does your history affect your leadership?

So you’ve been interviewed, tested, battle-hardened and promoted to the top.  Now as you look around and examine the organization you lead, you might still wonder what it is in you that makes you respond to specific challenges in certain ways.  Clues abound in your family and cultural background history.  No you don’t need to understand Freud or think about hidden sexual desires in order to explore your leadership style, but it will help to revisit critical learning passages you have experienced and what your deepest brain patterns learned from or connected to those experiences.

James B. is playing at the top of his game.  He runs a tight ship, so to speak, where he is admired by his executive and managerial staff.  In any measure of successful organizations, one would have to say that he is doing fine.  A trusted senior employee confronted him recently with a pattern that he had not recognized at all.  When anyone close to him left the company, for whatever reason, he would shut down towards that person.  He did them no harm and wished them no ill-will.  In one case, it was he who had facilitated the person’s move to an organization which seemed to offer a better fit and more advancement opportunities.  Still, even in that case, he simply stopped speaking to the employee during their last month on the job. This might sound like an insignificant peccadillo but in some cases the departing employee’s knowledge and good will were critical to ongoing tasks and transitions.  Also the bitter taste that was left by this seeming brutality, could have long-term repercussions.  But even beyond these realistic concerns, James was aware that this was not healthy.  He spontaneously described relationships with friends which had suddenly ended badly in which he knew he overreacted.  Take a minute and think about what early life experiences might have shaped his responses to people leaving.

Sarah a somewhat new division manager was sent to me because her team seemed to be fragmenting, with everyone angry at everyone.  She was completely frustrated and thinking of resigning.  In talking about her own leadership philosophy she stated, “All I ask of my employees is that they always have fun at work.”  I swallowed the flip reply that, “that is not why it is called work,” and explored this idea further. We discovered that when an employee had a bad day, or seemed unhappy, Sarah would experience a personal sense of defeat or failure.  This actually led her to respond angrily to the employee rather than offering support.  Sarah later talked about growing up with an alcoholic father, who could be quite violent.  Unhappiness, in her experience always led to scary or deeply hurtful results.  Suddenly her relentless cheerfulness made perfect sense, as did her near panic when things did not go as she expected.

Self exploration does not suggest the relinquishing of clear boundaries with subordinates.   I remember the executive who had worked very successfully with me on his marriage and some family history concerns.  He returned the following year with a seemingly simple request.  Two female employees were causing him no end of headaches.  They were disruptive in the office, breaking rules, arriving late, spreading gossip and insubordinate towards him.  He wanted some guidance on having a meeting with them in order to discuss these problems and wanted to reveal some of his learning surrounding his own family background and his relationships with women.  I was flabbergasted by this and quickly reminded him that his own self-exploration had no place in the room with these two women.  He had taken his own work to heart but his leadership role in this case demanded that he place disciplinary parameters on these employees, with strong boundaries between himself and them.  This was not the time for a sharing session, particularly as there was no evidence in his story that he could trust these two employees to not use this information against him.

I am not suggesting that every leader must enter counseling, desperately surveying his or her background for deep, dark secrets.  However, being open to exploring anomalies in themselves and how these affect their leadership style allows you to be more efficient and in tune with yourself.  Being mindful of when a business episode or opportunity begins to feel personal, or arouses anxiety, confusion, rage or sadness and whether there is history behind such reactions can make you a much sharper leader.