In most family-owned businesses, the family and business aspects are intimately intertwined. Weekend family gatherings easily transform into business meetings, and mid-week office agendas can get saturated with personal affairs. Although many family business participants eagerly try to keep their business and personal lives separate, they're unable to resist the natural inclination to talk shop during off time or to rehash family issues during work hours. It's not that they intentionally want to mix the two; it's just convenient.
Drawing the Line Between Business Time and Family Time
Just because "family business" is an accepted phrase in the vocabulary doesn't mean the two always have to flow together. The secret is to develop clear rules for both business time and family time. Following are five ways to help you draw a clear line between your business and family time.
1. Schedule quarterly family business meetings as well as regular operational meetings where family members are included.
Quarterly family business meetings are designed to focus on the big issues family businesses face, such as strategic direction discussions, financial statement review, estate planning, succession planning, and role planning. These meetings should take place off-site and should not include the small day-to-day operational issues. Aside from having an outside board of advisors or directors, quarterly family business meetings are some of the most important things for families to do to keep the business running smoothly.
Conducting quarterly family business meetings won't keep you from bringing work issues to the kitchen table, however. To do that, you also need to include key family members in regular operational meetings that address other important issues, such as staffing problems, competitor analysis, and short-term projects. These operational meetings should be conducted as needed in the office to keep staff and family members apprised and as contributors to top issues. When done correctly, these meetings also serve as a great training ground for new family employees. By using this time to discuss those issues you would normally talk about at personal family gatherings, you can avoid bringing unnecessary work home and keep your home life "work-free."
2. Allow family members to sit in on key staff meetings.
The best way to stop your family and business affairs from intertwining is to keep everyone abreast of all the information as it happens. Whenever a department has an important meeting, invite the appropriate family members to sit in, even if they're not a part of that particular department. Make it clear that those who do not play an active role in that department's agenda are sitting in as observers only. Be careful, however, that family members aren't in so many meetings that they can't get their work done or that they appear to be non-productive. Allow those invited to decline if their schedules are tight.
By initiating this measure, you'll accomplish two key things. 1) When all family members know what is happening in each other's departments, you'll be less likely to discuss the issues at home. 2) Because most family business members will want to advance in the company, sitting in on the meetings provides an ideal opportunity for on-site mentoring and grooming. While not every family member will have the time to attend every staff meeting, when you use this technique along with other meetings, the tendency to talk shop at home will be greatly reduced.
3. Positively utilize all available means of communication.
In order to ensure that business messages get passed along during business hours, make sure you have the proper technology installed so you can adequately communicate with your family members, both inside and outside the office. If you receive some news about a competitor or client, immediately relay the information to your family members via the e-mail or voice mail system. Don't keep the information to yourself and wait until the weekend to tell everyone. Likewise, if an important personal event happens at night or on the weekend, such as someone gets engaged or announces a pregnancy, tell everyone immediately as the news is announced. Don't wait and reason, "I'll just tell them tomorrow at work." The more you communicate business issues at home and home issues at work, the more you actually erode efficient communication and increase stress
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4. Learn how to "compartmentalize" your life.
The compartmentalization theory revolves around the idea that people should concentrate on one task at a time, whether it be working, playing with the kids, or doing the dishes. It's almost the antithesis of multi-tasking. The belief is that when you devote all your energy to one activity at a time, you can accomplish it better than had you spread yourself too thin and tried to achieve more in less time.
To put this theory into practice, think of your world as a dresser, where each drawer represents a piece of your life. If you open the "work" drawer, then you should concentrate on that aspect only. The moment you leave work, you close the work drawer and open another, perhaps your "family" drawer. At this point your concentration should be solely on the aspects of your family. If you leave for the evening to visit the gym, then you close the family drawer and open the "exercise" drawer. Each time you close and open a new drawer, your concentration should shift to your new activity. Keeping two or more drawers open at a time is not an option.
5. Set Clearly Defined Business And Personal Roles.
When you're in the office, always call each family member by his or her business name. Familial titles, such as "Mom," "Dad," "Uncle Bob," or "Sis" need to be left at the front door. When you go home in the evening, you can reclaim those familial titles and use them accordingly.
Creating a clear business and personal distinction is of utmost importance. Why? Think about it this way: Would you rather have respect or power? Most people would rather have respect, because with it naturally comes power. If you're working at your dad's company and constantly use phrases such as "My dad said this" or "My Uncle Bob wants us to do that" to non-family member employees or clients, you're subconsciously putting yourself in a position of power — possibly without the respect.
Therefore, people will be less likely to talk about pertinent business issues with you and may even resent you being in the business. When that happens, you're essentially creating additional conflict that you'll want to resolve off-site, during nonwork time. However, when you stick with clear business and personal roles, your fellow non-family member employees will see you as part of the team, and your conflicts will be lessened.
Keeping Family Business Spouses From Feeling Left Out in the Cold
Aside from those family members who work together on a daily basis, there's another group of people not working in the business who feel the same if not more relationship stress as a result of the family business: the spouses who are outside the business.
Those who are "married to the business," so to speak, face a unique set of challenges many family business members overlook. As family business members "talk shop" at home with each other and use jargon non-business members may be unfamiliar with, their spouses often feel left out of a major part of the family's life. While the in-laws and husband or wife discuss business issues over weekend dinners or at family gatherings, the spouse is often cast aside with nothing meaningful to contribute. In many instances, the spouses may even appear ignorant about family business issues, as they haven't been included in the intimate details of how the business operates.
Fortunately, there are steps family business members can take to help spouses feel more connected with the business and the family.
1. Conduct A Yearly Family Retreat.
Once a year, devote an extended weekend to a family business retreat. Invite all the family business members and their families to take a relaxing get-away so everyone can interact, discuss family business issues, and forge tighter relationships. During the retreat, schedule one morning of business meetings and the remainder of time for fun family events. Be sure everyone is a part of both. It's a good idea to conduct the retreat at a different location each year and if there are young children present, hire a babysitter for the business activity morning so spouses are free to attend.
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2. Include Spouses In Family Business Meetings.
If a family business retreat is not feasible, consider including the spouses in the family business meetings. Doing so will give the spouses another way to understand the business and what issues family business members are presently facing. Spouses need not attend every meeting, but they should be invited to participate in a few every year.
Susan Lau, whose husband Jeffrey is a part of his family's industrial loan company, attends the company's annual meeting. There she gets to see the business's figures, forecasts, and plans for the coming year. While she may not understand every aspect of her husband's family's business, going to the meeting makes the business issues seem more real to her. Susan's reaction to attending the meeting is typical of business spouses: Once spouses understand the challenges and dynamics of the business, they are generally more supportive of any business activities. To make these family business meetings more enjoyable for the spouses, be sure the meeting also has a social aspect to it, such as going out to dinner afterwards or spending the evening watching family movies.
3. Use Your Spouse's Talents In The Business.
If your family business has a need for some occasional business or administrative assistance that a spouse can provide, encourage him or her to take part. One good example of this in action is Steve Cheng, a "business spouse" to his wife's family business, Wing Hing Noodle, located in
California. In order to feel a part of the family business, Steve will occasionally help teach employees a new software application or to fix a computer problem. Although Steve does these activities pro bono, he reaps much more in terms of understanding and connectedness to the business. Doing these small tasks gives him a chance to interact with his in-laws on a professional level, while it also allows the family business members an opportunity to explain the inner workings of the business to him.
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