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A family business is more than a business. It’s an heirloom, a cultural touchstone that both defines and is defined by your family. While working with your family can be rewarding, the meshing of personal and professional lives can be very challenging.
Dr. Azevedo offers family business consulting, a third-party service to help your family navigate its business. Having neutral intervention can help you solve some very difficult issues.
Favoritism
Of course you love your family. Unfortunately, this bias can blind us in the business world. Even if you consider yourself neutral or an expert businessperson, your love for (or obligation to) your family members can he hard to overcome.
This can be a problem regardless of your business’ size. In a small business, favoritism can make other family members feel slighted. As a business grows, non-family employees can miss valuable opportunities. This bias can cause:
- Low morale: employees feel they get inadequate recognition for their work.
- Bad decisions: bias means that promotions aren’t always based on talent.
- Delayed decisions: being beholden to family obligations can delay important choices.
Work/Life Harmony
Ever dated or become great friends with a coworker? It can get very uncomfortable when you have a disagreement. There’s another level of intimacy and closeness there that’s not present with conventional colleagues.
Your family members can provide the same layer of difficulty. These are people you know on a personal level, and you need to keep that relationship special and separate from your professional one. Popular methods for addressing this include:
- Separate commutes: spouses may drive to work separately.
- Blackout hours: you may make rules to not speak of the business during family gatherings, or after a certain time in the evening.
- Physical separation: during a family vacation, leave your laptop at home, or turn off email notifications.
Succession
Succession can be the most difficult part of a family business. On the emotional side, you want to promote your family and ensure their security. On the practical side, you want to put the best person in charge of the business. So what do you do?
Grooming family members can go either way. In the beer world, Augustus Busch IV’s contentious paternal relationship was a key factor in Anheuser-Busch’s takeover by InBev. In fact, his father actually helped arrange it! Likewise at Yuengling – another family-run business – careful planning, long term training and equal opportunity have ensured its success.
A third-party family consultant can help address this by giving you the neutrality you urgently need, and help point out issues with planned successors before it’s too late.
If you find yourself struggling with any of these issues, contact Dr. Azevedo today. We would love to help improve your business!
