I used to coach a small printing business. The business owner had recently brought her husband on board to work in sales. It was not working out. He was discounting everything. They were too busy to handle the workload because they won every job they quoted. It was a vicious cycle. Their marriage was becoming a work relationship – a bad work relationship.
I told her in the interest of her marriage she should fire her husband. She agreed with me. Said it made total sense. Told me she would go home and handle it.
Except she didn’t go home and fire him. She called me the next day and fired me. I’ve always been a fan of tough love – and believe the advice I gave was correct for the business. However, it wasn’t the right advice for their marriage. I learnt a valuable lesson that day.
It’s easy to stand on the sidelines and say things should be black and white. Family run businesses are not always that cut and dry. The lines between personal and professional do get blurred from time to time. The smash repair industry is filled with family run businesses – it can get messy.
Here are a few simple guidelines to follow or check you have in place to minimise friction
SET BOUNDARIES
Determine the rules in advance. If you don’t want your work and your problems at work to take over your whole life then set clear boundaries around leaving work at work. Once you get home then focus on your family. Enjoy your family time for what it is.
DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS
Performance reviews, salary reviews, management reviews – these conversations will be more difficult with a family member. Very few people can leave the personal out of it to have the difficult conversation. The problem is the business can suffer if you are not able to have those difficult conversations. The blessing (and curse) of working with family members is that as an owner you have the option of allowing more leeway if they are not at the level they need to be. You can offer more management training or skills training if necessary. The important thing is to accurately and honestly assess their skill level. Pumped up performance reviews or misinformation doesn’t help the person or the business.
TONE
This is a huge one. It’s often small and overlooked. There is something special a family member that enables them to have the ability to annoy you more than anyone else. The ‘family member fuse’ is often quite short compared to how you feel about non-family members making mistakes. I’ve coached dozens of family businesses and the way they communicate with each other almost always needs addressing. It’s usually their tone with one another. Barking, snapping, yelling – I’ve seen it all. None of it has a place in your business. So always remember to check your tone when addressing a family member at work.
EXIT STRATEGY
As a business owner when you do want to let go? Are you letting go slowly or all in one hit? Are you selling or giving? There are a lot of questions that need answering to determine your exit strategy. The sooner these questions are addressed the better. Children or family members often want control or have ideas they want to implement but can’t if the owner is still making all the big decisions. To avoid a messy situation in the future try to map out the exit strategy with timeline attached so everyone understands what he or she is working towards. It helps you as an owner prepare yourself for when you no longer run the company and helps your family members prepare for the day they need to be capable and ready to run things themselves.
This is an article that appeared in Paint and Panel Sep / Oct 2016.