20 | Leading a Family Business?

Welcome back!

This past March I went to a business founder’s mastermind retreat. Two days with 30 other founders in a room discussing everything a business owner could talk about.

At one point in a session on the first afternoon together we discussing a prompt centered around people and team (my love language). I noticed a lot of the pain points centered around employment of friends and family.

The host of this session stopped and asked for people to raise their hand if they have currently employed a friend or family member.

Almost the entire room raised their hand.

This is an important moment for us to acknowledge.

Working with family or friends is becoming more of the norm in today’s business world, and instead of the normal saying that I hear of “don’t do that” what if we just lean into it?

We’re doing it. A lot of us are hiring friends and family. So let’s lean in and figure out how to do it best.

And that’s what today’s session is about.

There’s a lot to talk about here, so let’s keep it simple by leaning on the camaraderie matrix of high relationship high mission.

In work teams that involve family members and friends, if we can keep the growth in relational connection matching the growth in missional connection, then we’re going to thrive in our relationships.

What I notice is that the missional connection usually overtakes the relational connection. When you work with someone in your family, your conversations will gravitate towards mission most of the time. It’s easier to talk about work when we ride in the car together or grab lunch together. It’s also easy to not even prioritize having lunch together. .

Which brings me to my first practical example of this: my dad leads his own engineering company and my cousin (his nephew) Josh works for him. They have a great working relationship as well as a personal relationship. One of the things they do is have lunch together every Thursday. It’s a rhythm that others know about to so when I’m in town or other family members are around they know they can stop in and join for Thursday lunch. It’s a simple set rhythm of relational connection outside of the work connection.

So don’t worry, growing and investing in the relational connection doesn’t need to be heavy or take up a lot of time.

Instead, it’s more about consistency and intention.

If the consistency wasn’t there, or if there was no intention (like cell phones were out the entire lunch) then it wouldn’t work.

But with consistency and intention, there is a feeling of care and warmth.

This emphasis on the relational connection is really important when working with family members and friends.

Sometimes our family members and friends WANT to work with us because they want more relationship.

This is what usually causes the rift.

When they start working with you because they’re more excited to be around you more, and come to find out they almost feel more relationally distant from you.

If you’re working with your spouse, with your kids, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, what could really help your working relationships thrive is to keep a very focused intention on developing the relational connection.

Invest in them as people.

Let’s flip it to the other side: the mission side. Sometimes, out of love and are for our friends and family, we won’t delegate as much responsibility or “mission” to them because we don’t want them to fail. So, almost subconsciously, we never really come to rely on them. Because hey, we want them to enjoy their job. We want their job to be easy. We want them to win, to succeed. Okay, this causes a break down of camaraderie. Comrades show up to carry weight, carry responsibility. Comrades show up to be relied on. When we try and protect them from failure, we disempower them. If you were a business owner sitting in front of me right now, I would look you square in the eyes and tell you “It’s okay for them to fail under your leadership.” . . . “Actually it’s part of the process of their growth and of this team.” Remember in last month’s honor session where I talked about failure being part of the honor journey. I said “For someone to truly experience honor, they need to not meet an expectation, they need to fail, make a mistake, and then still be honored for who they are and called up.” If we make business decisions around protecting our friends and family members from failure, we stunt their experience of honor, we stunt their growth, we cap their identity of being someone to rely on and contribute to the mission. Instead of protecting them, focus on launching them. Instead of protecting them, focus on empowering them. Have enough respect for them, to believe in them handling mistakes, learning, growing and leveling up every single week. Lean into their contribution to the mission. Let them have stake in the game.

Here’s 3 tips that I’ll wrap up with:

1. Avoid “always” being the teacher. Shift from teacher to comrade. Sometimes when we employ a friend or family member, it starts out as a mentor type relationship (as it should because there are things you’re teaching them in the business to do there job) but at some point you need to see them as growing and begin to shift your connection with them from mentor to comrades. If you always remain the teacher, they will never really grow or feel the true essence of the confidence you want them to experience. I talk about this in the Leading People 1-1 month by the way, so check that out.

2. Stay curious about who someone is. Relational connection involves staying curious around someone’s growth. Sometimes we stop learning about those we are closest too. And this is what kills camaraderie. When the people you’re trying to connect with still see you as who you were ten years ago and have stopped asking curious questions to see how you’ve grown, changed, developed. I’ve worked with business owners that have employed their children, and their children really seem capped in their growth and I’ve found it’s because the dynamic of the business owner to their children is that they still see them as 5 year olds. This is the responsibility of the business owner to keep an open mind of relating and connecting with their children in different ways. The aspect of relational connection relies on remaining curious so that we continue to get to know those we live with, work with and lead with.

3. Put everything out on the table. The work teams I’ve seen thrive with family members or friends on the team are the ones that openly discuss and point at the dynamics that are swayed by the context of their relationships. Like Mr. Rogers said, “What is mentionable is manageable.” If I see a team that has both new hires recruited from a job posting working with the family members that were hired, and there are open lines of communication that mark awareness, then I know that team is going to figure it out. Yes, dynamics will always be there. Pretending they aren’t isn’t helping anyone. Openly speaking about them helps those not within the inner circle feel included and part of the team.

Okay that’s a wrap for today. If you are a leader who has employed or hired family members of friends, and want to discuss this further, then click the chat button and reach out! I’d love to support you!

On that note, that’s all for today. I’ll see you soon!