Small Business Relationships: Background

While many of the same fundamentals that are important in relationships with family and friends also apply to business relationships - such as good communication skills, teamwork, healthy boundaries and shared goals - there are also important differences. For example, traditional business relationships are usually characterized by roles that are more formal, job descriptions that are more defined, areas of responsibility that are more clear and means of evaluation that are more specific. Personal self-disclosure and intimate conversation or behavior is often inappropriate in a business setting, while it may be very desirable in a personal relationship.

Because of these different standards, family members who attempt to work together in a family business face special challenges. These challenges are multiplied if the family home is also used for business.

There are basically two ways that family members work together successfully. One is where the business is a way of life woven into the very fabric of the family. The children are brought up in it, and family roles and responsibilities are indistinguishable from work roles. This is rare now, especially in non-rural settings, but many years ago used to be much more common. Husbands and wives shared responsibilities on the farm or ranch. The children were brought up to work alongside their parents or older siblings, and if the family was lucky enough to own land, it was passed down to the next generation. People understood their roles, and the primary motivation was not to make money, but to fulfill their responsibilities in the culture in which they lived.

Nowadays, things are more complicated. A family business is usually thought of as an enterprise to which family members are choosing to devote a portion of their time and energy, in expectation of an income and/or equity in the business. One set of rules and roles is needed to govern the business, and another to apply to the family. This can lead to major confusion over which rules apply at which times. In the corporate world, a manager can assign work, set minimum standards of acceptable performance, and give a reprimand or other consequences if those standards are not met. It is much more difficult to do this with one's spouse, and if parents deal with their older teenage or adult "children" in this way, it is often difficult for both parties to know whether the parents are acting in a managerial role or a dominant parental role. If a husband or wife who works with a spouse, especially in a home based business, needs to discuss domestic issues, it is often difficult to know when they are "off work" and can do so in their "husband and wife" identities.

Thus, an effective approach to resolving small business relationship issues needs to result in understanding and agreement regarding roles, expectations and boundaries (perhaps in a personal as well as a business setting), in addition to working with communication, conflict resolution, and other skills. This will provide long-term benefits rather than simply defusing a current crisis.

For more on how John handles this topic, see:

[Business Relationships: Specific Counseling Strategies]