Working with Family... Part 1

Family Matters

Working with family is every horror imaginable and the greatest joy all at the same time. You make it through to the end of the day, and some days are pretty darn long, and you're like, “Yes, we made it. I can't believe we are all still alive!" I am sure I have fired everyone several times and I myself have even quit on two occasions. How do you quit your own business? I don't know but I when I left, I was sure I was never coming back. After working with family for over 20 years I thought, I bet I could help someone just getting into this big messy whirlwind called working with family.

Family businesses usually evolve organically. One person starts the business and as it grows and becomes successful others join in to help. There is usually no plan in place for the newbies coming in and it's a little, fly by the seat of your pants. I can give you a couple of situations that if they exist in your family, you might want to never, ever work together. The first is you can't deal with conflict. There will be conflict. If you not the type of person who can hash it out until you can work it through, this is not for you. It will ruin your business and your home life, and the stress will make you ill. You should never hire family.

The second situation is your family hierarchy is different from your business hierarchy. If Dad is in charge at home but Mom is in charge at work, Dad is probably going to want be in charge at work too. This is not going to make Mom very happy...and we all know if Mama's not happy, nobody's happy. Business's run smoother when mom and dad are equals at home and work or whoever is in charge at home is also in charge at work.

I had no idea I had so much to contribute to this this topic so, I will have to continue this post in Working with Family Part 2

I would also fill up this page with family pictures but the children frown upon my public picture posting. However, this is my granddaughter Olive. I can post her picture because she can't talk yet.