Choose Wisely, Please: Entering, Staying or Leaving the Family Business

By Lois Lang, Psy.D.

It s Your Choice Choose Wisely Will you enter the family business? If you are already in the business, will you stay? Choosing to stay or go is one of the hardest decisions you will make. After all, you re making a decision about not only your career, but also your relationship with your family. Is it possible to reach a decision that will make you feel good, increase your chance of career success, and enhance your relationship with your family? Yes! Lois Lang shows you how.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9780988911031

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

THE DECISION

You have a decision to make. Are you going to enter or stay in the family business? Are you going to leave? If you stay, do you need to change job positions?

Why think about whether you want to enter, remain in, or even leave the family business? You may be thinking about this decision because your friends and professional colleagues seem further ahead in their career than you picture yourself. It could be that you are finding you have a lot of responsibility in your family’s business, but not a lot of authority to make things happen. You may wonder if you would be here if it hadn’t been so easy to land in your father’s business. Or it could be that you’ve just had it—one too many family members’ behavior has pushed you over the edge and you’re convinced you can’t work with them anymore.

If you are outside of the business and looking in, it may seem like a dream come true to work closely with your extended family. Building a business with your family may seem irresistible, like a chance to grow personally and professionally at the same time. You may see this as a way to protect and grow your family’s wealth, or it may be to reconnect with siblings and cousins.

Then again, you may simply feel unmotivated and stuck.

Whatever the reason, you are here and you know you need to decide which direction to take.

Deciding on an area of focus for your career is trying in the best of circumstances. The average college student switches majors five times before landing on the one. Many of us never take the time to consider what our life passion is. As a result, we’re ambivalent or we love many areas and can’t choose one to follow. For example, we may love to sing but have a voice that should never pass the shower door. We may love connecting with others and think sales is our gift but we’re a homebody who detests flying. We may love to contemplate the why of existence but are not willing to get an advanced degree in philosophy and admit that a professor salary may not match our lifestyle desires.

Taking the Time to Think

Deciding to work in your family business is a step that begs for serious time spent in introspection. But often, this decision happens before you have time to think. Perhaps you finish college in the middle of an economic downturn and job availability is scarce to non-existent. Or maybe someone in your immediate family becomes ill and you need secure health benefits. Or perhaps your mom asks you to help out after the sudden death of your dad. The flip side is that you think a lot and begin to romanticize reconnecting with your brother, sister, or cousins through work. You daydream about working closely with your parents. You visualize their surprise and praise of your work contributions.

Many of my clients have told me that the family comes first in their decision to enter and stay in the business, yet this level of togetherness is more than the average adult experiences and it frequently tears at the fiber of family harmony. Daily decisions about money, fairness, and personal value push and pull at the best of relationships. Discussions of transition to the next generation, the capability of the current leading generation, and mortality frighten the bravest.

While you may see yourself as you are today, confident in your knowledge and work performance, others remember and hang on to the times you goofed as a child, teen, and young adult. They retell stories until they are burned into not only the family history, but also the organizational culture of the business. The reality of getting stuck is more likely when others know you and your history intimately. At the same time, you are, often unknowingly, holding onto the past of your parents, cousins, and siblings. It’s a bummer both ways!

Looking at and facing the reality of yourself requires a balance of honesty and kindness. There are many different reasons to enter the family business, to stay, or to leave. These reasons may range from needing secure employment to making a difference in your community. You may be passionate about the product or service. Your skills and talents may be fully utilized in the business. This is your time to carefully consider the trade-offs you are willing to make.

Deciding where you want to be work-wise is not something you do once at the beginning of your career. Research shows that what you studied in technical school or college will unlikely be your full work career. Unexpected opportunities arise, you take on a project that stretches your skills, and you find that you love something else. A colleague calls with a job in a different industry and they are sure you are a perfect fit.

It may be a life-altering event that makes you pause and take stock of where you are and where you want to be. A serious illness forces you to question if your work has purpose or meaning. After years of doing the same thing you may start to wonder if you really believe in the company’s products or services. You may not need to wake up each morning with a smile on your face, pumping your fist in the air with the happy anticipation of getting to work, but it is nice to feel satisfaction, contentment, and pride in what you do.

Therefore, evaluate your work-life satisfaction every few years. Choose milestones that mean something to you or calendar an in-depth look every five years with an annual surface level check-in. There are other natural times for reflection, such as the birth of children, an unexpected illness, a financial crisis, divorce, the arrival of grandchildren, work burnout, or a nagging dissatisfaction with life.

Rashid’s Story

Consider Rashid, a well-educated, highly experienced 38 year old who is the eldest in the second generation of three siblings and eight cousins. Rashid obtained his MBA from a prestigious university, has worked at two different manufacturing companies, and has advanced rapidly. He was working as the Chief Operations Officer in a $70 million manufacturing plant when his uncle asked him to consider entry into the family business. The struggle begins.

While he loves his family, he is not sure he can work with them, particularly with his father, who is the current CEO. A family wooing courtship begins with his uncle hosting a large family dinner catered on Sunday after a round of golf. Uncle Meer puts Rashid, his wife, and children in a suite of rooms at a bed and breakfast close to Rashid’s childhood home. While Rashid only lives two hours away from family, visits have become limited to major holidays since the birth of his children.

The weekend was perfect and seeing everyone was great. The cousins reconnected with his children and Sunday evening ended with a tour of the company’s new facility. His two uncles pulled him aside and confidentially let him know that they were concerned about his dad’s leadership—his memory was quickly slipping and he was becoming more stubborn about changes that needed to happen. The uncles were confident that Aden, Rashid’s dad who was nearing 71, would step down to his son, and that Rashid was ready. Rashid became very concerned about his dad and the business. He talked to his wife who was enthusiastic about moving back to their hometown.

Before Rashid knew it, he was giving notice, house hunting, and entering the family business. When I met Rashid two years later, he was frustrated, unhappy, and angry. His father hadn’t stepped down from the CEO role after several public acknowledgements that he would. Rashid was desperately trying to lead from the background—fulfilling the CEO role without the authority to carry out several strategic decisions critical to long-term business sustainability. He related that it had been fun and exciting at first bringing his experience into the family business, but he and his father were butting heads within three months and it quickly turned bad. Looking back he admitted to not remembering how he had let himself slip into this quick career change without a more thoughtful decision process.

This is common. Many family employees note not remembering how they decided to enter; they frequently state it just happened. They either began as an extra pair of hands during summer vacations in high school or college, or were just going to work a few months after college before moving to another part of the country when voila! Three years later they’re plugging along shoulder-to-shoulder with family.

Rashid noted, I plan and think more about my annual vacation than I spent trying to decide if I should move my career into the family business. Rashid went on to explain that if he had taken the time, he would have admitted to himself that his father would not step down, the company was too small for his career goals, and working with his father would damage their relationship.

Now Rashid feels trapped in a no-win situation. The company and family are depending on him to continue to lead from the background, his wife is in love with living close to family, and he is frustrated with his lack of authority. Six months later, Rashid joined a much larger company and moved his family three hours south. The move resulted in persuading an unhappy wife and leaving some angry extended family members and an unsold house behind. I can only say that I’ve learned a lot and the next time I have a big decision to make, I will slow down, think, and gather more information.

Approaching the Decision to Enter, Stay, or Leave

This isn’t a simple what do I want to do? decision. The first decision is about the career you want. If your career goals match what the family business has to offer, then you have a second decision to make. The second decision will be based on your understanding of your family and your ability and desire to work with them. So let’s get started with these two questions:

Is the family business a match for what you want to do in your career?

Do you think you can successfully work with your family?

It is rare to have your decision after answering the first question, but it does happen. If you want to be a career musician and the family business processes food, it is unlikely that you would be happy working there. Still, I have known many family members who have chosen to put their passion into a hobby and move into the family business as a means for financial security. While it is tempting to latch on to people stating they passionately love their work, there are few statistics to back this up. Most research indicates that financial security is a primary driver, with flexible work schedules, recognition, and challenging projects following close behind.

Realize, too, that not making a decision is a decision. Drifting into the family business or staying in, without occasionally pausing to consider your decision, can impact you both emotionally and financially.

Emotionally you may be 20 years into the family business, look back, and wonder why you felt so obligated to enter the family business that you pushed your true career goals to the side. These guilt-ridden, non-decisions frequently build a pile of resentments, which turn into bitterness and anger, and these emotions send lovely spurts of stress hormones racing throughout your body. The stress can lead to diverticulitis, high blood pressure, and if sustained long enough, cancer.

For some families, working in the business takes a financial toll. Sometimes families don’t pay family members a competitive salary and keep beating the drum of well you’re an owner and someday you’ll sell or you’ll start getting more dividends. Finding yourself in this situation can mean that by mid-career you’re significantly behind your peers.

Rough estimates show that 95% of us will put off making a decision some of the time, and 20% of us consistently procrastinate. Wherever you land on this spectrum, it is easy for days to slip into weeks, months, and even years. In my office, we drive other businesses to track their strategic goals on a monthly basis. It’s embarrassing to admit that we looked and found that in four years, instead of 48 looks at our plan, we had managed to eek out only 10. Struggling with decisions and goals seems to be part of the human lot.

So, how do you overcome this? One way to push yourself is to write down the decision you need to make and the date you’re going to make the decision, and then ask a friend or coach to keep you honest and accountable to the goal. Placing a reminder in your smart phone with a persistent, annoying sound can also draw your attention to your commitment. You have now told yourself you will do it, wrote it down, have told someone, and asked them to hold you accountable to your commitment. Your chance of making the decision just increased exponentially.

Ella’s Story

Ella started working at the family business at the beginning of her senior year in college. Her dad had a massive stroke and her mom asked her to step in for a few months until things calmed down. Juggling leaving college, moving, leading a $40 million dollar tech firm, and watching her father struggle with simple daily tasks stretched her to her breaking point. The few months turned in to two years before she paused to look up. By then her younger brother completed college and started working with her during a time of hyper-growth and it was clear that her father would never be able