How to Survive a Family Business

By Roy H Williams

(Edited from original)

If you run your business like a family, you're headed for disaster. The only thing that could possibly be worse would be to run your family like a business.

Business values and family values are fundamentally opposite.

Healthy families are built on unconditional acceptance and absolute equality. "No matter what you do, or don't do, your Mother and I will always love you. And we will always love your brothers and your sisters just as we love you."

You can't have favorites in a healthy family.

But unconditional acceptance and absolute equality have no place in a business. Healthy businesses are built on performance-based acceptance. And families are ruined by it.

Are you starting to get the picture?

Can you work productively and successfully with members of your family? Sure you can, just as long as you remember never to talk about home in the workplace, or the workplace at home. To do otherwise can only end badly. And know that while family values will rule in the home, business values will rule in the workplace.

Understanding that simple premise, you only need to ask, "Am I at work or am I at home?"