This is a Guest Post by: Mark H. Nicholas is a lawyer, entrepreneur, creative enthusiast, and the author of I Come First, a book about business, leadership, & life. He blogs at www.icomefirst.com and can also be found on Twitter and Facebook at @MHNBooks
In his 1964 stand-up routine, Woody Allen discussed the family business and explained that in his newly formed corporation he was the president, his mother was vice president, his father was secretary, and grandmother named treasurer. He explains that they all got together the first week and tried to squeeze him out. Luckily, he formed a power block with his uncle and sent his grandmother to jail.
What does this have to do with anything? Well… politics at its core is merely the way people in groups make decisions. Despite its negative connotations, I embrace politics, both the good (yes, politics is mostly good) as well as the bad, as part of a core study of human behavior and the group dynamic. I recognize that there is a process people must go through in order to make the “right” decision, and the ability to effectively assert oneself to achieve goals – both corporate and personal – is essential to the decision making process.
I am certainly not advocating the bad behavior often cited as political, but rather that the desire to avoid offending others in a small business can so grossly outweighs any other goal that decision making and the creative process can become quite one-sided. The family/close-knit business suffers from these natural obstructions to the decision-making process. We defer, acknowledge, and support – rather than challenge and advocate. We trade off and compromise. And we acquiesce. The natural processes in business can easily become quashed in the overall context of close relationships.
There is a great deal of study on the matter.
There is the fact that human beings find it nearly impossible to think objectively when there is a component of self-interest in the outcome. There are simply too many psychological obstructions to being truly effective when there is a risk of angering loved ones. We could talk for hours about cognitive dissonance and bias, but this isn’t psychology class. Nevertheless, one recent study indicated that couples in long term relationships can damage each other’s health – citing examples indicative of bad eating habits used to quash other emotional reactions.
What can you do to ensure that your business can remain effective while still maintaining your love for your business-mates?
1. Planning. Most importantly, I advocate careful business planning for all businesses, but in the close business challenges to creativity and decision making suggest that another component of planning is in order – a formal structure to decision making built to retain the strength of relationships while allowing the best ideas to be suggested and evaluated. As an attorney I can cite countless examples when just one decision, years into the business ultimately tear the relationships, and the business, apart. Careful planning and a considered structure help to minimize this risk.
2. Formalities. Observe formalities in your processes. I can’t tell you how often businesses, even the biggest and badest corporations, skip formalities and ultimately find themselves in a heap of trouble. You probably think that the small business is lucky to avoid these formalities. It isn’t. It is more at risk. The formalities help define the process, in this circumstance where the relationships themselves are so very capable at undermining that very process. For instance, consider presenting decisions and positions in a formalized setting, building guidelines for how the communication process occurs and how decisions – particularly ties – are resolved amicably.
3. A Trusted Adviser. Utilize one trusted individual as an available consultant. Pick the best one. Not two. Don’t solicit help from many others, or advocate/vent to groups. Utilize the expertise of a single source to assist in evaluating options. As they say, a person with one watch knows what time it is, but a person with two is never sure. Get sure.
This stuff sounds mundane and formulaic; exactly what you’d like most to avoid. But I can report to you that a business can be successful only if it makes good decisions, and if it stays in business. And you’ll only stay in business if the relationships stay intact. These sure are a lot of considerations – and even more at stake.
In summary… plan. It’s not that hard when you do it while everyone is still getting along.
Author byline:
Mark H. Nicholas is a lawyer, entrepreneur, creative enthusiast, and the author of I Come First, a book about business, leadership, & life. He blogs at www.icomefirst.com and can also be found on Twitter and Facebook at @MHNBooks
