Don’t wear a family hat to make a business decision

Family-owned and managed businesses can be very useful because they work with your loved ones – your family.

However, by nature, family business is also a challenge. This is because people involved in this type of operation are required to wear a lot of hats. It can be difficult to distinguish between family roles and business roles.

Map business roles

A.D. In 1978, Renato Taguuri and Harvard Business School’s John Davis learned how to form a family business with three different, overlapping, circular groups: family members, business owners, and individuals who contributed to management or labor. Business.

Each club asks participants to take on certain roles and responsibilities or to wear certain hats on the farm.

Many farming families do not always see their business as having three different clubs. Instead, he asserted that all family members should take on family, business, and ownership roles.

But in reality, some family members may have their own unique goals and aspirations. You may choose not to work in the family business. Some choose not to be part of the family farm.

When a family member joins a number of clubs, he or she may struggle to join different family and business roles.

Manage crossover roles

Often, people who run their own businesses allow family roles to determine how they work. I remember the story of Dick Whitman, a mother who worked with a farm planner, Whitman, on a family business with her two sons. When a child is unwilling to work with others, he is always in conflict.

Someone suggested that the mother assess her child’s performance. She commented on the review and identified areas where the child could improve. After reading the review, the boy threw it in the trash and returned to work.

Dick asked the boy how he would fare if he had cooperated with the community, not his mother. “Maybe I was fired,” he replied.

Dick said the boy was part of a family business administration or a trade union and could be fired if his performance did not meet expectations. Above all, for the first time, the mother realized that she had the power to stop her son’s work. The mother-child relationship interfered with the CEO and the employee.

Choose the right hat

Well-run family businesses see the three clubs as a separate group. Family members who take on administrative or ownership roles should consider those roles separately from their family roles.

Consider one more example. Imagine that you have been with your brother for 30 years. You grow row crops and protect the machines. He runs the Animal Enterprise and sells the grain. They own everything from 50 to 50, and you work well together.

One day your brother says he wants to retire. After much pressure on him and his wife, the boy finally stopped visiting with the band and agreed to return home to take over his father’s farm.

It is clear that your nephew is in your family club, but family ties alone should not guarantee the right to own business and be part of management clubs. In this case, the decision-maker should hire a qualified new animal and grain marketing manager.

Here’s the lesson: Don’t wear your family hat to make business decisions. You may need to overlap when individuals fill roles in different circles. However, you can better protect your family and business by treating each club as unique and special. Doing so will help reduce conflict and improve family business – and the chances of a successful family.

Tucker is a Missouri Extension Ag business specialist and follower planner. It can be accessed [email protected] Or 417-326-4916.