All families have grievances with each other. Addressing them quickly and honestly makes for better relationships inside and out of the business.

Overcoming Family Grievances:
Why am I so angry with the people I love?

Grievances of all members of family businesses are important. We help our clients to voice their grievances, understand their meaning, and examine their core values as well as the basis of their beliefs and attitudes. We help them develop a procedure for dealing with future grievances more constructively.

Regardless of how one gets involved in the family business: through their own effort and initiative, through birth, inheritance or marriage, it becomes an extension of the family. To the founder the business becomes another family member, a "baby". To the members of the second and third generation the business stands for the family legacy as well as a financial asset.

Are feuds, conflicts, and tension among family members unavoidable in family businesses?

No, not necessarily. In many instances members of family businesses get along fine. We find that such families took the time, and made a conscious decision to work hard on satisfying family members needs and on defining each members' roles in the business or out of it. Like any other relationship, here too, to attain satisfaction people should be listened to, their wishes acknowledged, and needs addressed. Harmony does not come automatically. It needs continuous nurturing.

Why do relationships among business family members get sour?

The answer to this question is not simple. Usually, there are several reasons to account for the deterioration in the relationships among family members and they may vary from one family to another. But as a common denominator one finds that members of troubled family businesses (which have good businesses) systematically ignore each other's grievances. This is a key characteristic that separates family businesses that have good relationships among its family members from those who do not have such relationships. Here, at EPC, we can help family members develop simple ways to develop better communication and constructive involvement of all family members.

You have heard it before and did we:
Grievances from the other side of the bed

The family members that come from the other side of the bed are the wives of the founders, the spouses of the second-generation presidents and CEOs, and the daughters/sister-in-laws of the second or third generations. Some of the difficult issues founders' wives have to come to terms with are the fact that their husbands seem to spend more time on the job than they do at home. And that their attention is often more on the business then on the family. They are often kept in the dark but nonetheless are asked to serve as a sounding board to their husbands. Often they find themselves in a tragic situation of being cut-off from their relationships with their children and the grandchildren because they become, inadvertently, the "collateral damage" of the feuds between their husbands and sons (or daughters). Choosing between husbands and children is an extremely painful dilemma.

Founder complaints

To the founders, the business they created and built is their pride. It is their "child" and part of their identity. If they are not really ready to retire, any attempt to make them involuntarily part from their role in the business feels like robbing them from their identity. This is a very difficult feeling to endure. These sentiments take the form of the complaints: "All that my son wants is to get rid of me" "They want my money", "They use my grandchildren to punish me".

Grievances of the new successors

Typically, the son (nowadays also a daughter) who serves as president and CEO of the family business faces intergenerational challenges. Most likely, he graduated from a business school earning an MBA degree or from law school. He brings new technologies, new ideas and a management style quite different from that of the founder. He is ambitious, aggressive (probably the same way their fathers were in their youth) and wants to move fast and take charge. The result is intense frustration that transcends the relationships between the founder and the son, and affects other family members.

The exhausted successor

The young president may find even more challenging hurdles. The most problematic ones are (a) the presence of the father who is reluctant to relinquish control even if he considers himself "semi-retired" and (b) the loyalty of many long time employees and executives to the founder. The young president discovers to his chagrin, that the business has a two-channel authority system: One follows the official organizational chart and reporting system, the other is an informal backchannel where the old, loyal employees continue to report to the founder and take orders from him. Such interference undermines the young president's own authority. He, in turn, tries to solve this predicament by acquiring a majority of voting shares. This move only angers other family members, and the family finds itself in a psychological crisis. This is definitely a point to call us.

The "greedy" offspring

As young children, the founders' sons and daughters have to learn how to compete for Dad's attention. The painful feelings associated with the competition for Dad's limited free time, or for mothers' love, often survive through adulthood. In adulthood, Dad's attention and love takes the form of Dad's (the family business') money. Equal money for everyone means equal love. No wonder that adult brothers and sisters feel entitled to equal financial arrangements irrespective of their own contribution to the management of the business.

The "newcomers"

Members of the family business need to make sure that son's wives (and frequently daughter's husbands) are on the family side. Daughters-in-law (and sons-in-law) can be great support to their spouses, those who are active in the family business as well as those who are not. Conversely, they can also be a source of great unhappiness. Jealousies among wives of several brothers have been known to be a source of great grievance.

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Overcoming Family Grievances: Why am I so angry with the people I love?