Maybe Business IS like a Family...

Ok, hear me out on this one.

It's Family Day here in Alberta today, and it's been making me think about the narrative around businesses saying they're "like a family".

A lot of career coaches say that it's a red flag. Others just flat out dismiss that it's possible to treat a work team like your family. But what if that wasn't true?

I love me a good "What If", so today, let's explore how much Families and Businesses actually have in common 😉

You Don't Choose Your Family

When it comes to your birth family, you don't get to choose it. You're born into it whether you like it or not.

And let's be honest. That's how a lot of people end up in a company as well. A company decides to hire an employee; they apply; they get offered a job; and they accept.

You may think that acceptance of a job offer shows that person is intentionally choosing that company. But there are millions of reasons why people go to work for a company because they feel they HAVE to (financial need and physical safety being two huge ones), NOT because they choose to. So, we end up in another community relationship that is NOT based on self-selecting in.

When we don't actively CHOOSE to be with a group of people, that's when we start to experience a feeling of not belonging. And not belonging within your Family, is equally likely as not belonging in a Business...because you're NOT actively choosing it.

The good news is, with the right intention, you CAN belong both in a Family unit and a Business unit. But without a conversation about those intentions for each participating member, belonging ceases to exists.

I would say that's a valid similarity.

Power Dynamics

Families and Businesses both have power dynamics at play. In a Family, there's always be default a leader. In my experience, that's my dad.

And maybe it's mostly societal narrative, but there was an innate fear and respect that came down the familiar chain. All my dad had to do was "warm up his spanking hands", and my sisters and I would be right back to our best behavior. Or shall I say, the behavior that was expected of 3 young girls.

Let's subtract the fact that usually these "leadership positions" are owned by white males, there is a similar experience in a lot of work environments.

The leader holds the power. You can see it in interviews. You can see it in performance reviews. You see it in quarterly management off-site meetings, which happen off-site because the team isn't "allowed" to see what goes on behind those doors. It's above their clearance level.

An innate difference. A separation. Built to maintain a structure of control.

Sounds a lot like the family dynamic as well.

What It's Supposed to Look Like

For a long time, I believed a Family was complete with 5 people. 2 parents, 3 kids. After all, that's what my family growing up looked like. It's what my husband's family looked like as well. And so, I grew up with the irrational belief that a person family was "right". That's what a family was supposed to look like.

After my personal pregnancy loss struggles, I had to go back to the drawing board to see that I actually believed that. I realized I didn't, and am 100% complete with my little 3 person family now, but I see similarities with business here as well.

What is a scaling business "supposed" to look like? In order to be one, we need to have a definition. So we hit the books. We profile other successful companies. And then we do EXACTLY what they did to scale.

Except the problem is that, just like my experience with what a family looks likes, it's just a construct. And in most cases, it's a construct that disempowers the Family or Business unit instead of empowering it.

The more we explore how people, families and businesses are supposed to be and look UNIQUE, the more we empower each of those things to reach their full potential.

For more information on people reaching their full potential at work, check out my article titled Scalability vs. People in the Workplace.

Lack of Human Potential Optimization

So this is something that's always top of mind for me, and I feel like is maybe the biggest thing that connects Family and Business.

Most Family units don't have an intention of optimizing the human potential of their members. At least for us as Millenials and the older generations, this really wasn't a part of the conversation growing up. It was about fitting in, keeping your head down and working hard, not making people uncomfortable, and a hundred other "rules" that weren't about empowering people.

The thing is, most people don't actually know how to do this for THEMSELVES, let alone for someone else, including a family member. So of course it doesn't happen. We haven't built the human skills.

Equally, most Business units don't have an intention of optimizing the human potential of their members either. And not just because the people don't have the skills, but there is one other huge contributing factor...

It breaks the Command & Control structure.

People realizing their potential doesn't happen in a Command & Control structure. Whether in a Family sense or a Business sense. And therefore, so many people spend their lives in the seats created by other people for them, instead of deciding where they belong.

At home AND at work.

Always an Exception to the Rule

Maybe your Family, or your Business, is an exception to these rules. There are, of course, always exceptions. And I celebrate that for you 🎉

These topics are ones that I uniquely see based on my experience. And the more and more I share my experience, the more and more I learn that it ISN'T unique.

As a parent, I aspire to create a different experience for my chosen Family (husband and son). Equally, I aspire to create a different experience for the people who work in collaboration with me (my Peeps). I desire to make that difference because I know what it felt like for me. And by ignoring the similarities, we do a disservice to both our potential in both the Family and Business arenas.

Knowledge is power, folks.

Families can be empowered. Businesses can be empowered.

All people CAN reach their human potential WITHIN structures like these.

But only if we're actively looking for ways to do something new.

If you're convinced there's more to explore when it comes to optimizing the human potential within your Business, let's chat.