Many people, including me, have been searching for the “perfect” work-life balance. Just as often, I am also trying to influence my significant other to “fix” his work – life balance so we can invest more time together as a family. I’ve come to realize that for me, the solution lies in harmony rather than balance or blending work with home life. In our work with family businesses owners, the quest for the perfect work life balance is often at the crux of many of the challenges faced by couples. I’m curious about what works (or doesn’t work) for you. The Balancing Act The word, balance, implies that the solution lies in spending equal amount of time with “work” and “life” in order to get balance. It also assumes that balance is ideal – all areas need equal time. What images come to mind? I think about measuring/ weight scales…
If you’re looking at an overwhelming “to do” list and trying to pack everything into your life, you’re not alone. Many entrepreneurs resist saying no to requests from customers, suppliers, family, friends or staff. Not wanting to disappoint anyone, the business owner sacrifices physical and mental health in the reckless pursuit of “yes”. You want to say, “no”, but you don’t want to be an asshole about it. It is okay to say “no”. In fact, it is essential that you say no to many good ideas so you can say “yes” to great ones. Saying “no” frees up time and space to not only say “yes”, but also to take action and reap results from the essential few things in life that really matter. Whether you’re reading these tips from a business, professional or personal perspective, they work across the board. In a family business, I find saying “no”…
You don’t have to look very far to find tips and strategies to help build business leadership skills. When it comes to family businesses, the family CEO is often floundering, knowing that the role he/she plays is vital to combining family with business yet receiving little or no help in building the skills needed for the role or choosing strategies. This leader often works quietly behind the scenes and without him/her, families begin to drift apart. The family leader, often a parent in the first generation of the family business, has strong facilitation and communication skills, convinces people to work together, is capable of developing trust and really keeps it all together. When business and family leadership is passed to the next generation, the family leader role is also passed, generally to a sibling and thus, the role needs to adapt to a new model where siblings recognize and respect…
Most of us are able to separate our working lives from our personal lives. We might socialize with people we meet at work but often our colleagues are not our siblings, cousins or parents who have known us all our lives. When you work with your family, that line is very blurry and it is not easy at all to separate work from personal. Open, honest communication can be scary. It takes intentional thought and skilled communicators to keep the peace – especially where there are conflicts. Families quickly learn that they make a lot of assumptions about each other. These assumptions are based on history and can often change a business conversation into a personal one, “You’ve been like that since you were a child!” In one family we studied, parents fell prey to attribution errors much more frequently with their children working in the business than with non-family…
Serious athletes know that wind sprints are a key tactic for conditioning. A wind sprint occurs when an athlete runs (or skates) a short distance as quickly as possible and repeats the sprint several times. If you’ve played a sport requiring good cardio, chances are you included wind sprints in your training. What makes a wind sprint effective? You give it your all. Sure, you could accomplish the same task by just going through the motions and jogging the distance. You don’t because you know that you wouldn’t be able to execute on game day if you didn’t put the effort into wind sprints. As a business owner, your routines are your wind sprints. Are you working the routines to get the most impact for your business? Are your employees? Are there opportunities to improve routines by finding faster and better ways to accomplish the objective? You get success from…
Life’s never without a challenge or a problem. You have the opportunity to decide what problem you want whenever you are faced with trade offs. All of us make trade offs all the time. By saying “yes” to one choice, we are by default saying “no” to others, many of them good ideas or good actions. When you are in business with your family, saying “yes” to the family means saying “no” to the business. It’s all about balance. It is time to rebalance if you: feel your trade offs are getting you out of balance feel stuck or feel you’ve hit a plateau feel some distress in your personal relationships as a result of saying “no” to the family & “yes” to the business feel your health is being neglected, being told “no” too often feel unappreciated at home or in the business feel your significant other has his/her…
Low oil prices and recent wildfires will have some individuals making decisions to move away from the Fort McMurray region. Some will see this as a benefit with sons and daughters returning home to take up residence. For many years, we’ve seen our Saskatchewan farm kids fly off to work in the Fort McMurray region. As a result, farm operators have worked longer hours and looked to temporary foreign worker programs and immigrant workers to fill staffing requirements. Many sold their operations when potential successors moved away with no intentions of returning to carry on the business. They may now be having regrets. No one has a crystal ball that shows an end to the economic downturn and the return to a stable job and financial market. Statistically the rates of entrepreneurship increase with higher unemployment rates. When People cannot rely on corporate jobs, they create their own job. While…
Successful marriage. Successful business. Neither happens without commitment, growth, resilience, grit and hard work. As I reflect on the value of the conversations we engaged in during our marriage preparation courses, I can’t help but wonder how useful a “business preparation” course would have been. My husband was in business when I met him. When we were married, I joined him in the business. As time went by, we invested and expanded the business and are now planning to pass the business to the next generation. In speaking with other business owners who are also married, it’s become apparent that many businesses that are owned and /or operated by spouses encounter challenges related to being married AND in business together.