Big decision: Should I join the family business?

A visual how-to guide for millennials when considering joining the family firm

Life is full of choices and we are constantly making decisions. Some decisions are simple, and have simple consequences that can easily be understood in advance. Other decisions are complex and have potential consequences that can never be fully understood in advance. While simple choices can be fun, exciting and empowering, research shows that complex decisions are often a source of significant stress.

When you need to decide if you will join the family business, there are many factors at play. A family business can be both a great opportunity for you to live out your passions and ambition, but it can also be a place that is so bound in tradition that it can feel completely stifling for a young creative mind. There may be different philosophies and beliefs at play–you believe that sharing and collaborating is important–while others believe that independence is the most important thing. There are many unknowns.

There can be many differences between generation in family business.

The option of not joining also has several potential consequences. The young generation often feels a sense of obligation to join, and there can be a deep fear of letting down the family if you choose to not join. This emotional pressure can make it even more difficult to clearly understand the situation.

In order to make a good decision, you need a way to untangle the complexity. In my coaching work with startup founders and business leaders we have used a visual process. You can do this with pen and paper, or if you have an iPad, use the Paper-app or Adobe Sketch.

Making complex decisions:

1: the first thing you must do is to recognize that the situation is a decision. This may seem self-evident but having worked with real leaders in the real world I know that this is not always easy. Whenever there is a sense of obligation, most people tend to forget that it is actually still a choice wether they will honor the obligation. In other words: if you feel a lot of “I should join the family firm” it camouflages the decision and makes it look like a given.

One startup founder I worked with was in the process of selling her 40 person company to a big corporation. She talked me through all the different scenarios for about an hour. She kept talking about it as something inevitable that would happen to her — until I told her to pause, looked her in the eye and said “it’s your company right? Correct me if I’m wrong but can they buy it without you accepting?”
Her sense of responsibility to her employees prevented her from even recognizing this opportunity as a choice that she alone could make.

The point is not to run from your responsibilities but to recognize what is within your control and what is outside of your control.

Simple decisions are obviously decisions. But often complex decisions look nothing like a decision. It looks like a mess and because there is obligation, guilt or other emotional factors, it often feels like something you have to do. The first step is always to recognize that there is a choice.

2: Once you have recognized that it’s a choice, bring out some paper and pen or an iPad with the Paper-app. Spend 10 minutes learning to write legibly and draw simple diagrams. It’s easy because you know it already, you’ve simply forgotten that you once made a choice to believe that person who told you that you couldn’t. Most likely that person is yourself. Make a new decision now to once again believe that you can.

Here’s how you write legibly on an iPad: get a stylus, and learn to write all caps letters in one stroke, without lifting the stylus. The challenge of writing comes from the lack of precision when lifting the stylus off the screen, which results in gaps in the letterforms making it impossible to read. By using one stroke letterforms like these, you will be able to write legibly in minutes.

In order to do visual thinking it is essential to be able to write legibly. Fortunately it is easy to learn. Just use this simple guide. Write all caps. Slow down. And if you’re on an iPad make sure to write each letter in one stroke. You should be able to learn this in less than 10 minutes.

3: Reflect — use the top-right corner of the page to answer this “what is it really that I want in my work-life?” Do you want challenges that will allow you to grow? Do you want to travel the world? Write down all your ideas and leave them there for a bit.

Before you begin looking at the options you have, just reflect on what you actually want in your life. Leave it there in the top right corner. We will return to it later.

Make sure that you always distinguish between the choices you can make (joining or not joining) and the outcomes that are beyond your direct control (success/failure is not a choice)

4: Draw a decision tree and various scenarios for each. Be clear about what are choices you can make and what are potential outcomes that are not up to you.

You may have to draw a few different versions before you get clarity. You can begin with the question of joining or not joining the family business. Then explore each path. What might happen in each case? How likely is it? Draw it out and look at it. If you join but realize that it is not a good fit for you, will you then leave? Then what? And if you don’t join, what will you do instead? Could you potentially join the firm later, after having explored something else?

This is just an example of a decision tree. Yours might look entirely different. Just be honest with yourself and write out the different scenarios that you can imagine. Try to get as far to the right as you can. If it gets too messy, don’t worry. Just draw a new version. You may need five iterations before you begin to get clarity. It’s all part of the process

5: Talk it through with someone. Once you have your decision diagrams laid out you can test your assumptions by talking it through with someone else. You can do it with a trusted friend or even a family member — just be aware that they each have their own biases and they may not even realize this fully.

6: Go back to the top right corner and look at all your ideas for things you want in life and relate them to each of the two scenarios. Which of these two options seems most aligned with what you really want in your life?

Remember that there are no perfect decisions. But with a process like this you can be mindful and reflective about your choices. You may need to do draw the diagram multiple times before it makes sense. You may get stuck somewhere. Perhaps you realize that you never actually thought of what you could do in life if you chose to not join. Give yourself time to properly imagine this scenario. It is all part of the process.