How Can I Ditch The Drama When I Work With Family?

Some would imagine working with family is a dream come true. Some would say it’s incredibly tough. Those who have done it know it can be both, depending on the day.

I work with family members, and many of my clients do the same, and I get a lot of questions about how to navigate this tricky situation. There was a question in a recent episode of Life’s Messy Live Happy about dealing with drama when it comes to relatives in the workplace, and I thought this would be the perfect time of year to bring this topic back up.

I own an accounting firm and we are a family business. My sister, mom, and grandma all work for me. This sometimes makes it difficult to keep structure in the business, as the lines between work and personal life are crossed. Do you have any advice for how I can separate life and work?

I love your question, it's near and dear to my heart. I'm a business owner and some of my employees are family. Let me deconstruct your question, and I apologize if I make assumptions. Let’s talk about separating life and work and adding structure. What I would say about adding structure is to do what we're all telling you to as a leader: set priorities, figure out responsibilities, have people identify what they must accomplish in a day, set huge goals, make them visible, write out your priorities, and anytime energy is going to a different place, bring people back, ask how they fit in, and move them to the appropriate place.

Do your coaching and call people up to greatness. Give them feedback and ask them to self-reflect. Nothing I teach changes because family is involved, but I meet many founders who have a different standard for family. They think employing family relieves them of the need to lead, and that’s not true. You must lead your employees, no matter what.

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Set expectations, measure people against those expectations, have honest conversations rather than big confrontations when you need to, and stop using hope as your strategy. People know when they're moving closer to where you would like them or when they're moving farther away.

You might not know this, but your ego loves when you ask questions that include “or” because it's the victim's choice. The ego poses questions that way because poor you, there's no way you can do either one. The ego believes you can't make it all work and no play, because that means you don't care about the family...and if you only focus on family, then you jeopardize your business. Anytime there's an “or” (even if it’s implied) in a question, I want you to focus on replacing “or” with “and,” as it opens up room for accountability and for you to step forward.

It's not, “Should we focus on home or work?” It's, “How can we focus on home and work?”

I believe there isn't such thing as work-life balance. It isn't a noun, it's a verb; it's active. It's what accountable, low-drama people do where they constantly make decisions about where energy is best spent.

When people ask me this question, it’s almost like they’re saying, “Can we stop the drama for eight hours to get stuff done?” No! There’s just going to be pent up drama, and it won’t work. You're asking for permission to have drama in your lives, just not at work.

At Reality-Based Leadership, we have an amazing workplace. Some of my employees are family, but there's never permission to have drama at work or at home. Drama-free--it's a lifestyle. We help people move beyond ego, and we want them to be that evolved everywhere.

Let me give you some how-tos. First is...you go first. Be a role model for the change you wish to see in the world. The second is make sure you're setting microboundaries. Many people set boundaries for what they wish other people would do instead of setting a boundary and then acting on it. Don't set boundaries just for others.

I loved your question. I can relate and empathize! What I know is that if my employees aren’t focusing—regardless of whether or not they are family—I need to step up and lead and coach.

So this is your call to greatness: if you want structure, put structure forward. If you want their behavior to change, coach them, but make sure you go first. This has a lot to do with you.

Do you have a situation happening at the office that you think I could help with? Submit it here and it might be featured in an upcoming episode!