One of the most common and disruptive sources of stress in family business is learning how to work with different personality types.
The family needs to learn how to not only work with the different personality types it also needs to learn how to genuinely value the different personality types. Great teams are made up of lots of different types of people.
When the differing personalities come together at the table in the family business it can often lead to stalemate and lack of decision-making.
Here’s a short funny video that shows how the different personality types can play out in a family business.
One of the first things we encourage family businesses to do is to learn how to identify the different personality types in the business. Once a family can start to better understand and appreciate the different styles they can adjust their approach to have better communication and collaboration on the key business issues.
Left alone the differing personality styles will cause ongoing frustration that can eventually lead to resentment and animosity and stonewalling. We worked with a family recently where the differing styles threatened the survival of a 70-year-old family business!
The important thing to understand is people are not going to change their personality types. Rather than spend time trying to force people over to a different style families need to learn how to utilize the different styles to the best of their abilities within the roles in the business.
Learning to work with the different styles takes time and practice. Family members need to commit to new behaviors that will show genuine appreciation for the different styles. There will always be a certain amount of tension between styles but when balanced properly the differing styles will enable the family business to reach its potential and win in the marketplace!
