I often encounter business leaders who try to capture the positive aspects of their company culture by referring to their “family” environment. These are often managers who want to distinguish themselves from a cutthroat or unethical work environment. Nonetheless, whenever I hear an executive refer to the company family, I can’t help but wince. Inevitably, they are undermining their own credibility, integrity, and success.
While I appreciate the sentiment, companies cannot operate like families. At their best, they are teams. Managers often confuse the analogies of family and team, because many of their positive values overlap. They both require sacrifice for the good of the group, and being able to rely on that same sacrifice from others. They both thrive in a spirit of tolerance, where we acknowledge each other’s different styles and strengths. Both strong families and strong teams share common core values, such as trust, honesty, and loyalty.
But they diverge in a meaningful way. Family is an unconditional commitment. A family should remain a family no matter what they do. A family does not have an explicit mission, other than its own survival. A team is a conditional commitment. It exists because of a mutual commitment of its members to support an explicit mission, be it completing a project, defeating a competitor, or providing a service. This creates different expectations and different obligations on its members.
A family leader is expected to support his family in every way possible. If a child is engaging in behavior that is destructive or embarrassing to the family, the parents’ first obligation is to support that child, and do everything they can to overcome whatever is at the root of their child’s problem. If an employee is engaging in behavior that is destructive or embarrassing to the firm, a manager’s obligation is to minimize the negative effect on the mission. If that can be accomplished by helping the employee, all the better. But if it can only be addressed by replacing the employee, that’s an acceptable alternative.
If a family member’s temperament is a poor fit with the rest of the family, the unconditional commitment of the family should overlook those differences, and accept them as they are. If an employee’s work style is at odds with the rest of the company, and manager needs to either work with that employee or find a replacement that will make a better fit. A manager who accepts people as they are to the detriment of the firm is incompetent.
There was a sad story about a family that adopted a child, and then sent the child back after they found out he was going to be challenging to take care of. The universal reaction was that it was unethical to reject a child from the family simply because he was too hard to take care of. In a business situation, the ethics are practically reversed. If an employee was taking up disproportionate resources to support and manage, other employees would consider it unfair. One of the most common worker complaints is management that tolerates dead wood employees who don’t pull their weight at work.
Sports are the most obvious examples of team. If a wide receiver on a football team can’t catch a football, a coach would not keep him on the team. But you would never think of replacing a sibling for lack of performance. A football team doesn’t pay its starting quarterback the same salary as its backup kicker. A team rightfully gives more attention to the people who are most critical to its success. A family’s love and attention should not be doled out on the basis of some performance measures. With a family, the family unit itself is paramount. With a team, the mission of the team is paramount.
Managers who promote their teams as families do themselves and their employees a disservice. As in the recent downturn, it can cause additional bitterness when it requires letting people go. It makes a lie out of everything the manager claimed to stand for. Families don’t disown other family members in bad times. The same disillusionment happens if someone is passed over for a promotion or gets a smaller bonus.
Employees lose trust in their leaders if they see them violating the principles they espouse. The differences between family and team are subtle but profound, and managers who confuse them risk being seen as hypocritical or dishonest when those values are put to the test.
The Ryan Report 