Building Our Dream Together
Building Our Dream Together
How our family overcame the challenges of working together to achieve a shared vision.
I saw all the warning signs. I read all the blogs, all the articles, and all the quotes. The almost unanimous verdict is, like oil and water, family and business don't mix. Family members who seem to get along well often have a history that has festered under the mask of false smiles and pleasant conversation, because Christmas dinner is not the right place to work out our issues. Families have a naturally developed communication system that is almost always less than professional ( Why does everybody ignore how sarcastic and snide Uncle Bob is to his siblings?). Then of course there is the predetermined power dynamic. Dad or Mom has always been in charge of the family, but Jimmy has an MBA and 10 years of corporate management experience. Still, knowing all these things, it was crucial to our mission of; building generational wealth, teaching the kids to be self reliant, and financially independent, that I bite the bullet and bring the family on board.
Allow me to tell you a horror story. It was a warm fall evening in Phoenix, AZ. The monsoon winds were whistling like a siren warning of danger to come. As I walked into my mother’s house, I could feel the intense energy in the air. This was the scene for the family meeting where I would announce that I was moving forward with starting a farm, had already purchased a property, and that I was welcoming any family member who wanted to participate to come along for the ride. Before I could finish my first thought my little sister, the self proclaimed black sheep of the family, launched into a tirade about how her ideas are treated as less than mine, that I make decisions unilaterally, and how everybody treats her like she is crazy. This prompted my slightly inebriated brother (the actual black sheep of the family) to get into a shouting match with her about how everything is not about her. The argument prompted my older sister and her husband, who were participating by phone to politely excuse themselves from participating in any business venture that included our younger siblings. My mother eventually tried to quell the situation by invoking “ Do as I say because I gave birth to you”, which is a sour point for most of her now adult children. Needless to say, the meeting did not go well.
Yet and still, somehow now almost 2 years later we are still working together and finding more and more success everyday. Our ability to find a way to work together starts with a common dream and shared goals. We all wanted to stop the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck and build a legacy that we could leave behind to our children. With a clear and attainable purpose and noble cause, we had the fuel we needed to learn to forgo our differences and be proactive in changing our communication dynamic.
To overcome our history of family issues and typical mild dysfunction, we had to learn to separate the business from our preconceived ideas of each other. This became easier for us when we started holding meetings with agreed upon rules of engagement. We developed a modified system of Robert’s Rules of Order that was tailored to our specific needs. We hold all our meetings online vs. in person which forces us to take turns speaking. We insist on equity of voice and have rules in place to check and balance each other.
By far the biggest challenge was balancing power. Admittedly, I take charge and try to make things happen when things come to what I deem as unnecessary stand stills. Mom is mom and with good intentions believes her word should be final. Furthermore; Mom, my fiance,and I provided most of the upfront financing which made everyone else feel like final decisions fell to us. To bring the power disparity into balance we had to organize a board of directors. We selected our own titles that suited what we were doing as a farm and voted on who had the best skill set to fill each role. We also do regular surveys of our team to get a general feel of where everyone’s head is at, and vote whenever we disagree. We also formed a Jr. Board of directors to get the kids more involved in the business.
We also do a good amount of family and team building activities. During the covid-19 outbreak, we would hold Netflix watch parties online. We set aside time at the beginning of all our meetings to chat and catch up. When we work on the farm or in one of the gardens we always have a meal together afterwards. Also we are planning a reunion in Vegas, to bring the whole team together, do some fun things, and hold our annual stakeholders meeting.
Nothing is perfect and we still have our struggles. My younger sister and I both have strong opinions and often go back and forth on issues far more than what is necessary. My fiance feels as if her opinion is not valued as much because she is not an official family member (Jedi marry me now tactic). We sometimes spend way too much time debating things in committee that we should make moves on, which of course makes my spidey “take charge” sense tingle. It is definitely a work in progress and will likely be for as long as we are working together. But as long as we are committed to the mission, and convicted to reach our goals, there is nothing we can not achieve together.