It could be that what I am going to say in this Blog Article is the result of having had time to reflect as I was rather sick in the past 48 hours. It could also be because last Sunday was father’s day. However, what is a rather common occurrence that I come across, is that male family business owners, that run their business with an operator’s mindset, who have practically spent all their awake time at work, end up having a relationship with their children that is rather ‘cold’ as they where largely absent from their life as they where growing up.

I have said many times that having a family business run by a leader with an operator’s mindset will make life difficult for all and the business is first to suffer. Some signals of this are:-

• No middle management: I do see a considerable amount of family businesses, which do not really have any middle management. With the family business owner at the top and operators or labourers at the bottom, many times certain managers are completely missing. The end result is that no one is not only managing the business well, but no one is analysing matters to understand why certain things are done or why certain opportunities are not even being considered. There could be many reasons why this is the case. The reasons range from the family business owner thinking it cannot afford having such middle management – without realising the huge costs of mismanagement their family businesses is made to go through as the family business owner is way over stretched to deal with all on his own to the family business owner thinking it is better that he keeps controlrather than trust any external non-family person i.e. the negative side of the operator’s mindset

• No roles or structure: You realise that you are on a different wavelength when you start speaking to the family business owner on corporate governance to then realise that such family business does not even have a clear organisational structure. Roles are not well defined and workers do not actually know whom they should report to. This leads to cross lines, miscommunications and internal conflicts as workers end up many times in conflict between what they think should be done and what the family business owner thinks should be done as ultimately the family business owner is the only person that can call all the shots on anything under the sun. The more the business grows the worse it becomes for everyone as this leadership method is unsustainble.

• No Planning: As the family business owner is engulfed in daily operations and struggling to actually cover all the requirements of daily work, as a result of that each and every tiny decision has to pass through him, the notion of planning in the family business is non-existent as there is never time for it. No discussions on business strategy or budgets or business plans and no performance management system. Succession planning is something to think about a few weeks before the family business owner decides to call it a day, if ever that point is reached. Some family business owners with an ingrained operator’s mindset will likely want to go from their business directly to their funeral.

• A weak or bad culture: A family business based on an operator’s mindset builds a bad culture. A family business owner who wants every decision to go through him, is basically telling everyone; I trust no one! Hence why a weak or negative culture is created, where mistrust is the order of the day. On the other hands employees will try their best to get through the day unscathed and hence try to survive with doing the least possible as trying to do more will likely land you with more work and responsibilities or worse still, in trouble.

However, besides the above obvious negative effects of an operator’s mindset on the family business, there are also negative effects on the family. This becomes evident when the business is about to do the generational move. The operator’s mindset is so ingrained in the family business leader, that he just assumes that someone from his children will just take up his role – a mere substitution. To then realise that his children are seeing things differently and have other priorities. Many times the family business leader assumption is based on the mere uncomfortable fact, that he made assumptions on his children because he does not really know them – in the deepest sense. So an operator’s mindset does not only effect negatively the business but also the family and the family relationships. Many male family business owners try to mitigate their conscience by saying “I am doing all this for the family”….well are you really? Your family has various needs and ‘abandoning’ your family or depriving them almost completely from your presence is not something your family needs.