Love, Work, and Scrambled Eggs

You can’t always separate family and business, but you have to keep working at it, advises this restaurant owner. A vital ingredient in any family business omlette is the ability to listen toŅand learn

By Rich Davis

In case you didn’t notice when you got home last night, participating in a business and participating in a family are two very different experiences. Each has its own goals and purposes, and, yes, they sometimes come into conflict. Yet in a family business, the two are mixed together like egg whites and yolks in an omlette. Two very different kinds of human relationships exist, intermingled, year after year. And, let’s face it, in today’s vernacular, it’s not always “cool runnin’s, mon.”

The old standby advice—don’t take your family troubles to work with you, and don’t bring your business worries home—makes sense only when you’re dealing with separate and distinct entities. But how can you always follow that well-intended recipe when whipping up a family business omlette?

There is no greater satisfaction that I know of than to create and be part of a successful family business. I have had that opportunity three times during my lifetime. The challenges are great. So are the rewards.

My first private business venture was establishing a deli shop in a large mall. One of my sons worked in it and eventually managed it until we agreed to sell it. It was a case of too much enthusiasm on my part, too little experience on his part—which was also my fault for not having time to teach and lead, and for not developing beforehand a written agreement—a contract, if you will—spelling out the ground rules and who would be responsible for what. The result was a spoiled omlette which left a bad taste in our mouths.

The good part was that I learned several important lessons. First, you can’t separate a father-son relationship from the relationship between manager and employee. Second, you have to work out together what each person’s role and obligations will be, and then check on them regularly. Third, wisely picked, consultants can save you a lot of false starts and missteps. And fourth, it’s a lot easier to deal with the failure to keep a mutually created and agreed upon contract than it is to argue about who did or didn’t do what and why not.

Our next business was the K.C. Masterpiece Barbecue Sauce Co., in Prairie Village, Kansas, which has since been sold to the Clorox Co. Today, we own six K.C. Masterpiece Barbecue and Grill Restaurants in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago. These two ventures have been very successful financially and certainly as family businesses. One reason is that I had the good sense to turn over day-to-day management of the restaurants to our two sons, Charlie and Rich II, who have skillfully managed the chain and are now expanding it (Denver’s next).

These ventures have not been without conflicts. But as learning has increased, conflict has decreased. One of the many things I’ve learned from my sons is that when we are together in any of our homes, there is no business talk—period. If there’s an urgent business matter to discuss, go to the office. If it isn’t urgent it can wait. We have agreed to avoid any discussions, negotiations, and arguments about business outside of the office.

Of course, you can’t just leave family feelings at home when you go to work. But you can all agree that when discussion of family matters are initiated at work, you will strive to hold them until they can be taken up outside the business setting. It’s not always easy, but worth the trouble in order to keep home and office where they belong.

So why waste time trying to keep the yolks and whites separate? Is it really that big a deal? Are business and family really so different? Let me count the ways!

In a business, profit is the reward for personal and financial risk, for work and for sacrifice. Without a profit, there is no purpose in business. Further, businesses have a clear-cut set of ground rules and laws for their effective operation. They usually have a clearly defined hierarchy.

The family, on the other hand, has as its purpose caring for, nurturing, and protecting its members. There are fewer strict rules, no iron-clad hours, less clearly defined responsibilities. And membership is by blood, not law, not by hiring or firing. Parents and kids may feel like firing each other at times, but it just won’t work.

Measuring success in a business is fairly straightforward, even if several different yardsticks are used. Price-earnings ratio, net profit, cash flow—these are quantities that can be measured and compared. But success in a family is much more qualitative. It is more nebulous, often more a feeling than a fact, varying from year to year according to the levels of self-esteem, degrees of responsibility, maturity achieved by the members, and so on.

A business must satisfy its investors and also its employees. A family must satisfy its members’ need for acceptance by others, for intimacy, for personal identity and growth. Because of these differences, it’s often been said: Business is business, and family is family.

But in a family business, there are different kinds of relationships between family members who have different roles and interests. You can be a family owner-manager, or just an owner, or just a manager, or a family member with no ownership or participation in the business.

With all this complexity, you’d think it would be impossible for the family and the business to peacefully coexist. I don’t agree. Based on my experience, I believe the same style of operation that makes for a successful family can also lead to success in a family business.

Let’s take a quick look at family and business systems and highlight some of the common threads and successful characteristics that seem to run through each. When recognized and practiced, perhaps these characteristics can renew the fire (maybe even the love) in your family business. The basic characteristics in the more successful families and the more successful businesses are strikingly similar.

In an earlier career I was a family and child psychiatrist and had the opportunity to study and work with hundreds of families. Somewhat simplified, I have observed three common operative styles in families. First, there is what I call the unorganized family. This type of family can be described as a leaderless “democracy.” Its main characteristics are:

In my experience, the unorganized family tends to produce offspring who have difficulty focusing on goals and are low-achievers.

Second, there is what I call the autocratic family. In this type:

Children of autocratic families frequently seem to be lacking in self-esteem and independence; many have difficulty making decisions.

The third type of family operating style is more likely to produce young adults who become successful in today’s world. I call it the participatory or communicating family:

Of course, these three types are broad portraits. Sometimes the offspring of unorganized or autocratic families can turn into healthy, achieving adults. By and large, however, I think the participatory family is far more likely to produce adaptive, personally successful people. Surprisingly, I have found these same functional characteristics contribute to success in business management and entrepreneurship.

The communicative mode in operating a family business is just as important as it is in raising children. How, then, can you tell whether your family has this style as its modus operandi? Let me suggest one test: If you are the head of a family business and have a son or daughter in their 30s or 40s working in the business, how would you answer the following question: What have I learned from my daughter or son? If you can’t remember something significant that you’ve learned from them, you’re either not asking or listening, or they shouldn’t be there. Very likely, you don’t really yet practice a communicative, participatory management style.

My sons, Charlie and Rich, have taught me that there is more than one way to reach the same goal. Translated, that means there really is something other than “my way or the highway.” They’ve taught me that the judgments of elders don’t always mature like great cheese—some just get moldy too quickly.

I have learned from them that even though my favorite recipes may be great, if they don’t sell from the menu, they have to go. For example, I love banana pudding. My wife and I toured 17 Barbecue Belt states and found it was the most common and popular dessert in barbecue restaurants in the South. Yet it didn’t sell well from our menu. So, at the insistence of my sons, out it went—with my painful blessing.

I learned from my sons that there has to be a chain of command in a well run business. You can’t just interject yourself on the spot in a restaurant, even if you own it. As they told me once, “Dad, you can scare the hell out of a new manager by just criticizing the volume of the music. That may not be your intent, but it creates a morale problem that we have to deal with.” Tell your sons, write a note, but don’t scare the hell out of the managers they have to work with.

I have also learned from them that a slow Saturday night does not add up to low quarterly earnings.

Dad: “Why is it so slow to tonight? Has the kitchen gone sour?”

Son: “No, Dad, didn’t you notice it’s raining? Even the baseball game had to be called, and there’s a tornado watch on TV.”

By this time, you may have the impression that I am often a hyper, last-five-percent perfectionist, while my sons are patient, calm, productive restaurateurs. Now where on earth did you get that idea?

I love my two sons, who co-own and operate the K.C. Masterpiece Barbecue and Grill Restaurants. They have learned more than I’ll ever know about the restaurant business. And I love them as sons as well as business associates.

In the final analysis, I believe that to encourage belonging and participation and communication is to show love. At least, we humans are at our best when these loving qualities are present in both the home and the workplace. Appropriate love in the appropriate place in the appropriate way. The complicated family business omlette can be a success when the chefs are inspired by the same values at home and work.

As the priest and philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote: “Someday after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And then, for the second time in the history of the world, people will have discovered fire.” Don’t let the love be washed out of your family business. Keep it fired up.

 

Rich Davis, M.D., created K.C. Masterpiece Barbecue Sauce. He is the founder of K.C. Masterpiece Barbecue and Grill Restaurants and other ventures.