When Business Takes Your Family Hostage

Steve Craney, president and founder of RiverSide Electronics in Lewiston, MN. With decades of experience under his belt and the wisdom that comes with those years, he said this about gaining balance in his life and placing his family in a position of honor:

“The start-up phase of a business is intense. You can’t be half pregnant. When you start a business it’s a full-time plus commitment. You better be doing something you’re really passionate about, because it’s going to take everything you’ve got to get it going. But the minute that business becomes even a bit successful, you better be able to turn that passion for the business off for at least a few hours each day and focus on the other things that are important in life.”

The fact is that, as Barry J. Moltz, author of You Need to be a Little Crazy: The Truth about Starting and Growing Your Own Business, says, “Starting and running a business is a family event. Your business takes your family hostage.”

Entrepreneurs who don’t acknowledge and deal with the reality of the strain a business puts on a spouse and on a family early on are likely to have the wake-up call forced upon them down the road in the form of divorce papers and a broken family. Here are two concrete actions that can help:

Provide formal, regular updates. Your spouse is along for the ride, emotionally and financially. You might be tempted to take a protective stance provide shelter from some of the “low points” in the business. Your spouse will feel a greater sense of control and peace understanding the reality (even if it’s bad news) than they will by being kept in the dark. To some degree, you must treat your spouse as a stockholder.

One of my clients recently held a dinner meeting, with an agenda and a full review of the financials, which included his business partner and both of their wives. They had a frank discussion about how, while revenue was up, cash flow was tight because of reinvestments into the business and because of natural delays in the collection process. At the end of the night they were a unified and reenergized team of four, not because the news was all great, but because the vision for the business had been revisited and the veil that had been covering up the details of how they would get to that end had been lifted, from the spouse’s perspective.

Establish rules. The start-up phase of a business is all consuming. And it may seem like a “let-up” is right around the corner: next quarter will slow down, this new manager I’ve hired is going to take some of the pressure off of me, once I close this big client I’ll have some breathing room. Hog wash. One time demand will always be replaced by a new one. The white space you need in your life to maintain a balance with your family will only exist if you plan for it and create it. Establish hard and fast rules for when you will turn off your cell phone, how you will spend your weekends and which night you will be designated as date night.

Separate yourself from the business. Owning a business is very personal. At some point, for every business owner, the business threatens to become who you are, but you are not, and never will be, your business. As Steve Craney says,

“A friend helped me look at my business with a broader perspective. He helped me see that I’m not married to my business. It’s not one of my kids. They help me remain a little bit detached from the business — if someone were to come along and offer me enough money for the business, they can have it. That change in mindset was really refreshing.”

“As an outcome of that conversation, I decided that I wasn’t spending enough time with my two kids and I was going to set a personal standard for what that looked like in my life. In addition to the normal time I spent with them, I decided that I would make it a point to spend one week out of every year with each child. They would get to decide where. For a dozen years now I’ve had that privilege, one that I may be losing soon with my daughter who is at that age where she will be starting her own family soon. And it feels good to look back without regret and to have the memories of the time we went to Sweden together or our camping trips. My son and went to golf school together and soon we’ll be heading off to Costa Rica to see if we can’t catch a tarpon on a fly rod."

"When you do the math, that’s only 2% of my time that I’m setting aside to have that kind of experience with each of my kids, but if you don’t make it a priority it doesn’t happen."