You will often hear advice telling you to never work with family, as it can be too difficult to separate "work life" from "family life," but if you are already involved in a family business, this advice does not do much to help you! Instead, you should acknowledge that conflicts are inevitable in any form of business - and in a family business, it is essential that you know how to resolve these conflicts, as they can put a dent in not only work relationships, but in family relationships as well. The best approach to take for resolving conflicts within a family-run business is to have a structured plan in place for handling such conflicts; in order to come up with this plan, you need to wait until a time when no conflicts are occurring, as this will enable everyone to give their input into the process without a current issue getting in the way. If the plan is about a minor, interpersonal issue, it should always be worked out between the two people involved when possible, without any mediation or any "final word" coming from someone else in the family/company. When you have such conflicts, you should also have a room (or an area) where the two people involved can go to work things out; this will allow the rest of the work space to remain a peaceful, work-conducive environment while the two in conflict resolve their issue. Succession Is The Biggest Threat To Your Family Business On the other hand, if you are dealing with an issue that affects the entire company or family, you should set up a process whereby both sides of an argument can be heard by everyone, after which everyone in the family can vote on the issue to complete the resolution. Once these processes are put in place (and once everyone realizes and acknowledges that these processes are inflexible!), you will be able to follow these processes to resolve conflicts at work, while also keeping any of these conflicts from slipping over into family dynamics.
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