By their very nature, family owned and operated businesses are breeding grounds for conflict.  Problems arise in the fact that, in many instances, the business brings together several family units and spans multiple generations.  Having just gone through the holiday season, the memories are sharp of frustrating family politics and conflicting viewpoints.  While these may result in some uncomfortable moments during the holiday family meal, these same issues can result in tremendous problems and obstacles in the business setting.  Additionally, because it is “family”, those involved are often reluctant to acknowledge that any issues the business may be having might be due to family related strife – they are unwilling to identify this day-to-day behavior as conflict.  But, it is indeed conflict, and need not be accepted.  Rather, it can be mediated with the help of a neutral mediator, who can help sort out these issues and help everyone put the business’s interests first.

Likely, the crux of any conflict in a family business is an individual’s desire for what they wish the business to look like down the road and the part they will play in it.  In a family business, especially if it was started generations ago, there is a certain sense of pride in that company – and those involved in it want to feel that they contribute to the business in a relevant and useful way, and in turn wish to feel appreciated and important to the others with whom they share the company.  When they don’t feel this way, conflict arises, and, unless the company is quite large, there is likely no formal grievance process for dealing with/resolving complaints.  With no structure in place for conflict resolution, the individuals end up internalizing their problems and being simply disagreeable at work and, in some cases, taking their problems home and ending up with other problems.

Taking the issues to mediation helps everyone involved turn the roadblocks at the family owned business into stepping stones to map out the company’s future.  Sitting down with a neutral mediator can help the entire family get to the core of their friction, and discern if it even has anything to do with the business.  Once these issues are identifies, with the aid of the neutral, everybody can work together to devise a solution and a plan that will not only improve the work environment of the family business, but also result in better management of the company and, possibly, better family relationships.  Just because your business is family owned and operated doesn’t mean you have to live with conflict – mediation is the perfect solution to give everyone a chance to have their thoughts heard and work together to reach the ideal solution.

Related Posts:

• Mediation Neutrality & Equality: Threats
• Getting Started: CFR Mediation Services
• Argument For Mediation: Active Conflict Resolution
• Mediation Goes Mainstream: A TV Show with Mediation as its Theme
• Who Wins? The End-Results of Mediation
• When is Mediation Appropriate?

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 6th, 2011 at 11:25 am and is filed under About Mediation, Civil Law, Communication Tips, Conflict Resolution, Workplace & Business Conflict. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.