Holiday Stress and Family Businesses

By Trula M. LaCalle, Ph.D.

Sonoma and Sacramento Counties, California, USA

When nearly every family in America is feeling the crunch of extra activity and responsibilities during the holiday season, family business owners are getting a double dose of stress. The majority of family businesses gear up for extra business activity during the holiday season when most retail products and services are in greater demand.

Nevertheless, in many families it is expected that personal time for family holiday traditions will be set aside. Unfortunately, demands at home conflict with demands at the business. Tempers are strained as families juggle more activities than at other times of the year and try not to let business mix with family celebration time. Family business experts will tell you how important it is to keep home and business separate, to make sure family problems don’t cross the border into the company and disrupt office routine. Yet, festive business engagements with a holiday spirit blur the boundaries between social life and work life. So, family business owners have a harder time determining when and where business talk versus personal talk should take place.

Tip #1: Acknowledge to each other in the family that it is more difficult to distinguish business from personal activity during the holidays. Be even more respectful of a family member who says, “Can we change the subject and just talk about business (or our personal lives) right now?”

Family religious practices during the holiday season impact the way the family business is conducted in light of religious observances. Sometimes families must make the difficult decision about who must work and who will be able to fulfill a religious obligation or attend a religious event. In some family businesses, the family’s religious practices are important enough to close the business and give all the employees paid time off.

Tip #2: Hire employees and managers who are from different cultures with religious holidays that don’t coincide with the family business members’ religious practices. Doing so not only puts the company at an advantage because of multicultural enrichment, but it allows the business to keep running while key family leaders are carrying out their religious observances.

Most often when family businesses call a consultant for help with their business, it’s less often about financial matters and more often about family relationships within the business. Oftentimes, family members deal with holiday business stress by trying to hold everything together until after the holidays when attention can be more focused on family dynamics. Unfortunately, waiting until after the holidays to deal with such matters is the worst choice. Instead of hiring a family business consultant to facilitate a family business meeting, develop a mutually agreeable business strategy, or mediate a brewing conflict, the family avoids confronting the joint leadership problems until they blow up and cannot be ignored. Instead, the family ends up hiring a therapist in January to try to heal the family wounds that were created in October through December. Meanwhile, the competitive edge of the family business is hampered by too much attention going toward mending hurt feelings.

Tip #3: Engage a consultant for family business assistance before business-related stress damages family relationships.

Memories of family crisis or family losses from the distant or recent past can be triggered at the holidays. Perhaps, the holiday season brings to mind a son or daughter who was sent off to war in the Persian Gulf or Afghanistan. The holidays might provoke memories of extreme financial hardships when the family business could not fund holiday celebrations. Or the family may sadly remember relatives who have passed away and who are not present to share the current success of the business. When the “holiday blues” affect the members of the family business, not all families become closer and support each other more fully, both at home and at work. Many families pull apart, quarrel, abuse alcohol, and fail to talk about what is really troubling them. If the holiday blues can be anticipated, a pro-active family business meeting would be well spent in making plans for taking care of not only the business but the emotional well-being of family members.

Tip #4: Prepare for holiday stress with good business process planning that allows a better work flow and time for family members to take care of family needs and themselves as individuals.