Working in a family-run-business
Working in a family-run-business
(OP)
I am working with an engineering design cum construction company run by a family. As I grow in age and experience, I am gathering the feeling that The Family is more comfortable dealing with mediocre types as against the more technical and professional people. Almost all, without exception, in the top rung are those who are considered "loyal" to the company because they never tried to change their job. The actual reason is obvious, they were sure not to find one, if they tried.
I think, this is high time I try changing my job, even if means taking a pay cut. I do not see much growth over here. Does it make sense? How many of you can take the risk of accepting lesser pay to work in a different place where, probably, it attracts more value?
Regards.
I think, this is high time I try changing my job, even if means taking a pay cut. I do not see much growth over here. Does it make sense? How many of you can take the risk of accepting lesser pay to work in a different place where, probably, it attracts more value?
Regards.





RE: Working in a family-run-business
I worked in a similar situation, only where the President kept nincompoops around to keep his job. I couldnt leave fast enough, and quite to my surprise, quite a bit higher salary.
RE: Working in a family-run-business
So you are having second thoughts about your job? Look for another. What do you have to lose? Nobody has to know that you are looking, and if you are not 100% sure that the potential new job is what you want, then you don't have to take it. You are having second thoughts, therefore there is something that is stopping you from being 100% happy. Give it a try, you have nothing to lose!
Coka
RE: Working in a family-run-business
On the one hand such an attitude leads to exploitation, work becomes more of a vocation than anything else (see the thread on Engineers pay Vs Plumbers etc)
There again, no one says you shouldn't enjoy your work or the environment or the people you work with or for.
We may all have to put up with some things we rather change but not being able to enjoy your work isn't one of them.
If you are not happy, start looking.
Put job satisfaction and enjoyment at the top of the list, figure out what are the things you like best in one list and the things you don't like on the other side of the page and then look for a job that maximises the plus factors and minimises the minus.
If you keep the job you have while you look, it enables you to look without being pressured. You can pick and choose.
For some one with no job, having a job is the only real item on the list but it should have the caveat that it is a bill-paying job that let's you take a more careful look for your ideal job, gives you experience, keeps your skills fresh and honed.
You may find that findng a company that matches you criteria is tough but many here have decided the best employer is themselves; and some may also have found they are their own worst employer and are happeier working for someone else. Be clear which type you are, false illusions are no help.
JMW
www.viscoanalyser.com
RE: Working in a family-run-business
RE: Working in a family-run-business
Nepotism and being part of the 'in-crowd' will always get you further than being 'him/her over there'.
Good luck in your new position.
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Hope this helps.
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maybe only a drafter
but the best user at this company!
RE: Working in a family-run-business
I was hired to be a tool room/production supervisor in a small machine shop and metal stamping operation. While it was overall a decent working environment, I became increasingly frustrated when my attempts to improve operations were repeatedly vetoed by the owner. It seemed almost as if the owner took my attempts to change things for the better as a personal attack on him.
My point is that in a family run business, the owner has high personal stakes in the operation and in my experience that made for a difficult situation.
flame: It sounds to me like your situation may be somewhat similar in that the leadership chooses mediocre employees to eliminate challenge to their authority or way of doing things.
RE: Working in a family-run-business
"...my lack of education hasn't hurt me none.
I can read the writing on the wall..."
RE: Working in a family-run-business
Regardless of whether the company is family owned or not, you are the one in charge of your own career. Depending upon your goals, you need to determine whether it is worth moving on or staying. Are you concerned with the company's growth or your own? With work experience under your belt it is likely that you would be able to negotiate at least an equivalent salary/benefits package with other employers. The choice is ultimately yours.
Regards
RE: Working in a family-run-business
Loyalty is the number one factor in appraising an employee. Period. Anyone who is not loyal could or will hurt the business (and consequently, family) by pursuing their own self-interests.
Family interests will be protected at the expense of profits. The business exists to provide the owner and owner's family with a living. You should expect to see brothers or wives or children in positions they are not qualified for making more money than the position would otherwise pay. There are valid tax reasons for this in addition to the protection of family.
Now for the other side of the coin. Open your eyes a bit and see the rest of the story. I have also worked for large corporations. Never have I seen more non-productive employees than when I worked for the big guys. The large companies I worked for had scores of people who raised avoidance of work to an artform.
The next point I would make is a sensitive one on this forum. Technical prowess does not guarantee success. Being supremely qualified is of no interest to a closely held company if you are going to leave in a couple of years and take their knowledge and customers with you. Is that really so hard to understand? Also, there have been precious few times in my career when the most elegant, technical solution was the best one. Practicality and cost effectiveness generally rule the roost, especially within the small business community. It's all about the money.
The most positive aspect of working for a family run business I have seen is their devotion to their workers. I have seen owners really go out of their way to assist trusted employees in times of trouble. I have seen non-related employees given the run of the corporation after the owners determined they were trustworthy. The owners want their companies to do well, they just don't want to be in the business of propagating competition.
You should absolutely leave if you can't put your own interests second to the company's and be a permanent part of a larger team. That's what the owner is looking for in an employee.
Your days are numbered if they find out you are shopping around for a new job. Loyalty again. Argue your case on it's merits. Don't threaten the owner with a counteroffer. You take a man's money, you ride for the brand.
Many of these family owned businesses fail after ownership is transferred to other family members. I think competetive wages and future management transferral are valid topics of discussion. Perhaps a sit down after hours meeting with the owner and his legal counsel is in order IF you are an honorable sort who may want to make a real difference in this small organization.
RE: Working in a family-run-business
"Loyalty is the number one factor in appraising an employee. Period."
you are speaking the truth for ALL companies no matter what their size. Every young engineer should read your post before going out into the work world.
Also, nepotism exists in ALL organizations. At least in a family owned business it is out in the open and you can decide in advance whether you can live with it or not.
RE: Working in a family-run-business
JMW
www.viscoanalyser.com
RE: Working in a family-run-business
I work FOR someone, not WITH.
They buy my loyalty by the pound because they pay me to look out for their interests.
If I can't honestly do that, then I don't belong there.
But that's the business loyalty. I will not let my company interests override my own best interests. It's not worth the cost. At the end of the day, I will not regret not spending more time at work.
TTFN
RE: Working in a family-run-business
you are speaking the truth for ALL companies no matter what their size. "
Lorentz, do you seriously rate loyalty ahead of truthfulness, integrity, ability, experience etc etc?
How bizarre. Can my dog come and work for you, he is very loyal? I hope you will pay him a lot.
Cheers
Greg Locock
RE: Working in a family-run-business
Do I rate loyalty ahead of the qualities you list? What does it matter what I put first? I'm saying that every employer I have ever had or heard of puts it first. Loyalty alone is not enough to guarantee employment, but if loyalty is suspect unemployment will soon follow.
RE: Working in a family-run-business
I absolutely agree with both of you. Large companies are less likely to be "loyal", IMO. Quite often the cuts made at large corporations are a simple percentage cut based on years of service. Only the truly exceptional might escape this form of management cowardice. Such has been my experience, anyway. I prefer to work for small, agressive, privately held companies.
Greg,
Again, I am only relating my experiences. The really gifted engineers I have known all value their technical prowess over the health and security of their company. No judgements here, I think the gifted would have to look at their career in that manner just to stay on top of their game. The problem then becomes how do you hire an uber-engineer and retain sole ownership of their technical abilities? What if your organization doesn't need that level of technical prowess? I've had gifted machinists demand toolmaker training and wages because they felt they were capable. A couple of them were, but I didn't need toolmakers. They could leave or continue as they were. But heaven help them if they sold out my customer list or methods.
Lorentz,
I left the big corporations and never looked back when I discovered how inflexible and unfair their human resources departments were. I still "work" for them, but I decide the terms through bidding. Not some arbitrary set of guidelines based on anything but my abilities. The big guys burned a few bridges, IMO, and need to re-examine their treatment of employees (not just engineers) as commodities.
RE: Working in a family-run-business
I need to define the term "loyal" first in the context I have used it. Anybody selling the secrets is obviously unpardonable, and this is not what I wish to discuss.
My employer means to identify those who will stick to the company, no matter what the company pays them or asks them to do, and these people are the loyalists. Merit, capabilities, truthfulness are no criteria. Yesman-ship is highly desirable. [joke] eg Greg's dog [/joke]
This is in fact no-quality per se. It is a perception of others of you. More able you are to find jobs, more disloyal you may be seen as as the family wants to control you and knows you are a powerful dog and can break the leash someday. In this situation, I see how one's strengths become one's disloyalty.
To me loyalty is to work for my employer honestly and to the best of my talents and capabilities. Thus I am loyal in my own perception. And yes. I need to be looked after well and heard. Just one "loyal" whispering in the ears of employer will generate more ripples than my shouting.
Yes, TheTick, I read it on the wall. But jmw's first post -I found it very balanced. If I ignore the future worries that where I would be after a few years, I really love my job and enjoy it.
funnelguy, yes, its all about money. But it pains me to see that family people spoiling too much money, where a simple solution could work. They heed the non-pro loyalist's advice and do not ask me! THIS is what I take as real insult. Otherwise, they pay me good. My fear is, I will become one of those some day!!
Regards.
RE: Working in a family-run-business
Quote,"My employer means to identify those who will stick to the company, no matter what the company pays them or asks them to do, and these people are the loyalists. Merit, capabilities, truthfulness are no criteria. Yesman-ship is highly desirable.
Your employer is a fool who will ultimately have his/her head handed to them in a competetive marketplace, IMO. Who was it that said they didn't need to hire someone with the same opinions as them? Sorry, can't remember. Anyway, Flame, I went back a few threads and found that you are in India. I really have no idea about business culture in India. Please remember I am from America, and come from a manufacturing background as well. Good luck with your dilemma.
RE: Working in a family-run-business
It's really a complicated story, but in the end the idiot brother and his immediate family entourage was ejected and sued. I left when I saw the telltale signs. The idiot brother had also hired "spoilers" in the staff to help disperse the company talent. That's when I decided to leave.
RE: Working in a family-run-business
So, no matter what your qualifications, loyalty level, contribution, position, etc., if someone in the family (nephew, bro-in-law, son, you fill in the blanks,) needs something, anything, promotion, position, plum assignment, good project, whatever, you, the non-family member will be second in line for consideration.
Especially if the relative is the person of responsibilities' bro-in-law, or other close in-law, because no owner, manager, etc., is going to take a position in any dispute on the side of the non-family member against the close relative of the person he/she sleeps with.
If you keep that in mind at all times, and watch your backside, you can do quite well in family businesses. My experiences were generally good.
rmw
RE: Working in a family-run-business
"Clogs to clogs in three generations".
You may not be familiar with the phrase, but it means that whatever the success of the first generation, and however strong a business is passed on to the second generation, all the third generation gets is poverty again. What you describe is all the evidence you need of that.
This is the logical and most common outcome of nepotism.
JMW
www.viscoanalyser.com
RE: Working in a family-run-business
I recommend this book to all young engineers because it explodes a lot of popular misconceptions. The authors advise against working for large companies, but provide observations on what is needed to survive in the corporate world. As a sample quote:
"Corporations have a lot of cats and dogs working for them. The dogs are eager, enthusiastic, good-natured clumsy team players. The cats are quiet, competent, thoughtful, even-tempered individualists. So who gets promoted? The dogs, of course."
In the same chapter the authors also comment:
"The brutal truth is that ability is one of the least important attributes for success."
which seems to reinforce funnelguy's comment in an earlier post:
"Technical prowess does not guarantee success. "
While I wouldn't suggest that the young engineers reading this thread turn into "dogs", it doesn't hurt to have a basic knowlege of office politics.
Good luck to us all!
RE: Working in a family-run-business
Seriously, flame, I think you probably deep down know the answer — you just need the encouragement to get out and find another job.
Patricia Lougheed
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of the Eng-Tips Forums.
RE: Working in a family-run-business
"Like a car with an engine that can't fire on all cylinders, a business that's dysfunctional may move forward for a while. But eventually it stops running."
"The hallmark of a dysfunctional organization is a gap between reality and rhetoric," says Ben Dattner, a New York organizational psychologist.
Most people that start a business find that they can't work for someone else......for many reasons but often so it's because they're a lousy employee. People who start their own businesses tend to have been fired from or quit more than one job.
RE: Working in a family-run-business
what is your point?
We could use a variety of terms to describe people who start their own businesses and these can be pejorative or not. Entrepreneurial, imaginative, bold, etc.
It may take a special person to have the vision and the drive to start on their own and it may be that the characteristics that favour a person starting their own company are the characteristics that do not make them a good employee.
True, they may also not make them very good for the future of their companies as their cherished product matures. The single minded determination to suceed that gets their ideas past all obstacles may, indeed, become a negative feature as the product matures and requires changes to keep it current and ahead of the imitators.
I think that many successful companies start because of the drive, ambition and initiative of someone who does have a streak of rebellion.
But it is that which happens next that is critical and which is, i think, the cause of the discussions here.
I would imagine that working in a start-up company for such a person woud be, well, exciting. Woking for the next generation would fill me with dread.
So when we talk about "family run businesses”, I believe that the problems come with the next generation who are less well equipped to manage such a business.
They bring nothing new to the business but an "if it isn’t broke don't fix it" attitude that leads to stagnation. It may be that this attitude begins with the founder, i don't know.
Companies that start with a single product often die with the end of life for that product, or they are acquired at some optimum point in the product life by a company that is less good at innovation but better at life cycle management and building a business out of the first product.
When Bill Gates retires, it would be interesting to see where Microsoft would go, or Virgin, or any other of these hugely successful companies, if they were to continue as "family run" businesses.
Dynasties are probably easier to establish than maintain because they depend on the all-too-unique qualities of the founders and are not structured to continue to succeed when they are controlled by "differently" capable successors.
JMW
www.viscoanalyser.com
RE: Working in a family-run-business
Heckler, just to throw a wrench in the works....
Every business owner I ever knew was an employee at some point. Quite a few went back to being employees when the fires that drove them burned down a bit. I was an employee for quite a few companies. I quit quite a few. Mostly for better money. I started my own business when I realized I could do better on my own than working for other people.
I am a bit of a bull in a china shop in the workplace. Results are what matters and I occasionally step on toes getting the job done. Politics just annoy me to the point of distraction. Do I fit your profile? Oddly, with all my character flaws and general lack of sensitivity, I believe most of my previous employers would love to have me back. They're just not willing to pay me the required money in most cases and I'm not willing to relocate for the other two.
Seriously, 4 out of 5 new businesses fail in the first year in the US. So how is it that the 1 guy who makes it work must be "a lousy employee"? You need a better argument.
Finally, I loved this quote: "The hallmark of a dysfunctional organization is a gap between reality and rhetoric," says Ben Dattner, a New York organizational psychologist.
That sounds like every business meeting I ever attended!
RE: Working in a family-run-business
Here are a few family owned businesses/partnerships of past and present:
Ford
Hunstman Chemical
Daimler Benz
I have one simple question;
Of the fortune 500 companies, how many simply popped into existance, without the involvement of one single person or a group of people?
As a small business owner, highly decorated Naval Officer, and former employee and salesman of the year for a very large Oil Company I am taken aback when someone passes judgement on business owners being lousy employees.
Funnelguy stated it best,
"Seriously, 4 out of 5 new businesses fail in the first year in the US. So how is it that the 1 guy who makes it work must be "a lousy employee"? You need a better argument."
Todd
www.oxilume.com
RE: Working in a family-run-business
3 signs of a dysfunctional company
http://www.bcentral.com/articles/krotz/187.asp
7 signs of an entrepreneur
http://www.bcentral.com/articles/anthony/187.asp
Todd - trust me my posted wasn't intended to insult you or anyone else but more of "just add my 2 cents worth". I've had both good and bad experiences with small "family owned" companies and I've been exploited at the larger companies. I tend to like the smaller company due to the overall exposure from craddle to grave of projects. Anyway, enough said on my part but a lot of great posts on this thread.
RE: Working in a family-run-business
Keep in touch. Small businesses are always in need of exceptional people.
Todd
www.oxilume.com
RE: Working in a family-run-business
thanks for the links. I shall be sending the one on disfunctional companies to my last employer!
I think that if you are proposing these links as support or illustration of your post that you are on the same wavelength as myself and were just a bit misinterpreted.
In this light i take your comments do not refer to a family company at start-up but at some much later phase.
PS From the first link about dysfunctional companies, i wouldn't have thought the top management needed much prompting to head for the golf course. Frankly, the more time they spend there and the less in the company, the better all will be!
JMW
www.viscoanalyser.com
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RE: Working in a family-run-business
I consulted with a small family owned business for quite some time. There is nothing better than a green fees gift certificate. If they hunt, give them a paid guided quail, pheasant hunt.
Todd
www.oxilume.com
RE: Working in a family-run-business
If you want to get on in a large corporation the best way is to put in very long hours and this will eventually get you excepted into the right social circles. Once you are in that circle you need to make yourself to be a personal friend of the boss.
Anyone who thinks they can do it by shear hard work and aptitude is in for a big disappointment.
RE: Working in a family-run-business
Anyone here regularly watch the U.S. T.V. show "Arrested Development"? Anyone who ever worked for a relative would really appreciate it.
http://www.EsoxRepublic.com
RE: Working in a family-run-business
The future holds promise. As my mentor said, work for the time when your clients are calling only you without competition, and compensation is what you ask for.
RE: Working in a family-run-business
RE: Working in a family-run-business
Having read all the posts, and having been in both large and small comapanies, the thing I noticed is that there isn't really much difference. The scale of operations is different, but that's really it.
Small family owned, and large corporate run businesses have more in common than not. Being large, or small, doesn't exempt you from all the problems associated with running a business.
In then end, my decision was based on mobility.
Large and small companies both act the same way. The only way you are really going to move forward is if someone leaves, or dies. By going to a large company you are playing the percentages that someone is going to leave eventually. In a small company there are fewer people to leave, so I'm less likely to move up.
Who knows. Maybe I will hate working for a big company again and more back to something smaller. But right now it felt like the right thing to do.