Wealth of Wisdom

CHAPTER 40Deciding If You Should Join the Family Business

Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer

Working in a family business, whether it's your immediate family, a family that you've married into, or someone else's family, brings its own forms of challenges and rewards. The decision to accept any full-time job offer can be stressful. But with family businesses, the choices can be far more complicated: It's as much an unspoken social contract as an employment one—and the consequences can last far longer. Even the most highly qualified family members have a hard time navigating the emotional mix of expectation, obligation, uncertainty, and desire for professional success when faced with the decision.

When bright, ambitious young people talk about career prospects with a prospective employer, they are typically full of questions about how that company will support their professional growth. But remarkably, the same young people will confess that the prospect of joining their own family business leaves them tongue-tied. In families whose culture has been one of deep respect for those who are in the day-to-day trenches of the business, young family members often worry that asking too many questions might make them seem presumptuous or pushy. We get it. Asking too many questions can seem entitled. But we have seen many family relationships fractured from poor communication at the start of a family business job. This is your career. And your family. Making the wrong decision because you're ...