Family-Like Culture Makes Company Difficult to Grow
A lot of leaders claim that their companies have family-like cultures, meaning that company cares about their employees like family members.
In practice, it usually means that company spends some money on cozy work space, manifold food and beverages, medical coverage, sport reimbursements, personal gifts, and other perks. It also usually means certain level of informality in relationships between employees making the relationships more humane (in the opinion of advocates of family-like cultures).
However, family-like culture has long-running negative consequences for a company, because makes it difficult to grow. It’s mostly because of wrong people expectations and unrealistic view on what company truly is. In reality, people expectations from a family and from a company are highly different, while company and family expectations from their members are also two different things.
Family is all about love. Company is all about mission and interests.
Family is all about selfless love of its members — true family member spends time and money on other members in a selfless way, without expectation to get something in return. Family is broken if selfless love is gone.
Company is all about mutual interests in a joint mission. The more people believe in company mission, the more competitive company is. The more employees of a company have their mutual interests aligned, the more stable company is. Company is broken if mission is lost or if interests become misaligned.
Company has to hire those people who believe in its mission and who have personal interests in it. And company has to fire those who hinder it from accomplishing the mission. In turn, people may quickly join a company with a great mission and may quickly leave it if company interests are no longer aligned with their own interests. But family cannot hire and fire family members (regardless a reason), and a family member cannot leave and join arbitrary families.
Ask yourself. Does company pay salary without expectation to get something in return? Does employee work for company without expectation to be paid in full and strictly on time? Do anybody expect that company is once and for all? Do family members need mission and belief to stay together?
Recognized leader is the necessity for a company, but not for a family.
Family members don’t need mission to stay together, but mission is vital for a company.
Mission is not something that is born in a group of people, such as committees, teams, polls, etc. Mission is formed by a leader. Then mission is consistently communicated by leader to other people. And mission is persisted by leader. No leader = no mission = no company.
But just having a mission is not enough. Mission must be accomplished, even if it is a mission impossible :). And there are millions of opinions on how to accomplish a given mission. If a leader is truly recognized, then company employees easily follow a way chosen by the leader, at their free will, even if the way seems wrong. And leader must be strong enough to impose particular way of accomplishing a mission and to take personal responsibility on it.
Stating that a company has a family-like culture means sending signals to all the employees that recognized leader is not needed, that no one care about persisting a mission, and that a way of accomplishing a mission may change every day.
Company is where we make money. Family is where we spend it.
People make money at work in companies, and then spend money for their families.
If a family member needs expensive and long-term hospitalization, then other family members usually spend all their time and all their money to support sick member. But if an employee needs expensive hospitalization, it is unlikely that company and its employees will spend their last money to help sick employee. This is because a company is a place to make money, not to spend it. And a family is a place to spend money, not to make it.
Ask yourself. When a company claims family-like culture, does it mean that company expects employees to spend their personal time and their own money on company needs, or to support company with their own money to prevent bankruptcy? Should an employee expect company to spend the last money and potentially to become a bankrupt if the employee needs expensive and long-term hospitalization?
Company tenses people up. Family is a place for relaxation.
People tense up at work and then relax at home with families.
When company claims family-like culture, it sends a confusing signal to employees that the requirements are not so strong to discipline, professionalism, etc. But once at least one employee treats such messaging as a permission to, let say, watch favorite TV series at work, a leader may have hard choice — either to set strict limits or to allow such behavior for everyone.
Family-like culture may quickly become an excuse for being unorganized, irresponsible, unprofessional, etc. And the worst thing is that it is “infectious”.
It must be clear for everyone that people come to work in order to work, not to relax.
Company is a tribe, not a family
In fact, company behavior is more close to a tribe:
- Tribe is a group of 20–2000 people
- People with mutual interests are united around a leader to accomplish a mission
- Leader forms and imposes particular way of accomplishing a mission
- Alternative leaders leave to form their own tribes
- People join tribe when they believe in a mission
- Each tribe member has its own interests that may prevail on tribe interests
- Member can leave tribe if interests are no longer aligned
- Tribe stays strong while mutual interests of the most members are aligned
- Strong members leave weak tribes, strong tribes expel weak members
Tribe is capable to grow to at least 1000 members, while family isn’t. Thus introduction of family-like elements into a company makes it difficult to grow.
Do you agree?
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
