Bonding in Family Business
As explained earlier, relationships between members of the family plays an important role in the field of business. And bonding goes a long way in managing and maintaining a healthy environment to work in.
There are basically four types of bonding- physical, emotional, spiritual and societal.
1) Physical Bonding
Families in the Indian society have a strong physical bond-they stay together as joint families and consider the entire extended family their own. Although different mind sets and difference of opinions arise, they are mostly on a superficial level. Trust and respect for one’s own extended family helps the family as well as business to remain close knit.
An important task at present, for Indian business families is a career development for the future generations. The requirement to have better qualified family professionals is beginning to penetrate into the value systems of the Indian family system. The next generation family members that go abroad to pursue an education or gain a credible work experience generally return to join the family business to incorporate all they’ve learnt into their business, as the foundation to do so has been laid very early on in their lives.
2) Emotional Bonding
Parents play a pivotal role in Indian families. They help to nurture an emotional bond among their children early on itself. In the field on family business, usually a family member usually a mother assumes a traditional, behind-the-scenes role as a confidant and adviser, acting as a listener for the family members and as a mediator, calming situations and keeping the peace.
Family members take immense pride in their family code of conduct and value system. Therefore, Indian family businesses tend to be focused inward and have minimal dependency on external personnel. The family wealth is usually kept as a common pool to avoid disagreements and inequality. These boundaries also have a strong undercurrent of entrepreneurship, with founders and family members believing that they are working for themselves.
3) Spiritual Bonding
Indian families in general are dharmic in nature; they usually bond at the spiritual level. Dharmic here does not pertain to a particular religion but rather to the duties that each religion prescribes. When Indian families stay together, work together and emotionally bond together, they draw energy from each other. Respect is one of the key attributes in the Indian value system, and it is genuine and instilled in individual behavior. This is especially seen in Indian family business, where there is a ‘karta’ (family head), usually the father, who the family unanimously respect. Traditionally the karta tutors the children in business and skills, while the mother and father take on the role of a guru as well as a parent.
4) Societal Bonding
The social structure in India has a unique relationship with the family businesses. Conflicts within Indian families and businesses are usually suppressed to avoid social stigma. Family always takes precedence over business and that holds true in a case of conflict too. Very often conflicts are controlled rather than discussed or resolved, exacerbating the issues resurfacing-often in a more emotional and destructive form- in the future. With this in mind, many Indian family businesses today make special efforts to resolve their conflicts either by themselves or with the help of an external mediator.
Despite their significance, until very recently, little information and guidance was available on the issues facing family businesses. Two fundamental ideas need to be understood,
- Family business differs in a variety of ways from non-family businesses.
- Business families function differently from non-business families.
Whether in India or elsewhere, there are no general universal remedies; every family is idiosyncratic, shaped by its relationships, as well as by a host of other personal and commercial characteristics. But certain common patterns are found and developing an appreciation of them is important so we can avoid repeating mistakes.