
I hired my friends and family, and I’d do it again. - aresant
http://www.meetingburner.com/blog/2012/10/03/i-hired-my-friends-and-family-and-id-do-it-again/
======
vessenes
Rockefeller said (roughly): good business makes good friendships, good
friendships makes bad business.

There are so many possible risk scenarios not discussed in that essay. It does
take more maturity, healthy relationship skills and good communication to work
with existing people in your life. But that's fine, we should develop those
skills anyway.

It's perfectly possible that a CEO could be 'happy' while his/her friends
quietly remain unhappy.

In a way, a company failing could be the best outcome for friends and family
getting hired -- everyone tried together and bonded in the crash. The worst
could be a quality exit, in which your friend is enriched at 10-100x the
amount you are. It's hard to stay friends with someone who just worked you
hard for n years and then made 100x the money off the experience.

~~~
rpq1480
Interesting comment re: the best outcome being failure. I could see failure as
going terribly for family/friend relationships. People are often at their most
stressed in situations where their economic stability is threatened, and
stress generally leads to conflict, in my experience.

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columbo
The biggest challenge would be encouraging growth with people outside of your
base.

You become a $50m company, and the young manager you hired is turning out to
be better than your sister/brother/wife/husband... are you ready to replace
one of those people with an outside person?

As an outside individual I tend to be wary of working for a family run
business because the chances are that I will never be able to replace the
owner's wife/brother/sister/husband, instead my maximum growth will be the
tier below the family.

~~~
cwallenpoole
This is true of a lot of founders of companies though. A lot of times the
person who is the most invested in leadership for the early success of a
company is not necessarily the best person to lead the company in the long
term. Zuckerberg is probably the most noticed, recent example: he lead
Facebook to the top of the social networking scene, but now investors are
scared of him.

Objectivity is something you _always_ need in business.

~~~
fooandbarify
Sure, objectivity is good, but often times difficult decisions have no
objectively clear optimal path (eg. there are many good arguments to be made
for why MZ should not be replaced, and even time will only evaluate a single
path). Emotion has been a useful (though admittedly fallible) cognitive
shortcut for our species in those situations.

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drblast
I wouldn't be worried about the effect on the business so much as the effect
on the personal relationships. I'm sure working with friends and family is no
worse for the business, and in many cases better, for the business.

If your life is your business, fine, but I would hate for my working life to
invade my personal life to such a degree.

~~~
espyb
I understand your feelings on this, but I suspect that depends upon the degree
to which someone is able to compartmentalize and multi-task. Having a work
life and a personal life doesn't have to be an either/or proposition, even if
you work for people you know. I freely acknowledge that it's not for everyone,
however if you have the ability to structure your life properly, it can work
wonderfully for both parties.

One of the biggest pluses would be the personality aspect. You can interview
and hire someone with a stellar resume and great interview skills, however you
cannot truly know their personality until you work with them, and personality
is one of the things that can make or break a working relationship. As the
article touched upon, you often better know the strengths and weaknesses of
those closest to you. This allows you to find the best fit for someone's
personality and skills, which benefits everyone. Additionally, your friends
and family are likely to give their absolute best effort because they're not
just a part of your business, they're a part of your life. That's not always
the case I know, as I'm sure we've all heard horror stories of friends and
family who have taken advantage of such opportunities. But implementing the
steps outlined would aid in preventing such situations, or in remedying them
quickly should they arise.

~~~
sirclueless
> I suspect that depends upon the degree to which someone is able to
> compartmentalize and multi-task.

Well yes, it depends on your ability to compartmentalize. The problem is that
it depends on your friends' and family's ability to compartmentalize just as
much. I know _I_ would be able to handle my wife complaining about my work and
keep that out of my personal life. I have much less faith that if I had to sit
down and have a "serious talk" with my brother, he wouldn't hold anything
against me personally.

When relationships are on the line, it's not all about you. What might not
faze you, might still throw a wrench into things for other people, and the end
result is just as damaging.

~~~
saurik
I have hired nearly all of my best friends (and even my girlfriend), and a
large part of me regrets it; and yes: for the very reasons you describe
(personal, not business).

I have had to fire friends, and I have had to negotiate with them. I actually
_have_ managed to keep these people as close friends, but it got really tough
going at times. :(

The thing that got really really hard for me, though, is that I no longer
really just have "friends" in the sense of "someone you can tell your problems
to".

Here is an example: let's say work sucks, or things are going badly in some
negotiation, or maybe you literally jut hate your job that day and feel like
going off on a massive "I wish I could just quit all of this" rant.

It no longer works to do this with your friends: they now have both emotional
and economic incentives to argue with you, become frustrated at your opinions,
or, even worse, themselves feel bad about their own lives.

In the other direction, I often feel the need to avoid hanging out with some
of the people I most cherish in my life, as I know if I do they will ask after
the status of something I should have done, or start asking me questions about
something they should do.

The result is that I'm, in a way, not even allowed to have work/life
separation anymore: whereas I'm totally fine with the idea "this is just
dinner, can we not talk about work?", it is nearly impossible to get everyone
else to abide.

I therefore have actually been quite happy as some of my friends have gotten
larger jobs elsewhere (I really was mostly doing extreme part-time hiring as
contractors) as I now can interact with them "normally".

(Now, that all said, I also feel I have seen this "work better" in a previous
company I was a part of, but I can't help but wonder if it was because I was
the employee as opposed to the employer.)

(I don't really hear my friends complaining about this interaction, for
example; that said, maybe they just wouldn't tell me, due to this very same
underlying bug.)

------
perydell
My older brother admits he likes working with me and would do it again... now
I have it in writing!

It is incredible how many people hear about our team which includes quite a
few family members and say they can't imagine working with their brother (or
sister, cousin, or whatever) but it works well for us. I can't imagine it any
other way.

------
jwwest
This is a very YMMV post. Everyone's family/friend situation is different, as
is the type of business you're heading into.

Personally I'd rather befriend those that I work with to avoid mixing
contexts. But then again I'm very particular about the way I conduct my
business and how I get things done. Ultimately when you hire friends and
family, you're bringing the social contracts into a different atmosphere. If I
hire a friend as a programmer, I'm somewhat socially obligated to listen to
his advice about taxes, whereas I have no obligations to a stranger that I
hire for that purpose. The absolute worst thing is to ask your significant
other for advice on a topic that they know little about, then having to
pretend that you're considering it.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I disagree, this is a 'I haven't been in a car wreck so I see no value in seat
belts' kind of story.

Friends is one thing, family is another. There is a reason every single HR
boiler plate policies binder has a section which prohibits members of the same
family from having a reporting relationship with each other.

------
rpq1480
I think that part of the reason why working with your friends and family gets
a bad name, is that when it goes wrong, it goes spectacularly wrong. So even
if it might be successful a decent percentage of the time, the fear of that
cataclysmic blow up prevents people from taking the plunge.

I think that using some of the techniques outlined in the article certainly
mitigate that risk.

------
smokey_the_bear
I started a company with my then-boyfriend, now husband. I can't imagine
founding with anyone else.

------
annableker
"You know their strengths and weaknesses"

YES. This is why working with my brother is awesome. We know exactly which
work to pass off to each other. There's never any "I could have done that
better" competition or awkwardness.

------
jiggy2011
What I find interesting is that nepotism is somewhat taboo in western culture.
With businesses either deciding not to hire family or being careful to avoid
favouritism.

On the other hand, shops in my area that are run by those originally from the
east (or descendants thereof) are almost entirely family run with the
assumption usually being that the oldest son is effectively the "deputy" and
will be the one to run the business when the father retires.

~~~
hkmurakami
Toyota's current CEO is a descendant of the founder of the company. Dynastic
family members are dispersed throughout the "group companies". I wonder how
much of such behavior would be tolerated in the west. (then again, James
Murdoch is pretty high in News Corp so who knows).

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superkvn
Totally agree. There are definite pitfalls and things to watch out for, but
working with friends and family can be great when you do it right.

~~~
alan57
Also pays to have complimentary skills rather than the same ones. Helps take
ego and competitiveness out of the equation.

~~~
perydell
I think that is why it works well for me and my brother. I handle the tech and
he handles everything else.

------
tlogan
Working with a friend and family had a great advantage that even if you mess
up something they will be still around to help (now, if your "friends" stop
being your friend because of some business failure then they were not real
friends anyway).

------
anamax
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_Dynasty>

