When the business comes to Sunday lunch: rules for family conversations

“Did you call that supplier?”

The soup was still too hot for anyone to eat. Father asked the question across the table, in passing, as if asking whether it would rain tomorrow. Mother put down her spoon. The daughter rolled her eyes. The son’s partner looked down at her plate. Within ten seconds, Sunday lunch had become a meeting. Twenty minutes later the daughter said, “Well, you decide everything anyway” — and the conversation was no longer about the supplier, but about whose opinion Father had always listened to more.

If you grew up in or work in a family business, this scene is probably familiar. The company sits at the table like an extra member of the family: nobody invited it, but it always turns up. In this post I will write about why conversations about the business get tangled so quickly within a family, and how to set a few simple rules that make communication in a family business easier — for the business and for the family. I won’t give legal or business advice; what interests me are the relationships behind these conversations.

One table, three conversations

The researchers Renato Tagiuri and John Davis described the family business as three overlapping circles: family, ownership and business. Each circle has its own questions and its own rules. In the family we ask how we are with one another. In ownership, who owns what and who decides about what. In the business, how to get the work done. The same person can be a daughter, a co-owner and a head of department all at once — and every time she opens her mouth, it is not clear which circle she is speaking from.

When the topics get mixed up, something interesting happens. A question about a supplier, which would be entirely neutral in the office, sounds like a test over lunch: are you a good enough son? A remark about Christmas, which would be innocent in another family, can in a family with a business sound like a hint about who will one day be in charge. Nobody said anything wrong. Only the circle was wrong.

The first three minutes decide a lot

In 1999 Sybil Carrère and John Gottman published a study I like to quote because it is so simple. They asked newlywed couples to talk for fifteen minutes about a topic they disagreed on. How the conversation went in just the first three minutes predicted which couples would divorce over the following six years. A conversation that starts harshly — with an accusation, mockery or criticism — rarely ends gently.

The study was done with couples, not with families or business partners, so it should not be transferred literally. But we know the mechanism it describes from elsewhere too: the first sentence sets the tone in which everyone carries on. “Did you call that supplier?” already carried doubt within it. I have written more about which patterns poison conversations most in the post The Four Horsemen in relationships.

That is good news. It means you don’t have to change everything — sometimes changing the beginning is enough. “When have you got five minutes so we can look at how things are with the supplier?” opens a completely different conversation from a question tossed across the soup.

Why a business topic opens an old wound

People in families rarely argue about what they are arguing about. As with couples who argue about the washing-up, in families with a business there is almost always something else beneath the content: the need to be seen, acknowledged, heard. I wrote about this in the post It is not about the dishes.

In a family business these needs take a very concrete form. Who gets which department. Whose opinion Father takes into account. Who was always “the clever one” as a child and who was “the one who tries hard”. When siblings compete for positions, the old rivalry often moves from the nursery into the boardroom — more on this in the post Siblings and succession. When a parent is also the boss, every piece of business criticism is also heard as parental — I devote the post Father as boss to this.

Family business researchers, among them Franz Kellermanns and Kimberly Eddleston, distinguish between two kinds of disagreement: about tasks (what to do and how) and in relationships (who we are to each other). The first can even be useful, because it leads to better decisions. The second almost always does harm — and likes to hide inside the first. When an argument about a supplier stretches into an hour of reproaches, it is almost certain that it is no longer about the supplier.

Something else often happens too: the tension between two people spills over onto a third. Mother becomes the interpreter between father and son; a sister-in-law listens to a sister’s complaints about her brother. We call this triangulation, and in family businesses it is almost a constant. In the short term it lowers the tension. In the long term it means that the two people who should talk to each other never really do.

First rule: every topic has its time and place

The simplest and at the same time hardest rule is to separate where what gets talked about. Not because the business is taboo, but because the family also deserves a space where it doesn’t have to be a company.

Some families agree that Sunday lunch is business-free. Others allow a brief exchange of news but move decisions elsewhere. What matters is not what the rule is, but that it is spoken aloud and applies to everyone — including the person with the most power. If it is always the same person who breaks the rule, it is not a rule but a request.

When a different time is set aside for business topics — a short meeting during the working week, an agreed slot once a month — something happens that often surprises families: lunches become pleasant again. The tension doesn’t disappear, but it gets its own place and no longer seeps into everything else.

Second rule: understand first, then answer

In families who work together it often happens that everyone talks and nobody listens. Not out of rudeness, but because everyone already knows what the other is going to say. Father knows his son will once again propose new software. The son knows his father will once again say that things have been fine so far. The conversation runs along tracks that were laid years ago.

Listening in order to understand means that before you answer, you sum up what you have heard — and ask whether you have understood correctly. It sounds simple, but in practice it is one of the most demanding skills there is. A short example (composite, not a real person):

“You want to change everything again. It has worked for thirty years and it will keep working.”
“If I understand you correctly, you’re worried that a change would mean losing something you built?”
“It’s not about me. It’s about people knowing how the work is done.”
“So you’re worried about the people who are used to the old way. I understand that. Can you tell me what would have to stay so that you’d feel at ease?”
“… That nobody feels as if everything they did was wrong.”

In this exchange the son did not give in or drop his proposal. He just set it aside for a moment to hear what lay beneath his father’s opposition. What came to the surface — the fear that his work would be devalued — is something you can talk about. “It has worked for thirty years” is not.

Third rule: speak for yourself

In family conversations about the business, people often end up speaking on behalf of others. “Everyone thinks that…” “Mum says that…” “The staff are complaining.” Speaking like this is safe, because nobody stands behind it. But that is exactly why it is unproductive: the other person cannot respond to someone who isn’t in the room.

Speaking for yourself means saying what you think and what you need — without hiding behind others and without attacking the other person. “I don’t agree with this proposal, because I’m worried that…” instead of “You always do everything your own way.” In family therapy we also call this differentiation: the ability to stay in contact with the people close to you while keeping your own position, without merging with them or cutting yourself off. Murray Bowen developed the concept precisely by observing families in which it was hard for each member to think for themselves.

If this doesn’t come easily to you, you are not the exception. In families where the business is the centre, the boundaries between members have often been blurred since childhood. You will find some practical steps for saying what you think without the relationship falling apart in the post How to say what you think without the relationship falling apart.

Family council and family constitution: what they are and what they don’t replace

As a family grows — when partners join, when grandchildren grow up, when there are more owners — some families organise their conversations more formally. Two terms come up often: a family council, which is a regular meeting of family members about the relationship between the family and the business, and a family constitution (in some places a family protocol), which is a written agreement about values and rules — for example, who can work in the company, how disagreements are resolved and how the family makes decisions. Kelin Gersick and colleagues also write about this in their book on the life cycles of family businesses.

Here I must be careful. How such agreements are legally shaped and what force they have is a question for lawyers and family business advisers, not for a therapist. From the family’s point of view, though, I can say something that seems important to me.

• The value is not in the document but in the conversation. A family that has spent months talking about what matters to it has gained something no template can buy.
• Rules do not replace relationships. If there are old wounds in a family, no constitution will heal them. It can only hold them in check until someone finds a way around it.
• Watch who is writing. If one member writes the agreement and the others only sign it, it is not an agreement. Those who don’t work in the business must have a voice too — and so must those who joined the family through marriage.
• Start small. For most families the first step is simply to agree on a time when the business is talked about, and a time when it isn’t.

Exercise: a business-free lunch

You can suggest this exercise for your very next family lunch. It doesn’t require any formal agreement, only a willingness to try something for a few weeks.

1. Suggest an experiment, not a rule. “What would you say to us not talking about the business at lunch for the next three Sundays? Just to see how it goes.” An experiment is easier to accept than a permanent change.
2. Set aside another place. Agree on a short slot during the week — twenty minutes is enough — where business topics are welcome. That way nobody will feel their voice is being taken away.
3. Agree on a signal. When someone at the table starts on the business without meaning to, someone reminds them with an agreed phrase, such as “that’s for Wednesday”. Without reproach, with a smile.
4. Notice what appears in the empty space. What do you talk about when the business isn’t there? Perhaps for the first time in a long while you hear how your sister is really doing — or what your father is reading.
5. Talk about it after three weeks. What was easier? What was missing? Do you want to carry on? This conversation is already the first example of a family agreement you have made together.

When rules are not enough

Rules for conversations are useful, but they are not a cure for everything. I want to be clear about their limits.

Rules can become a weapon. “We agreed not to mention that” can also be a way of silencing someone who has something important to say. If it is always the same person who has the last word on what may be said, the rules are not protecting the conversation, but power.

Some disputes have something deeper beneath them. If a conversation about the business keeps ending at the same wounds — the inheritance, who was overlooked as a child, the parents’ divorce — rules of communication won’t be enough. Then it makes sense to look at the pattern that keeps repeating, not just at how it is talked about. I have written about how alliances form between siblings and parents in the post Siblings, alliances and coalitions.

In some places, conversation is not safe. If there is violence, threats or addiction in the family, rules for lunches are not the right path. Seek help — in cases of violence, in Slovenia the SOS helpline for women and children who are victims of violence is available on 080 11 55, and in an emergency you can call the police on 113.

Some questions are not family questions. Ownership shares, contracts and succession also have a legal and business side. There you need specialists in the field — a good conversation within the family can make their work easier, but it cannot replace it.

And sometimes it is wise not to talk at all for a while. A pause is not a failure. It can also be a time when everyone gathers themselves before sitting down at the table again.

What a joint session looks like

As a therapist in training under supervision in marriage and family therapy, I am training in relational family therapy. This approach does not look for someone to blame for a conflict, but for the pattern that everyone keeps going together — and that they can also change together. In families with a business, this pattern is often several generations old.

Several family members can come to a joint session and look together at what happens between them when the conversation turns to the business. My task is not to decide who is right, but to help the voices that get lost at home be heard as well. If you are wondering how such a session works, I have described it in the post How joint sessions work. You can also find more about how I understand disagreements in the knowledge base under conflict. Sessions take place in person in Ljubljana, and I also work with English-speaking families.

What to remember

• Three conversations get mixed up at the family table — family, ownership and business. When they blur, business questions sound like questions about love.
• The start of a conversation often decides how it will end. A gentler start opens a different conversation.
• Agreeing where and when the business is discussed protects both the company and the family.
• Listen in order to understand, and speak for yourself — not on behalf of others.
• A family council or constitution can help, but it doesn’t replace the relationship. The value is in the conversation, not in the document.