You may come from a family that has been successful in business for many years, and you are searching to find your place. No doubt, existing family members will have their thoughts on what jobs you may take on in the family business. But discovering where you fit will be key to your enduring success.
Active Knowledge Question:
What do you think you are really good at, and how may that provide a cornerstone to your long-term success?
It is not easy to find a place within an established family business that will allow you to grow and bring all your potential to the forefront.
To start with its family and that brings with it a lifetime of growing up together and all the things everyone believes the other is capable and not capable of. As well as all the relationship stuff and expectations that occur in families.
It can also be difficult to necessarily know in what areas you would like to work as you simply have not experienced them yet.
So your starting point is to, as best you can, put all the above to one side and look at the opportunities that working in the family business may provide. What areas initially interest you, why and what do you expect them to bring to you?
Stepping back from the business and looking at the various tasks that make up the business can be a good starting point. Two key points:
- The fact that you are family should be a non-consideration to you and other family members already in the business. Whatever you may do, do not poison your opportunity to learn and grow by stepping forward with a sense of entitlement, or expect preferential treatment.
- Be clear in your own mind, as best you can, about the role you would like to undertake and why this is something you would like to explore.
Discovering the right job for you in the family business is absolutely no different from finding your first job in any business. It is about discovery – which is about trying out, learning and growing.
Your first or even your third job will likely not be your last but hopefully, there is a compounding effect where you learn, add to and grow into each new role.
And a very important point to remember, the vast majority of people discover their first business opportunity through the work that they are currently doing. While working for someone else, they see an opportunity and step into it. If starting your own business is your goal, then working in the family business may well be the key to opening that opportunity.
An entirely new level of performance.
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All the best in the success of your business,
Richard Shrapnel
