Spouses Working Together in a Family Business

There have been a few occasions when I have heard business consultants make the comment, “Just because spouses own and work together in a business doesn’t qualify it as a ‘family business’”. I couldn’t disagree more. After all, part of what makes up the definition of family is a group of people who live together and are related by birth, marriage, adoption, etc. Moreover, the number of spouses working together in a family business is very large. According to the National Federation of Independent Businesses, there are an estimated 1.2 million husband and wife teams running American family businesses.

Spouses working together can, and often do, create family dynamics that are more awkward than other family business relationships. The challenges relating to spouses being family partners are particularly difficult and can cause great strain, in part because the couple not only works together, they also live together. When spouses work together, problems can be as mild as running out of conversation to full-out discord in which the couple stops speaking to each other altogether.

When spouses are running a business together, they have to reach a consensus regarding what they desire for the long-term future of the business. It becomes much easier when couples discuss and come to consensus regarding their respective personal vision statements.

In addition, they need to outline their common dream for the future of the family business in their company vision statement. One way to bring differences in long-term desires out in the open is for the spouses to work together to develop a written, clearly stated company vision statement. Going through the process of creating and refining a company vision statement helps illuminate areas that need mutual agreement and areas in which they do not agree on the future of the business. Mutually agreeing to the major elements in the company vision statement will, at a minimum, reduce the intensity of disputes between them relating to the future of the business, or, at least, bring disputes to a head which will help to reduce the undercurrents between the spouses.