Why “Family” Is the Wrong Word to Use for Your Team
The word “family.” You may have heard it before to describe the culture at a business or teams throughout a company. In this episode, Traci and Rob discuss four reasons to be cautious about using this terminology in the workplace. Dive in as they explore the difference in dynamics between employee and family relationships and how leaders can be intentional in the way they care for individuals and the companies they work for.
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Rob:
Early in my career, I worked at several big enterprise places, and at one of them it was very much a place where they encouraged the use of the word family when talking about the team we were working on. And it was pretty overt in how they talked about it.
Our manager definitely took on a parental, dad role, and I can remember a couple staff meetings referring to himself as that and those kinds of things, and it always felt just a little off to me.
But then came a day where they started having to do layoffs and they laid off someone they referred to as an uncle. And it became very real that this wasn't a family at all, this was a business, this was a team. A team at a company that wasn't doing so well at the time and had to restructure or make some changes so that we could survive.
And ever since then, I have had this thing with referring to teams as families or families as teams as being two distinct things and being really careful about what we do and what we say and how we describe them. Because words really matter that we use, they have meaning, and if we're not careful, we can attach things that shouldn't be attached to each other.
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Rob:
How's it going, Traci?
Traci:
Good, Rob.
Yeah, I completely agree. And it's funny, this topic usually comes up when we're facilitating core values with teams. Sometimes teams really want to talk about, "Oh, we're just like a family and maybe family should be one of our core values." And we're always like, "No, not unless you are actually related to each other."
Because, it typically falls in one of two categories,—and this may sound harsh but it's true—but it's either in the category of manipulation, either, we see this with the Sopranos or with any type of mafia or gang-related, where they use familiar terms to manipulate, to keep you, to demand your loyalty, to prevent you from veering off the rules and regulations that the hierarchy has established.
Or, it could be that people are just a little misguided and they want that family atmosphere. What they're trying to get at is, we want to say we're comfortable with each other, we want to be safe. We want to say we're authentic. We want to say we have certain traditions or we're free to express ourselves. And all of that I think is great, we just need to use—like as you said, semantics here—but we just don't want to use the word family, because for a lot of our people that could have a lot of baggage around it, could be misinterpreted, and could be crossing some serious boundaries.
So, we can achieve what we're trying to imply by saying we're a family, without using the word family. Now, I know that you've thought a lot about this and you have a team that's close to each other, but you don't want to cross certain boundaries and you want to make sure that you're healthy as a team.
And so, you have four pretty solid reasons that we want to talk about today of why using family to describe your team might not be a great idea.
Rob:
Yeah, I do. So, my first is, families are built around blood, teams are built around common goals.
And there is very distinct things about those two pieces, right? I'm part of multiple families, some that are definitely blood, some that I've married into. And those typically aren't focused on achieving things together, or we don't have things and we don't have quarterly plans and measurables and all of those things where we're trying to strive and leverage each other's abilities to do the best things we can.
Oftentimes, it's about bonding and survival in some ways. Where the teams that I'm a part of, we definitely set goals. We definitely figure out who's accountable for what and set those actions. And while I can see some crossover between some of those things, man, they're very, very different.
Traci:
Yeah, definitely. And I think, wanting to keep people aligned for different reasons, like when you're in a family it's all, "Oh, blood's thicker than water and we're never going to leave each other and we always are together, and nobody's going anywhere. Your family's always here." That's where the whole term, the whole blood comes in with family, and that's been around for centuries. Right?
And I like that you're reorienting when you talk about a team. A team is goal-oriented, a team is mission-oriented, a team is vision, destination-oriented. And I think when we alter and we put the team's orientation correctly, then we're going to get more results.
We're a company, and companies aren't people, companies don't love, companies don't hate. Companies have goals and missions and companies are formed for purposes. And so, we have to always make sure we have those clear purposes in mind when we're talking to our team.
Rob:
Yeah, absolutely. And it is a big difference. I don't think that when I'm thinking about my kids or my siblings, or their kids, then I'm not thinking about them as, "Well, is my brother in the right seat? Does he play in the right role in this family?" No, no, no. I'm accepting him for who he is and working with what I've got.
And I think that when we can have that moment and think that, "Well, these are the people we're stuck with on our teams." We're not actually running effective teams and building effective companies, we're stopping well short of that and not even correcting or talking about behavior that can be addressed.
Traci:
Right. Yep. Very true.
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Rob:
Okay. So, my second point is, families are homogenous, for the most part, they don't have much diversity. When we think about our peers as family, we may not be as intentional with our words and actions as we should be. And this also can lead to places we are focused on hiring and adding people who are a “good fit” rather than a “good add." And I think that this is how we get into a lot of the challenges we see with diversity in our industry, is bringing in people who look and sound and have similar backgrounds that we do, which, that's a pretty decent description of family.
Traci:
Yeah. When we keep saying, "Oh, we're a family here. It's like we're a family." We are reemphasizing comfort. It's very comfortable here. And you're right, whether it's consciously or subconsciously, and a lot of times it's subconscious until you bring it out into the awareness of the team, they don't even know they're doing it. They don't even realize that the last three people they hired are all from their same college, or all from their same town, or all from their same background, or look exactly like them, or even just have the same likes.
And that's fine, it's fine to have similarities and it's fine to relate to people in interviews and to have connections with them based on similar backgrounds or similar likes, but we want to bring into our awareness that we want diversity, that diversity's good for multiple reasons. Research has gone to prove this, what we knew instinctively. And sometimes we just need to be okay to push ourselves outside the comfort zone of having people around us that are different, that have different backgrounds, that don't look like us, that maybe don't agree with us, have very different likes.
And it's interesting because, I have two teenagers right now in high school and you can imagine or remember what high school's like and where you sit in the lunchroom, and people gravitate towards each other that look alike, and the cliques, and all of that.
And so, the same thing happens in college. And we have to push ourselves in the workplace to push against those instincts of just wanting to be comfortable and thinking, this is just a fraternity or a sorority or the lunch table in the cafeteria. That, again, we're not a family, we're not a clique, we're not a tribe. We are a company, we're a team around a mission. And that's hard to remember.
Rob:
Yeah. And if we think about looking for those pieces that we don't currently have, as good adds, as what are we missing to bring in? And what you're doing in a lot of those cases is you are actually increasing the surface area for conflict when you bring in things that don't look like the other pieces that are already there.
And that's okay, because that potential conflict or that potential rub is actually, sometimes the best ideas come out of it. Right? That iron sharpens iron. Right? And I think that we're looking for that comfort. We're looking for spots where maybe we just agree because it's easier, right? And that's one of the danger signs, I think, for most teams, is if we agree on everything, how effective will we really be?
Traci:
Yeah. We need that healthy conflict, we need that rub to make each other better. And people avoid that, because they feel, again, comfort and they feel like they just don't want to have a bad day at work, or they just want things to go smoothly, or they just want to wrap this project, and they're almost done. And if we push ourselves a little bit harder if you say what you're really thinking, then we might have to spend more time on it or we might have to redesign something or we might have to... And wouldn't it just be easier to just log off at 4:30 than to have to really push ourselves into that conflict zone?
But you're right, we stifle innovation, we stifle productivity, we stifle excellent work, when we don't let ourselves feel just a little bit uncomfortable, we don't let ourselves feel what that diversity brings sometimes.
Rob:
Yeah. Not even to mention the fact that most end users of the products we build are a wide variety of diversity and all of that. And we need to have teams that are representative of who we're trying to serve, so that we can have those viewpoints.
Traci:
Yep. Exactly.
Rob:
My third point is, families are forever, but at our companies and our teams, people come and go. It's hard to part ways with bad family members, but teams should be mutually beneficial, elective relationships, based around common goals.
There is times in my past where we've had to let people go that I honestly liked a lot and wanted to be their friend after the fact, that they were amazing people. And if it was a family, I would've hung onto them way longer than was appropriate. They were ineffectual at some of their job responsibilities and not delivering where we needed to.
And I think that this is a place where the word family gets all messed up, because you often don't fire your family. You don't part ways. You don't put your family on a performance improvement plan, all of the other things, right? Can you imagine writing peer reviews for your family, first off? I'd like to, maybe in some cases, but you know what? That's probably not the most appropriate thing.
And I think that we have to be really careful here, and we can't wrap ourselves up in the word and the feeling of abandonment when a team member moves on for another opportunity.
Traci:
Yeah. I think, we all have to endure the crazy uncle at the Thanksgiving table, right? And you just say, "Eh, oh, it's my family. That's just what's happening." And family always has the option to show up for the most part. And with a company, again, with a team, it's different. And that's why I love the word team by the way, is because when we think about a sports team—the teams that we're most familiar with—those players get traded, they get signed, they get brought on, they leave, they get injured and they have to go elsewhere, or whatever it is, and that's normal.
But when they're all together, when they're all part of that team, they are there for each other. They have each other's back. They strive for excellence. They have goals. They know what the scoreboard says, and they know what it takes to win, and they know when they're losing. And that's very different than a family. A family does not get retired, does not get traded.
And also, the emotions around quitting, as you alluded to, this whole abandonment or betrayal that you can feel. And again, when we use the word family to manipulate, which I'm thinking was part of what you were experiencing in that job you were describing in the beginning is, all of a sudden you have all these emotions you have to deal with, because if you feel like you've outgrown that company or a better opportunity comes along, you're all messed up about quitting, feeling like you're betraying, feeling like you can't just go to your boss and say... You can't end well. There's no ending well.
And that's really sad, because as we know, especially in this age of great resignation is a lot of people boomerang. They leave, they get more experience, they grow in a certain role elsewhere. And then, when a senior role becomes available at their old company, sometimes they circle back and it's awesome and it's great. But if we haven't had that leaving well experience, we don't get to benefit from that.
And leaving well happens on both sides. And the leaders of companies who have this framework as family, they feel abandoned over and over again. And every time somebody resigns, they go through these emotions that usually can be tied to something that occurred in their childhood or some sort of baggage that they're bringing in. Hence, another reason why we want to avoid the word family from all the psychological reasons around it. And so, it's hard and they shun the person who leaves or they grin and bear it, and they don't help that person exit well and let the rest of the team see that this is a natural thing in business. Leaving is not unnatural.
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Rob:
It's very natural. And I think that you nailed something that I think is totally important when we talk about how leaders show up at the end and ending well, and how intentional you have to be, because of all those built-in, negative kinds of things, emotions that go on—on both sides, both the employee and the employer side—that that is the default path where people will feel something negative, unless we intentionally interject something different, right?
I had an employee years ago who came into my office and was like, "Hey, you talk about ending well and alumni and all this stuff so much, where it makes me feel a little uncomfortable that maybe you want us to leave." And I'm like, "No. No, no, no, that's not it. I don't want anyone to leave," I said, "but I'm accepting the fact that most of my people here will, and I'm okay with that. I know where we sit and if we're going to hire people young in their career, they are eventually going probably to move on. And that's okay. There is a path for that. Our deal we're making with each other is, while we're going to work together, we're going to kick as much butt as we possibly can. And then at the end, we're going to treat each other really, really well."
And one of the things that I try to do with most people who give notice is sit down and be like, "Hey, this next part's going to be a little weird. Can't help it. That's the nature of separating relationships and separating this. But we are going to try to honor the time you were here because we both lived up to our end of the deal. If you feel like there is anything that happens, that isn't honoring to what we went through and our relationship and the kicking the butt the way we did over the last several years, please say so, because I want to fix it now, before you go, instead of letting you walk away and having it feel like something was not said. And how do we work this and design this so that we both part ways well? So, that you can go be an alumni. You're a fan. We're always going to be a fan of what you do, no matter where you do it here, if you do it here or not, let's do this together."
Traci:
Yeah. And I tell owners that when we hold our staff with an open palm when we're not just hanging on to them desperately and really making people feel guilty for leaving or showing our fear that people might quit, that we actually are building stronger loyalty. So, people feel like, "Oh, okay. Actually, they're not being crazy and they get that people come and go, and actually, that makes me want to stay more."
It's like boundaries with kids. People think, "Oh, if I set boundaries or I discipline my children, they're going to hate me and want to escape." But it's actually the opposite, helicopter parents are overbearing, or scared that the kids are like later when it's 18 and they go across the country, right?
And the psychology's the same, we're humans and humans react the same in the workplace. So, it's like you said, we're not saying, "Oh, we don't care if you leave." But we're calm about it and we hold our staff with an open palm and we realize that they can leave if they want, we hope they stay, but we know that life is life. And so, there are going to be certain reasons that you may need to move on, and that's okay.
Rob:
Yeah.
Traci:
But while you're here and you're on the team and you're on the court playing the game, I want you all in.
Rob:
Yep.
Traci:
I want 100% of you.
Rob:
That's right. That's absolutely right. And that is a good bridge to my fourth reason why I hate using the word family in a business team context is, because of baggage.
There are so many dysfunctional families out there, and you have no idea who on your team or who you encounter has some things they're working through, or had a really dysfunctional upbringing, where that word is not doing what you think it's doing. And you're actually doing damage to that person and how they view what otherwise may be a healthy relationship.
There's a lot of people who stick with their family when they should probably draw boundaries with them. And the difference with teams is, if you're on a dysfunctional team, I would encourage you to leave. I think it's better for you to go because that's not good. Right? You just don't know what people's complicated family history is and what they're bringing with them.
And I don't think that it's a universal experience and I understand how you can get there. I think I had a pretty happy upbringing. I have a good relationship with my parents, but there have been people I've worked with who have reminded me that is not a universal experience.
Traci:
No, it's not, unfortunately. And typically, if you use the word family and somebody has had a bad family background, they'll leave. It'll just make them feel so uncomfortable that they'll leave, or they're going to try to work out their issues on the team. So, they'll show up the way they showed up in that family, or they'll try to recreate a new family for themselves. And then, when you need to let them go for some reason let's say, it's wildly traumatic for that person. And so, we just need to be very, very careful, because sometimes people can be fragile.
Now, the opposite end is, you can have people that have had great family experiences and have very solid impressions and feelings around the word family, but then their expectations are rather high, especially of leadership. Like, why aren't you being like my parents? Why aren't you taking better care of me? Why aren't you ... So, you have to deal with it on the other end too. So, there's really no good scenario when we bring our family experiences into the workplace.
I think that we don't want to be so rigid. I think some people might be listening to this and say, "Well, gosh, that's an awful rigid way of looking at work, or cold—especially from a podcast called Overly Human.” And we're not trying to erase that by saying, don't use the word family. We're just saying, what we're actually doing is protecting the humans by doing this, by having a proper perspective.
Like we started out saying, it's not that we can't express ourselves in a team or be grateful for the team or be authentic or create a safe environment or have traditions as a team. Traditions at work are some of the most fun things to do if you have things that happen at people's anniversaries or whatever.
So, we're saying, keep that atmosphere, just be careful of your wording. Be careful of the boundaries that you set. Be careful of the impressions that you give people. Be careful not to manipulate. And be careful to understand who you are and what a company is, and that we don't personify companies.
And just remember, if you need a litmus test if you're trying to say, "Okay, am I doing this right or wrong?" Think about out those teams, really healthy teams and say, "Okay, well, would this happen on the Chicago Bulls?" I have to pull out the Chicago Bulls because I spent so much time at the Chicago Bulls. "Would Phil Jackson do this?" "How would Michael Jordan react?" No. This is a whole other podcast.
Rob:
This is a whole other podcast now, right?
Traci:
Exactly.
Rob:
Are we going to go Michael Jordan, Pippen?
Traci:
Exactly.
Rob:
Jerry Krause, Phil Jackson. What are we doing here?
Traci:
Oh, I could use some really good examples right now, but then we would go long, and I have in the past. But yeah, I think that's the framework, a healthier framework than... I'd rather you veer a little bit more towards Phil Jackson than Tony Soprano, is the point.
Rob:
Yeah, that's good. What's your big takeaway today, Traci?
Traci:
I think my big takeaway is, think about ... And I think it's interesting, even when I think about my past experiences in companies and even my present day, is think about what your boundaries are. Do you have boundaries? Have you thought about the boundaries? What are the boundaries that you have for your team and for yourself as a leader? And do they violate anything? Are they proper? Are they healthy? I think that's my big to-do to consider.
Rob:
That's good. Yeah. I think mine today is making sure that as we, on this topic and so many topics, we analyze the impact of our words, not the intent because we need to be aware of what impact they're having. Are we manipulating our team? Even if our intent is not to, if we're doing that, that will lead to bad things often, in the long run. We got to be so careful to realize and to build those safe places.
One of the things that I love that you keep saying is, is, "Well, it should be this, it should be this." And I agree, family should be that, but most of them aren't and some of them aren't. But with our teams separating that word out, we can be intentional and build those safe places, to build those bonds, to figure out and define what good boundaries are so that we can achieve our goals and get to the results we want.
Traci:
Yep. Good chat.
Rob:
Yeah. Thanks, Traci.
Traci:
Thank you.
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