Family owned businesses present golden opportunities for family feuds. The business manager has an extra challenge: not just to run the business well but also how best to serve the interests of the family. In the case of family businesses, disagreements about the business present a frequent and serious challenge for all concerned. It is part of the manager's responsibililty to make sure these disagreements are taken seriously and resolved for the sake of both the business and the family that owns the business.

Many marriages and families have been destroyed by quarrels about the business. Many businesses have also been destroyed for the same reason. Lawyers, marriage counselors and business coaches typically check for not only who owns the business and how the ownership is structured but how the family will relate to the business. On a somber note, for example, they will encourage the family to protect the business against divorce, death and inheritance taxes. Painful

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Time management, as business managers well know, is vital in business. In small business management many of the issues about schedule revolve around "non-productive time". The phrase says it all: we prize time spent productively. That commodity is limited in the world of business and so it needs to be managed wisely. Generally speaking it is managed wisely, because management skills focus on getting the most out of productive time. We prize being efficient.

What about "non-productive time"? Is it a necessary evil? Of course not! How a manager approaches breaks, quitting time, leaves and vacations actually makes a difference in the productivity of the company as well as the quality of work. Humans bring to their tasks something computers do not bring: a brain.

Unlike computers, that brain begins to malfunction with constant use. Humans are subject to fatigue. Humans are subject to burnout. Tired humans have more accidents, become less efficient, m

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Is it redundant to say, "The whole big picture?" Not for the business manager. Your job demands that you keep one eye on the daily details and the other eye on the big picture: what is happening with the company overall. And you must make decisions and give leadership from the perspective of what is best for the company not only today but in the long run. How will today's decisions and activities impact the rest of the company's activities? Where will we be tomorrow? That's the big picture.

How well you make decisions, give leadership and stay in perspective depends on how well you are able to keep track of everything while attending to the details of some specific thing. It is the art and discipline of paying attention to details while keeping perspective. This is nearly impossible unless you are in reasonably good shape, of sound mind and emotionally stable. In other words, you need to have a life. That's where the "whole"

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"Family business" means many things to many people, from the family farm to the heirs who own business empires built by their ancestors. Millions of small businesses today are family businesses. They might be a husband-wife or father-son team. They  might be family members developing former farmland into a nursery or managing their golf course. They might be siblings turned  partners trying their hand at a new bsuiness. They  might be relatives working for relatives. The variations are endless because families are unique and opportunities for business come in all sizes and shapes. 

As the manager of a family business you can utilize principles gleaned from the experience of others who have walked in your shoes. Much of that experience was painful. Managing family business is "tricky business." Your stress level will be lower if you learn from the experience of others. Here are four of those learnings.

Run the fami

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We have all heard the refrain, :"My work is never done." Usually the person uttering this phrase means to say that there is more work to do than time in the day for doing  it. Those hearing the phrase take the remark as a sign of dedication. The business coach hearing such a remark, however, makes a mental note that here is a person on a collision course with burnout.

Reflect for a moment on the stress you feel when a task must be left unfinished. Even more to the point, imagine that the task did not get finished in the specific amount of time you knew was sufficient. When the amount of time is reasonable but the job still isn't finished we all know something went wrong. We stress when something goes wrong. We stress when we miss a reasonable goal and fall short of achievable standards.

We stress when the schedule breaks down, too, especially when it breaks down for reasons of carelessness or poor planning or lack of proper effort. That is how we

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What do small business managers think about all day every day besides their actual products and services? Money

What creates more worry and stress for small business managers than issues relating to their products and services? Money

What worries wake small business managers up in the middle of the night? Money worries.

What sinks small businesses more than any other single factor? Problems with cash flow, meaning lack of money.

Small businesses feel the pressures of cash flow day in and day out, not generally having the large cash assets available in larger businesses to cushion cash flows needs. There are always things to be bought and bills to be paid. There are payments for rent or leases, installment payments due on vehicles and equipqment, payrolls to be met. There are surprise bills. The list is long but the certainty is that not a day will go by without the need for oper

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Only fools and dead people have no worries. Human nature being what it is, all of us worry about money. We worry when we have too little, when we have enough and when we have extra. But not everyone worries equally.

Those who worry well about money are relatively stress free when it comes to money management, no matter whether the concerns are about too little money or how best to manage adequate and surplus funds. Those who do not know how to worry about money are nervous wrecks and consider finances to be a headache producer.

I suggest three rules of thumb about ow to handle the financial concerns that go with every business and that are almost always pressing concerns with small businesses.

First: organize the worries. Financial matters fall into a very few categories such as cash flow, debt management, credit development, receivables, taxes and asset management. Each have their own considerations and need to be well organized, carefully filed a

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Small businesses are subject to local standard time (LST). Local standard time is how the people around you, the manager, tell time. When nobody comes to work until 9:15 that means starting time according to LST is 9:15. You can get your blood pressure up 20 points trying to make your people arrive at 9 am but they will find ways not to start working until 9:15.

LST is more forceful in proportion as the business is small. The smallest of businesses, office at home, is the most influenced. That is because households always run on LST. There is a correct time for meals, a right time for shopping, a right time for everything. The correct hours for working in your office according to LST are easily determined: they are those hours during which no one else in your home interrupts you with matters they have decided need taking care of right now.

Small businesses outside the home but local in nature also feel strong impact from LST because those who work for y

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Estimates put the number of small businesses (companies with less than 500 employees) in the United States at about 20 million. A recent report from the State of Oklahoma estimates the number of small businesses with two employees or less to be nearly 300,000.It would be a fair guess that at least 10 million of the country's small businesses have 10 employees or less.

It would also be a fair guess that almost all of the managers of these very small businesses must engage in multi tasking every day. In this author's view there are only two types of multi tasking: enjoyable and horrible. One will most likely either love multi tasking or hate it. Multi tasking is stsressful either way but it is very stressful for those who hate it.

Those who hate it are most likely to be persons who have difficulty concentrating and staying focused. A simple test is this: do you enjoy and do reasonably well with such things as watc

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The "stress of success" only sounds ridiculous to those who have never succeeded. For anyone managing a small business the phrase makes perfectly good sense. In particular, the manager of a business that has grown from one person to ten or more employees will likely experience the peculiar stress that comes with succeeding. How can this be?

Consider what happens when your small business "takes off."

You become famous.That is to say now your neighbors and friends know about you. You are assumed to be successful because of getting the breaks, knowing the right people, stealing and cheating, selling drugs out the back door, inheriting money, playing the angles and presumably doing other unknown but shady or illegal deeds.

You become visible. The ad in your local phonebook or newspaper means you are no longer anonymous. Your customers know your address and phone number. There is nowhere to hide. You have become know

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