We're just like a family here...

You've heard it and you might have even said it.

I hear it from founders and their heads of people constantly and it's usually said with real conviction and good intent and I get what they mean by it. They want people who are invested. People who show up, give everything, back each other, don't clock off the moment something gets hard. That's not a bad thing to want when your working on your growing business.

But the word. family is doing a lot of work.

Not all families function the same way. Some are warm, safe, and supportive. Some are chaotic. Some are places people can't wait to leave. When you tell your team they're a family, you're not just choosing a word. You're triggering a set of associations in every single person in that room, and you have no idea which ones.

There's something else going on too. Most people who work, do so because they have to. Not because they want to. The only person who genuinely wants to be there, really deep down, is the founder and the person who has invested 3 years of their life on low pay and has loads of equity. Everyone else is making a trade. Time for money, time for equity, time for opportunity. Now I may sound cynical, but its honest. And if you treat it as honest, you build something real.

Dress it up as family and you start asking people to feel something they didn't sign up for. You start expecting a level of sacrifice that only makes sense if someone actually loves the place unconditionally. And when they don't match that energy, it feels like betrayal. On both sides and all sorts of emotions and energies occur for people.

What founders actually want: belonging, community, shared purpose, they can have all of that. But it doesn't require the word "family". It requires treating people fairly, paying them properly, being honest with them, and giving them work that means something. Do that consistently and you get the same outcomes. Better ones, probably, because they're built on something true.

Here's the part that stops me though.

When I'm working with founders and senior execs, one of the things I hear most often, more than almost anything else, is this: I wish I had spent more time with my family and often, If I had time for a family or loved ones.

Not the team. The actual people outside of the business. Partners, kids, family, pets friends. The people who value you outside of your professional space.

And the thing I push on, every time, is this. Could you have? And when I really press them, the honest answer, almost always, is yes. Not big chunks of time. Not a month off. Pockets here, a bedtime there, a weeknight dinner, a Sunday morning etc. Planned, protected, present. They could have found it. They just didn't, because the mission felt too urgent and the sacrifice felt like part of the deal.

It isn't.

The guilt that comes later is heavy. As heavy sometimes heavier, than the pride in what got built, or something that quietly festers. You don't get that time back. Nobody on their deathbed thought, shit I'm so glad I stayed late every Tuesday.

Lets be real though, exiting for ridiculous sums of money is life changing, and there will be sacrifice, you just have to have peace with what your sacrificing.

So if you're a founder calling your company a family, ask yourself which family you mean. Because there's one on your slack channels and emails, and theres one outside of that.