In the Caribbean Business last week, Archer Lebron, executive vice president & managing partner of Softek, described his companies relationship with Microsoft as going beyond business. He claimed that it was almost like family.
As Microsoft’s first “Gold Partner” in the Caribbean region, I’m sure Softek enjoys a good relationship with their partner. Which is probably why my SNAP partner in crime, P.J. Cabrera, always says: “Companies here in PR are comfortable with what they have, they have no reason to even explore open source software” (but that’s a post for another day). I’m also sure that this special status is well deserved, Softek is one of the hardest working consulting firms that we have in Puerto Rico.
However, why do we in business believe that equating business relationships with family is a good analogy. Unless, as in the case of Softek, that family member is like a rich and generous uncle; who may be extremely generous to it’s partners, but seems more like a miser and a bully to the rest of the business world.
I have been in two companies where they claimed their employees were just like family. In both of the situations, they treated me pretty bad. So I guess if we accept that as the definition and model for how family members treat each other, then I guess it fits. Because I don’t know about you, I’ve also seen family members do some pretty bad things as well.
O.K., so now I get it. We want to use the family metaphor for our business relationships because that means we can screw each other at any time, regardless of how loyal we may have been, but afterwords we are still supposed to love and respect them.
Well, just so you know, I think there are better analogies available. What about best friends, that seems like a more empowering description of how I would like to appear to my partners. In the end, I believe that we have to use a more endearing description because we deep down know that the way we treat employees and partners is pretty shitty. We’re embarrassed that we have ostracized our “brother” and no longer speak to him, so we look for a way to rationalize that it’s acceptable. Well it’s not acceptable, it’s a tragedy. Sure they might have deserved our rejection for their actions, but we can’t lower our guard to share how we truly feel. Nor do we take the time to understand their actions.
For me, I have sworn to myself that any company I consider working with should not use the “F” word to describe how they think about their employees or partners. If they do, I’m going to be extremely suspicious and ask a lot of questions. If they are like most families, then I’ll bet they have some skeletons in their closet that will make me regret my decisions if I don’t find out about them first.
