How do you keep your young mogul MOTIVATED in their business?
Working with your child may be one of the most fulfilling yet challenging roles you can have as a parent. Fulfilling because you get to see them grow and develop the entrepreneurial spirit; challenging because the dynamics that you’re used to at home will shift once you both work as a team in business. Additionally, your role as a parent will go beyond what is traditionally expected as you will also have to act as a business mentor when parenting a CEO.
As in most family-run businesses, not setting the right expectations and not being able to define boundaries often leads to strained relationships, which can result in a failed enterprise, not to mention estrangement between family members. To keep this from happening, you must have a good foundation for running the business as early as its beginning stages, and you can accomplish this by creating a document for standard operating procedures (SOPs).
We recommend the following simple and easy steps you and your young mogul can take when creating an SOP:
Define Goals
Any good business process begins with clearly defined goals. Having specific objectives will give you and your child a way to measure how much the business has progressed over time. When working with your child in creating an SOP, ask them about what goals and objectives the business should have. This will teach them to think about the steps that should be taken to fulfill these objectives. Additionally, they will have something to work towards, which can drive them to succeed.
Outline Roles and Responsibilities
One recurring problem among family-run businesses is that some have the tendency to run the business in the same way they run their household. When this happens, roles and responsibilities in the home are not considered separate from the roles and responsibilities one has in the business. Always remember that raising your child in a family setting is different from raising a mogul. Thus, it’s important to appropriately set your child’s expectations by including their specific role and responsibility when creating your SOPs. This way, they will have a clear idea of what is expected of them in the business, which will allow them to think and act accordingly.
Make a Checklist
Having a checklist of tasks won’t only help your young mogul, but it helps everyone else involved in the business as each person will be aware of what activities they’re supposed to
handle. With a checklist included in your SOPs, your child won’t have to blindly guess what they’re supposed to be doing in relation to their role in the business. In addition, a checklist will keep them on track with their tasks, as well as the tasks that they have to perform together with other people.
Review and Implement
When creating an SOP, you and your child should sit down and review what’s included in your document. Not only will this foster collaboration between you both, but it will also teach your young mogul to see how business processes work, as well as think critically about how they want business processes to be implemented.
Revise and Adjust
Sometime after implementing your SOPs, discuss with your child if there are any revisions and adjustments that need to be done. Ask them how they think the SOPs have had an impact on them individually, as well as the business and its operations. Make this a regular discussion between you both so they will make it a point to be observant for the next time you review the SOPs.
Always Follow Through
Parenting a CEO can be harder than just plain parenting. The trick is to be consistent and to always follow through with whatever you’ve set on paper so that your child won’t end up getting confused and frustrated. To avoid straining both work and personal relationships with your child, we believe it’s important to make it a point to create clear SOPs to help the business run smoothly without sacrificing family
