What corporate jargon do you hate the most? I asked this question on Twitter recently and was surprised by the most common answer: “family.”
Your company isn’t a family, and I think pretending otherwise is unhealthy and unproductive. Let’s talk about why.
FAMILIES DON’T FIRE PEOPLE
I bet you’ve disappointed your mother countless times—I know I’ve disappointed mine. Mom never fired me for poor performance, though, and she also didn’t lay me off when quarterly projections didn’t hit the target metrics. Family loyalty isn’t based on performance because that would be absurd.
This isn’t a bad thing. It’s just the nature of what a company is. And sometimes that nature means a company needs to stop employing you. A healthy family doesn’t kick people out, but it’s normal—necessary, even—for a company to do that from time to time.
This is why companies shouldn’t think of themselves as families. Companies have to make choices that families don’t. Referring to your company as a family obscures that reality and can make a painful process feel even worse.
Source: Fast Company
