The Key to Working With Family: Don't Assume You Know Each Other's Strengths

When this marketing company CEO started working with his two daughters, the team of three formally tested their strong suits. Their communication improved.

by Sarah Lynch, Inc. Staff Reporter

In the span of six months in 2009, Frank Balistreri brought on two new employees with whom he already shared an extensive history: His daughters. The three found success by breaking down the faulty assumption that you automatically know your family's strengths.

Balistreri, now 66, was employee number 142 at Apple before creating a software company, SigForms. He sold the company in 1999 and sought more fulfilling work, finding a niche in his personal interest area: cars. As a collector--he's owned over 70--Balistreri often encountered janky car dealership websites with broken images and links. He started a marketing firm in 2003 specifically aimed at the automotive industry: Automotive Consulting Group.

Six years later, Lauren Balistreri, who was just 26 years old at the time, was looking for a new role, and her father's company just happened to have an opening for a graphic designer. Six months later, Gianna Swails (nee Balistreri) followed in her older sister's footsteps, shifting out of the corporate world at PepsiCo and joining the family business as an associate account manager.

"We've had such a great relationship with our father, and it just kind of felt like the right time to position myself somewhere where I could have more of a say in what was going on," says Swails, now 36.

Still, the team wasn't immune to the communications hurdles that can befall family businesses. Familial baggage can intensify problems that plague all businesses, says Lauren Mackler, a coach and consultant, who has worked with family businesses for 24 years​: "The more intimate the relationship, the stronger the triggers, and the more painful the reactive emotions."

In a recent survey of over 100 family businesses, almost half say they've experienced familial conflict. Forty one percent said that led to a communication breakdown and infighting, and 20 percent said it led to "indecision and stunted business growth," according to the report from Brightstar Capital Partners and Campden Wealth.

Realizing the potential for strife, Frank's daughters quickly found their lanes. As a team, they started to build and grow the company, which in 2010 rebranded as IMOS Consulting--an acronym meaning Internet Marketing Optimization Systems--to expand their reach beyond the automotive industry. Based in Santa Cruz, California, the company now has 14 full-time employees and achieved $3.46 million in revenue in 2022. It made the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America that same year with 265 percent revenue growth over three years. Today, Lauren is the president, Swails is the director of business development, and Frank is CEO.

Six years ago, Lauren says she and her family members were more likely to get "in each other's way" at work, but that dynamic changed once they used a test to more formally measure their strengths and weaknesses. For the team, and the family, it was a gamechanger, she says.

While numerous personality tests and tools exist, the IMOS team landed on Gallup's StrengthsFinder tool (now called the CliftonStrengths Assessment) which uses a series of statements measure the individual's "natural patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving" and identifies strengths and weaknesses.

Lauren ranked highly in individualization, analytical thinking, and responsibility. Swails's strengths included ideation, communication, and being an "activator." Meanwhile, the test identified Frank as "futuristic"--befitting a founder--along with strengths in empathy and discipline.

Family members might assume that they're already familiar with each other's strengths and weaknesses, but Frank saw a clear value in a work environment: "It's one thing to have an impression [of someone], but it's another thing to have it confirmed."

Focusing on strengths enabled Lauren to "refram[e] some of the things that I used to find frustrating," she says. For instance, instead of wishing that her father was more grounded, she started to understand the true value of his futuristic point of view. It made her come to peace with their differences and rely more on his forward-thinking strengths.

The IMOS team uses the tool at all levels of their company and uncovered similarly insightful results with senior leadership and team members who'd been with the company for years, Frank says. But for the three family members, in particular, this focus on strengths brought more boundaries, clarity, and intention to their collaboration, they say.

"Our key traits working in harmony is fantastic," Lauren says. "Our key traits working in opposition is gridlock."