Close Encounters Just how much family togetherness is too much?

It's obvious: The more time you spend with family members,the more your lives overlap. That's why relatives who worktogether have an especially keen awareness of each other. Theirclose daily contact gives them the opportunity to talk aboutpersonal topics they wouldn't broach if, say, they only talkedon the phone once a week. They can read each other's bodylanguage so well, they can tell how the others are feeling withouthaving to ask. And they talk among themselves, so if one siblingknows that another is having marital problems, for example, he mayshare that information with another sibling so they can take somework off the shoulders of the sibling under stress.

This private verbal and nonverbal communication is the glue offamily businesses. It helps relatives stay connected, supportstheir individual and collective needs, and allows them to share thevision that drives the company. Without the closeness,disagreements mushroom into disputes and people pull in differentdirections.