Lots of our advice and strategies to manage conflict in family business include intangibles like good communication skills, building the relationship “glue” that holds people together, and buying into “psychological ownership” of the business’ direction. They are hard to see and define—some mushy concepts.

For the quantitative geeks out there, I have a mathematical definition of conflict specific to family business dynamics for you. In Deconstructing Conflict, Doug Bauomel and Blair Trippe define how some of those intangibles interact. I found it helpful structure to a topic that can feel overwhelming.

Think of learning about fractions in third grade. Increasing the number above the line (the numerator) increases the answer. Increasing the number below the line (the denominator), decreases the answer. So…allowing behaviors or realities above the line will increase the conflict in your family and business. Investing in behaviors below the line will decrease the conflict.

What are those variables? I’ll summarize in layman’s terms.

Above the line—decrease these:

Below the line—invest in or increase these:

Even if you cannot necessarily change the amounts above, being aware of their positive and negative influence on the final “conflict number” is useful.

If your eyes are glazing over, I’ll leave you here! If you’re intrigued and a leader of a family business, I encourage you to read the book for more examples of how these play out.

Davon Cook is a family business consultant at Pinion. Reach Davon at [email protected]. The opinions of the author are not necessarily those of Farm Futures or Farm Progress.