My brother-in-law is our VP of Sales, but he is consistently missing his targets and the rest of the leadership team is afraid to call him out. How do I handle family performance issues without ruining Sunday dinner?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Mixing family dynamics with business operations requires absolute structural clarity. Right now, your team is practicing status management because they see your brother-in-law's family status as an untouchable shield. You must establish that inside the office, only the Accountability Chart exists.

Assessing Performance

First, assess your brother-in-law using the GWC™ tool.

• Does he truly Get (understand) the requirements of running a high-performing sales department?
• Does he Want the responsibility and challenges of the role?
• Does he have the Capacity (time, skill set, mental bandwidth) to perform effectively?

If he does not Get, Want, or have the Capacity for the role, you are setting him up to fail. This is the most damaging thing you can do to a family member, as it erodes both professional respect and personal relationships. You can learn more about assessing for capacity challenges in [this related question](/qa/long-tenured-leader-lacks-capacity-gwc).

The Professional Conversation

Have a private, professional meeting with him.

• Lay out his Measurables and Rocks clearly. Use the same objective standard you would for any outside hire.
• Explain that your responsibility as the business owner is to protect the health of the entire organization. This protects everyone, including his family's livelihood.
• If he cannot hit his targets, you must transition him to a seat that aligns with his actual strengths, or help him find an opportunity outside the business. For insights on handling similar situations, see [this question about a long-tenured sales director lacking capacity](/qa/gwc-long-tenured-sales-director-capacity). The [Accountability Chart](/qa/structure-before-people-accountability-chart-design) is an important tool for making these structural decisions.

Protecting Family Dynamics

To protect Sunday dinners:

• Set a firm rule that business is never discussed during family time.
• By separating your personal relationship from his professional performance, you build a healthier family dynamic and a more functional leadership team. This principle applies to all employees, but especially family. For further reading, consider [this question on addressing a similar situation with a family member in an Account Management seat](/qa/right-person-right-seat-family-member-underperforming).

Related questions

• [I have a loyal executive who has been with me for twelve years, gets the culture, and wants the job, but they simply do not have the capacity to handle our operations now that we have scaled past twenty million. How do I handle this without destroying our culture?](/qa/long-tenured-leader-lacks-capacity-gwc)
• [My brother-in-law is in our Head of Account Management seat, but he clearly does not GWC the role as we scale. How do I execute a Right Person Right Seat call when family dynamics make a termination highly sensitive?](/qa/right-person-right-seat-family-member-underperforming)
• [As the founder, I suspect I am the primary bottleneck in our Marketing seat, but my team is too polite to tell me I do not have the capacity for it. How do I objectively assess my own GWC for this seat?](/qa/founder-bottleneck-gwc-assessment)
• [My co-founder insists on creating custom seats on our Accountability Chart based on the unique skill sets of our long-term employees, which makes our org structure messy and confusing. How do I convince them to focus on structure before people?](/qa/structure-before-people-accountability-chart)
• [We have an employee who scores one hundred percent on our core values but fails the GWC for their current operations seat, and we have no other open seats on our Accountability Chart. Do we have to let them go?](/qa/right-person-wrong-seat-no-openings)