Josh Kline, owner, Kline Bros. Landscaping

It’s hard enough for a small business owner to create a work/life balance. When work is a family business, like for Josh Kline, it makes it even more complicated.

“It makes the family cookouts and the birthday parties and all those things – It’s hard to keep it from becoming a business meeting,” says Kline, owner of Kline Bros. Landscaping.

Lawn & Landscape spoke to Kline about the challenges of spending quality time with family while running a family business.

L&L: What are some things you do to make sure you are separating home and work life?

JK: The one thing you have to do is put that cell phone down, put it in the truck. I try to not have it at home when I’m home, and present with my family when I’m there. I’ve been coaching my kids in basketball, which works out, because it’s kind of our slower season.

I coach my kids in football, trying to make those football games and those basketball games, and now baseball, even though I don’t coach in that, because that’s in the spring, and that’s our busy season.

But, when you’re coaching, you have to be there. So, we almost have to force ourselves, and that’s one thing we’ve been working on in the last couple of years, is really forcing ourselves to take that family time.

L&L: What is the biggest headache about working in a family business?

JK: You can’t really get away from it. When you’re at your nephew’s birthday party, it’s very hard to not all of a sudden say, “Hey, I need this on Monday,” or, “Remember to place that order,” or, “What are we going to do about this job?” And that’s the biggest challenge, is trying to get away from it, because you’re really obsessed with your business.

And that’s part of the success is, no doubt, that you have to be obsessed with it. If you let everything go, you’re going to have a disaster. You have to try to strike a balance between where to go with that and how to handle it.

L&L: Did you have to set any rules about not talking about business at family parties?

JK: What will happen is, eventually my wife or one of my brothers’ wives will come over after a few minutes and just give us a little bit of an eye or give us a nudge, and we get the message. So we don’t really have a rule about it. If it starts to delve into that, we spin it away.

Plus, the other thing is just to be successful, too, you need to give your mind a break, and I think having my wife or one of my brother’s wives there, they usually will give us a wink – and then we’ll know to get back to playing with the kids or jumping in the pool or whatever it is that we do.

L&L: Do you make time to exercise?

JK: I try to work out with my kids, actually. That’s one of the ways that I spend time with them. It’s harder depending on the season. My kids are really involved in sports. My daughter’s actually going to play basketball at a small college in Pennsylvania, and my sons they’re playing football and basketball and baseball and all that.

So, that’s one of our ways we connect, is we’ll go work out together. Sometimes it’s early in the morning, before I come to work, and then sometimes it’s more in the evening, when we get into the winter season.

Interviewed by Brian Horn