A Happy & Prosperous New Year!

Wishing you a very happy and prosperous 2012 ... as we end and begin in a weaving of life.

"Making a fishing line from a piece of hair, twisting it both sunwise and moonwise - This is the way life is. We weave together sunrise and moonrise, man and woman, summer and winter, and in that weaving there is life.” - A Mohawk observation/quote.

Why Family Business?

Approximately 85% of all businesses are family-owned - from neighborhood mom-and-pop stores, to the millions of small and midsize companies, as well as the household names such Wal-Mart and Ford Motor Company.

While not unlike most small businesses, less than 30% make it past the third generation. Family-owned companies, however, enjoy a comparative advantage over their management-based counterparts. A success stemming from shared values, industry knowledge, and skills learned over generations, as well as other traditional competitive advantages of small business.

Why family business? I grew up in a third-generation family construction business, listening to my father talk about business around the dinner table.

I started and sold an environmental management business, and completed training as a business coach. Since 1996 I’ve worked with closely-held and family business owners on leadership development and business growth; and now focus exclusively on working with 2nd-4th generation family-led businesses, out of a sense of a family business’s overall value to society. I also lecture on family business management in the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, City University of New York.

Why family business? Intriguing and extremely valuable, beyond their competitive advantage, family businesses contribute to the social and economic fabric of the community in which exist, upholding a sense of trust and unfailing values.

Entrepreneurs and owners of family-led firms rightfully focus on revenue and growth of their business. Unfortunately many never learned the unique needs and strategies for multi-generational success in a family business – strategies such as a requirement that family members wanting to join the family business work, get a raise and promotion somewhere else, thereby averting concerns of nepotism, or clear roles for family members that support the growth needs of the business. This is important, for if the business does not prosper than the family will not be prosperous.

The Little Red Book of Family Business

“The fundamental task of parents is to raise responsible adults who have high self-esteem and can function independently in this world,” David Bork, The Little Red Book of Family Business.

The Family Firm Institute, a professional organization for individuals involved in family businesses have a list of recommended books on family businesses. The Little Red Book of Family Business is one of them. It is a pocket-sized book of wisdom about the complex and rewarding world of family businesses.

The advice in the book was culled from the author’s 40+ years of experience working as a family business counselor, covering topics such as family-work boundaries, competence, competition, being rich, sibling relationships, and spousal roles. Each point is brief, to-the-point, insightful and sometimes humorous. Their strength is probably as a conversation-starter for an indepth dialogue with family members.

The main focus of the book is helping owners manage their families rather than their business. Interference in business decisions, double standards in employment, and succession wars can make families the worst enemies of their own businesses.

Some of the advice from Bork includes:

• If the business does not prosper, the family will not be prosperous
• Money is a tool, but it should never be used as a hammer
• If the family ownership is used in marketing, then it is important for all family members to practice the values the family claims to have, and
• Sparking solitary soul-searching- from the section on wills: "Don't try to legislate from 'the other side.'”

Bork's red book doesn't provide a solution to every problem, nor does it claim to. "This is a little book, not a big one," he writes. But its pithy phrases provide a benchmark for determining the strengths and weaknesses of a family's relationship with their business.

Available from Amazon and other book sellers.

When Family Issues Overflow Into the Business

In the midst of a fullstaff meeting Jim’s father turned to him and announced loud enough for all to hear, “You’ll never havewhat it takes to run this business.”


When familyissues overflow into the business it hurts the business, the employees as wellas all family members, jeopardizing the sustainability of the family and thebusiness.

Family businessesprovide a unique cultural and economic tapestry within our society. Planning,starting with an end in mind of how the wealth within the business and familywill transition to the next generations, creates greater well-being within thefamily from one generation to the next.

Most programs and training of business owners and entrepreneurs, however, stop with maximizing the growthof the business - short of achieving the sustainability of the family and thebusiness.


The fact is, though, family-business Best Management Practices, whichsupport the growth of the business, grow the estate of the shareholders,promote the health and well-being of family members, and increase familyharmony, can be learned.

About Family Businesses

Family-owned businesses are a unique and integral component of our economy with distinct competitive advantages over non-family, management-based businesses.

There are, in family businesses, like in entrepreneurial businesses, concentrated ownership structures with overlapping responsibilities of management that enable speed in decision-making and “getting to market.” Family businesses, however, benefit further from its single family-ownership-management interaction.

A desire to protect the family name translates into high product and service quality, and a higher return on investments, which being a high-quality leader produces. Sons and daughters growing up in the business develop a deep understanding of the history and culture of the family firm as well as of the industry, the market, and the products. They watch leadership in action and decisions being made; they learn the benefits of patient money; and they develop a vision towards generations into the future.

Yet, while family businesses account for approximately 85% of all businesses in America, less than 30% survive to the second generation and 10% may make it into the third generation.

The problem is that most business owners have never participated in a succession process before. They started as an entrepreneurial business and grew into a family business. The focus has been on their growth; and they are unaware of best management practices of “family” in a family business. And, like most, passing it on some day - not being a part of the business - is not part of their thinking.

Children may participate in the business to help out, and stay because it is the path of least resistance. Perhaps they are expected to, or are needed. Or it becomes assumed that they will take it over, whether they are best suited or not, whether they want to or not. Or whether the founder is ready to leave or not.

The challenges to succession in a family business grow more complex as the business and family grows. Handing over the keys one day without consideration to nepotism, fairness, sibling rivalries, non-family members working in the business, birthright, estate planning, and an understanding of how the family operates in the context of the business is a prescription for failure.

The heads of family businesses should care. They have a number of unique competitive advantages, and when developed with a perspective of the next generation can become a very powerful force supporting the family and serving the community in which it operates, for generations.

Like everything else - your business, your investments, and a vacation benefit from planning. As the founder you may be struggling with how to leave, no clear successor, what’s next for you, or what this means to you, the business and the family; and as a sibling you may be encountering responsibility without authority, shareholder second-guessing, or sibling rivalry.

Needed are clarity on the goals, identification of the alternatives, and understanding of steps to get there, and the means to discuss them with the family and the managers of the business.

I grew up in a third-generation family construction business. In my business I work with the heads and next generation siblings of family businesses on developing the relationships and implementing family business best management practices to help them grow their business across generations. Last year I started teaching, as an adjunct professor, Family Business Management in the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, City University of New York. More importantly I have begun working with my siblings – all who are small business owners and self employed – to use our collective experience, knowledge and resources to benefit our children in generations to come.

A New Year

Greetings. Wishing peace, joy and prosperity to you, your family and your friends. A winter solstice and the lunar eclipse of December help me recall how infinite the universe is. May you celebrate the unique gifts that you bring to the world, build a dream ... so the dream will build you, and appreciate the moment ... so your desires will become your future.

2010 has been a year of growth and new possibilities. I look forward to 2011 and hope you find the coming year full of many unexpected opportunities.

I am sure, by now, you’ve had enough “what are your resolutions or goals for 2011?” Seth Godin (author of business books Linchpin, Tribes & The Purple Cow) sent out in, his daily ezine recently with a list of his accomplishments – or as he calls it what he shipped - in 2010.

Godin stated: This might be a useful exercise. Doesn't matter whether it was a hit or not, it just matters that you shipped it. Shipping something that scares you (and a lot of what follows did) is the entire point. [Funny, it's actually difficult to publish a list like this... maybe that's another reason we hesitate to ship, because we don't want to tout too much]. ... This obsession with shipping can really make things happen…… I didn't do all this myself... far from it. Thanks to … the thousands of readers and volunteers and colleagues …. that pitched in and made these projects happen. There's also another ten or fifteen projects that I started but couldn't find the guts to finish or ship. If it doesn't ship, it doesn't count.

Godin added, “Your turn to post a list somewhere... You'll probably be surprised at how much you accomplished last year. Go ahead and share with your friends, colleagues or the web... don't be shy.”

And unexpectedly, in a conference call with several mentor coaches from around the country discussing purpose in the context of 2011 goals, we focused on the work of Thomas Leonard, considered by many as the father of coaching. He suggested we could be more successful seeking to attract what we want in our lives rather than pursue them as goals … it is by creating a vision of what we want and a vacuum that pulls us forward rather than goals that we strive after. A compelling vision is a product of purpose, a picture of the future, and our individual values.

We can create a vacuum by making a problem that needs a solution, for example, a promise that will be difficult to achieve. Robert Kennedy stated: I dream of things that never were, and ask why not? Oprah Winfrey created a vacuum and now is pulled forward by over 100 producers that create an arena in which she works.

Finally, Leonard stated that we could better attract what we want by surrounding ourselves with friends and colleagues who believe in our ideas, and will bring out the best in us. Leonard passed away in 2003 at the age of 47.

Best regard and wishing you a great year.