My family business clients all have various amounts of what every family has: closeness and harmony, as well as distance and conflict, to name a few elements. And, they share various levels of involvement in a business – leadership, management, ownership, or simply working there to see if that is what they want for the coming decades. Being tightly connected to family can put a smile on your face, or a pit in your stomach – and sometimes both. I Read more »
family enterprise
Rock Bands and Family Business
I am a fan of rock music and family business. When I find ways to combine the two, I do so. One of my most popular and best-received workshops for business families and the advisors who serve them uses clips from the Metallica documentary “ Some Kind of Monster ” ( available on Netflix ) to demonstrate the challenges and opportunities of the interplay of family and business. While not blood-related, the Metallica band members exemplify family ties. The emotional intensity of family closeness and the economic, Read more »
UVM Global Family Enterprise Case Competition
This coming Saturday, January 16, I am honored to be invited back for the third year in a row to act as a judge for the University of Vermont Global Family Enterprise Case Competition (FECC) . The natural beauty of Burlington, Vermont is a great reason for me to trek up north and when combined with the intellectual stimulation of serious, smart and interesting undergraduate and graduate students competing on 24 teams from top institutions of family business education in 10 countries – it is one of my favorite Read more »
Family Business & Ice Hockey
If you’ve read this blog for any length of time you may have noticed I have a tendency to find relationships between family business and ice hockey. For example my March 2014 blog entitled, “ Women in the Family Business (and Pro Ice Hockey for That Matter)” attempted such a connection. I play in a men’s league and coach my 13 year-old son’s team and love it all. Last week my son’s team won in triple overtime to advance to the championship game which was this past Sunday. Unfortunately, the timing was Read more »
If You Are Not Falling, You Are Not Trying
I have been coaching youth sports for many years and ice hockey is my favorite. Currently I am working with eleven- and twelve-year-olds. During practice while teaching the players skating techniques, they inevitably make it a point to avoid falling. They try so hard to stay upright. This might seem logical and even desirable considering you can’t play hockey well if you’re always falling during a game. This logic misses the point. The only way to truly improve is to Read more »