My work with families sharing businesses and other forms of wealth across generations requires collaboration and learning across disciplines. No single profession has all that these families need to thrive across time, and every professional truly committed to serving these families looks beyond his or her own profession to learn more and be able to contribute as much as possible. The Family Firm Institute and Purposeful Planning Institute are organizations in which I am actively involved. Both are committed to bringing together professionals serving enterprising families to Read more »
Family Business Minute Blog
Best of Intentions
Most parents have the best of intentions when it comes to their kids – yet some of the things parents do with a good heart backfire. I’ve seen well-intentioned parents buy new and expensive cars for their kids upon getting a driver’s license. They do it out of love, generosity, or sometimes a desire for the child to have things the parent never had or had to work very hard to obtain. Sometimes this works out well and sometimes it Read more »
Strawberry Fields
I recently came across a NY Times article about musicians fighting over who gets to play (and collect tips) at Strawberry Fields, the memorial to John Lennon in Central Park. The situation strongly reminded me of challenges my family clients face. It is so essential for families who share assets across generations to take the time to decide HOW they will share the rights and responsibilities that come with ownership, management and leadership. And, they still need to manage being a family in Read more »
Family Business Founder Blindness
Entrepreneurs tend to be motivated, intense, creative, assertive and self-assured. Very self-assured, in fact – particularly when they have been successful growing a company (or several) and achieving the financial rewards that come with it. They tend to trust their guts which makes some sense since their guts have often steered them the right way- at least in business. That is the rub. The skills and intuition related to starting and growing a business are frequently not the same as Read more »
Children of the 1%
I realize there may not be widespread empathy for the challenges and issues facing children of wealthy families, and especially children of the so-called 1% – those in the upper 1% of household wealth. However, I would like to give voice to an issue wealthy parents should be thinking about and finding ways to speak to their kids about: the strong bias against children of the wealthy. This does not necessarily mean only the ultra-high net worth or even high Read more »
The NFL, Values & Wealth
Chris Borland is considered “the most dangerous man in football” according to an ESPN article from last year. A San Francisco 49ers linebacker and former All-American at Wisconsin, Chris walked away from all of it at twenty-four years old. Why? He put his family and his health before money, fame and even the sport he loved and still loves. Fear of the cumulative effects of head trauma (his best guess is that he’s suffered thirty concussions) led him to assess what is Read more »
Family Business Learning Opportunity
I am writing to offer enterprising families a great opportunity for learning and development. The Family Firm Institute (“FFI”) is a professional association for educators, researchers, consultants and allied professionals serving family businesses and wealthy families. In a nutshell, families sharing ownership, management and leadership of shared assets across generations. FFI has study groups around the country and I am part of an active and vibrant group which alternates meeting between Philly and Princeton. Recently we decided to try something new and we invited a 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 Questions for 2016
It is that time of year when we tend to look back and review what has transpired, for better or worse, while looking toward the future with the hope of learning from past lessons so we grow going forward. Here are the top two questions I routinely pose to business families. Sometimes I’ll ask these outside of any specific context simply to see how families respond. Other times I’ll ask as families are struggling with a very specific challenge: How Read more »
Family Business in Flight
I was recently flying with my wife and we were discussing how hard the flight attendants worked and how rude some passengers on flights can be. I worked as a waiter in college and grad school which has much of the stress of being a flight attendant with much more space to move around easily in order to get the job done and also to escape rude people! The kitchen can be a safe haven (unless the chef is in Read more »