You may know that family business leaders represent over 60% of GDP and job creation.  In every culture and corner of the world, you will find successful family-owned and operated businesses.  What can you learn from these private business leaders?

Back in November of 2020, we hosted our second Family Business Collaboration Roundtable discussion with Kent Johnson, CEO and G4 leader of Highlights for Children.  

Some pearls of wisdom that we learned from Kent were the following:

• "In hindsight, our family business has had 3 eras, with unplanned changes in senior leadership from tragedies, deaths, transitions."
• "We remained mission-driven and focused on fostering curiosity in children, considering those unplanned changes."
• "Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we focus on listening well to others, responding to new "what if" scenarios, and leadership development."
• "Conflicts are more often family problems than they are business problems.  We reduced potential conflict by inviting cousins t
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On February 16th, we hosted our monthly Roundtable with Family Business Leaders and Advisors.  Our featured Founding Member was James Bly from Ernst and Young's Family Enterprise Business Services Unit (FEBS).  James has been serving family businesses since 1982.  He joined EY after they acquired his firm that he co-founded in 1982.  As their Managing Director, James continues to assist families with many matters that arise in family-owned businesses, as well as family-controlled public companies.  After working with many families on issues relating to operating businesses and their operating assets, the methodologies that his company created were attractive to the services that Ernst and Young already provided.  

EY's Family Enterprise Business Services can assist families in growing their enterprise more extensive and more valuable.  Their services can address plans for growth, generational transition, and shareholder liquidity.  

James was kind enough to share several of EY's inte...

We hosted our 3rd Roundtable discussion on 12.22.20 featuring Vijay Sathe, Ph.D., a legend in family business consulting. 

Have you ever met anyone who worked with Peter Drucker? 

Vijay is the C.S. & D.J. Davidson Chair & Professor of Management at Claremont Graduate University. He was a professor at the Harvard Business School before joining the Drucker School faculty. Vijay has taught in numerous education programs worldwide. He has received the "Professor of the Year" award from the Drucker MBA graduating class seven times to recognize his outstanding teaching. He has published six books and numerous articles in academic and professional journals.  

Amid many stories from family business owners and advisors in this Roundtable, Vijay suggested that we all need to ask the five questions from Peter Drucker's work. You can find these questions in the book Peter Drucker's Five Most Important Questions: Enduring Wisdom for Today's Leaders.

His first question is, What is Your Mission? ...

Resilience can be taught and developed.

During November 2020, we hosted our second FBC Roundtable with Kent Johnson, CEO and G4 leader of Highlights for Children.  

Pearls of wisdom included:

• "In hindsight, our Family Business has had 3 eras, with unplanned changes in senior leadership from tragedies, deaths, transitions."
• "We remained mission-driven and focused on fostering curiosity in children, amid those unplanned changes."
• "Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we focus on listening well to others, responding to new "what if" scenarios," and leadership development.
• "Conflicts are more often family problems than they are business problems.  We reduce potential conflict by inviting cousins to board meetings, pairing G4s,  hosting fellowship and retreats, including spouses, reviewing our written values,  implementing an "ages and stages" program for succession and continuous leadership development."

In short, resilience can be taught and developed.  Highlights does have it toget...

During our January Roundtable discussion with 14 expert Family Business leaders, Dennis Passis shared his story and modeled what Kim described as  "confident vulnerability."   Then Vijay shared the following...

"I had a case exactly like this, Dennis, with two brothers.   It's a long story, but it leads to two questions. One:  Is there a point of intervention at which this could have been prevented?

The other one, my mentor once told me long ago, is based on the observation that  "there are problems to solve and there are problems to live with."  I know so many cases like this case...

I'm thinking of two brothers, they were never going to get along since they were young. And the father kept using counselors and counselors and counselors.  One of those counselors was my former student who was a Vistage chair. And he brought the best thinking to bear and it went no place. This guy who was troublesome was cast as the bad guy.

The point is, I asked the dad finally, "Do you think this p...

On Tuesday, January 19, 2021, we hosted our 4th Roundtable Session with 14 exceptional Family Business leaders.  

Our featured collaborator was Dennis Passis, who stated,

"We were a highly successful mid-sized company that had been around since about 1950.  In 2004 our father died. And six months later, I was the subject of a minority shareholder squeeze out. Those words are really pretty descriptive."

"I spent the next six years in litigation with my mother, sister, brother-in-law, and the company. And obviously, my son was also out of the business.  That litigation went to trial, and we ended up in a settlement during the middle of the trial."

"And then I spent time figuring out what the devil happened. We had always presented to the world, the fact that we were a closely-knit company that enjoyed being with each other. We had no problems, and that was our image. And we would get together on Friday nights."

"Many times the family toast was "May it Never End".  Like I said, we we...