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? ...