Edition 543 – Growing Pain

Generational transition inside of a family business is something quite fascinating to observe.

The older generation, parents generally, who started the business from scratch, and been around the block a few times, have got to the point in life where they know how to do, what it is they do.

The younger generation, first at the dining table, then one day, perhaps at the board table, observe what they might see as missed opportunities.

“You should have done this back then” I’ve heard opined by a younger family member, towards an older one, on more occasions than I’d care to recall.

“If you’d turned left, and not right, at this point, this is where you’d be today” is something else that has raised itself inside family business conversations.

Except, decisions were made at those moments in time, based on the facts at those moments in time, that led to turning left and not right.

Like access to finance. Perhaps cash was tighter back then.

Or availability of staff. Maybe the parent generation had some great ideas, but just couldn’t lock down some good staff to help monetise those ideas, to merely get through the week, month or year.

In my own life and experience, it’s been about the appetite for maintaining the status quo, versus the quest to seek out my true path in life.

I’m absolutely convinced that if I’d made different career decisions over the years, financially, I’d be substantially better off than I am today. Infinitely so.

But, would I be richer?

Would I be the person I am today, telling the story I’m telling, if my journey had been to hitch my flag to a larger firm, in the City, working long hours, and sacrificing family life, for some supposed longer term financial benefit?

Sorry, but I’m a bit deeper than that. And my guess is that plenty of small and family business owners are the same.

They choose their journey, not necessarily for big financial gains. But out of the desire to do something with their lives, through their business, that means something.

Like the builder, who 30 years later, still can drive past their former creations and say to themselves “there’s my handywork”.

Or the suburban family lawyer, that runs into someone in the street, that once upon a time, presented themselves in their office, completely broken, and looking for someone to help them see beyond the despair they were experiencing. And today, that same person is living a more rewarding, nourishing, cherished life, all because of not what that lawyer advised, but how they went about it.

Perhaps the younger generation is more ambitious, because of their own personal make-up.

Perhaps they are more profound in their observations of what the family business could achieve, and just maybe they are right, about the fact the turn should have been right, rather than left.

However, they can only make those observations, from the viewpoint of the position they are in today. The position, created by the first generation, who chose a different path, because of what they held to be true for themselves. What they desired for their own family. How they wanted to live their own life.

These growing pains of family business can be testing, and indeed fractious at times. However, to have the luxury to even contemplate taking a family business forward, into a second generation, and perhaps on a different path, says as much about the first generation, and how much they actually got right, than ever got wrong.

This Week’s Tip

“Respectful consideration of the merits of both generations,
is imperative to a successful transition in any family business”.