The way I see it, the owners and managers of family businesses evolve in three ways. 

We are witnessing the slow and painful death of an Australian icon right before our very eyes. Most people don’t know that. Some people couldn’t care less. However, owners and managers of family businesses in Australia should pay very close attention to what is happening to Australia’s car company, Holden, right now.

In February, whilst Trish and I celebrated our 25th Wedding Anniversary, we were fortunate to cruise the Caribbean for 7 nights. It was a nice break in between a 3 Day Conference in Dallas, Texas and meeting with my International Mentoring Group in Carmel, California.

In Growth Edition 55 – “N is for Numbers” I talked about the increased advent of computerisation in the finance arm of family business over the past 20 years. However, what has not improved in that time is the ability (or willingness) of the in-house finance team to make use of the numbers to figure out how the business is travelling at a given point in time.

Do you remember Gareth Evans? He was the Foreign Minister in the Keating Government up until John Howard’s crushing electoral victory in 1996. He didn’t cope well after the 1998 election, which Labor again lost. On election night, Evans decided that another term in opposition would be tortuous and famously coined the phrase Relevance Deprivation Syndrome. In other words, no matter how good he thought he was, no one cared and, for the most part, he was on his own. As far as dummy spits go, it was a Top 10 effort.

As most of you know, I spent some time in the USA in February of this year. When I arrived, the new Trump Administration was three weeks in and already there were resignations by key staff and appointments to major posts who either withdrew, or were not signed off by the US Senate. The wheels were starting to fall off early.

I’m both alarmed and disturbed at what Big Corporate Australia is doing to family business right now. Alarmed at how unethical the behaviour is. Disturbed at the consequences for Family Business if Big Corporate Australia doesn’t correct its behaviour immediately.

It’s true what they say – everything is bigger in Texas. From freeways to portion sizes at Texan restaurants, the scale cannot be understated. The US is surely the only place where a Toyota Landcruiser looks like a small car.

Have you ever stopped to wonder what sort of perspective you can draw on where you are in life right now from the lives of those who have formed part of your own family?

The news media is full of stories about terrorism, rising house prices, government debt or how bad the new US President is.

It’s funny how a family commences its being, don’t you think? For us, it was Christmas Eve, 1990 in a suburban backyard in South Western Sydney. I’d been invited to a barbecue and I rocked up, hair moussed to the max, and sat myself down next to this nice young blonde lady who was sitting next to her father. Kind of hard to chat someone up when the chaperone is on the case, but I’m up for a challenge.