Posted here is an invitation to colleagues in the field of family business conflict resolution, to pool our experience and insights about one of the most difficult impasses we frequently face in consulting to family firms. Your feedback will be greatly appreciated, whether as comments on this thread or privately as email. Please also bring [...]
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Sunday, September 13th, 2009copyright reserved, Kaye Family Business Associates, Inc.
Family firms in a downturn
Friday, April 17th, 2009There’s a nice video on families hanging together in today’s New York Times.
Does a family firm provide greater job security in an economic downturn?
Not necessarily. Not in the case I’ll call ABC Stores, a retail chain with 200 employees. The second-highest salary is that of brother Andy, whose sister, Marilyn, has been wishing for years [...]
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The Other Woman
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008Many families have said their Dad’s business was like a mistress: consuming his time, money, and passion. Ralph Blivin’s son and daughter suspected a flesh and blood mistress as well. I had to admit that was a plausible hypothesis.
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Suicide is Painless?
Monday, March 17th, 2008Tony Packo’s Cafe in Toledo, Ohio, became famous in the US and Canada when Klinger, the cross-dressing Corporal in M*A*S*H, played by Toledo native Jamie Farr, mentioned Packo’s hot dogs in several episodes. Now the Packo family have made their own headlines crossing lawsuits over power, money, insults and hurt feelings.
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“Crazy” Sister vs. “Power-hungry” Brother
Wednesday, February 6th, 2008Chronic mental illness impairs one in every eight or ten adults. Which of us doesn’t have a relative—an aunt, uncle, cousin or in-law if not a parent, child, sibling, or spouse—suffering from long term inability to behave rationally and reliably in the adult world?
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A Matter of Faith
Thursday, December 13th, 2007Maybe I got the session off on the wrong foot by using the word evolves. “You don’t have to think of everything in advance,” I said. Your Family Council will evolve over time, the way species adapt to environmental constraints. What you’re creating now is just a starting place.” I could have used the American Constitution as another example, a living document subject to each generation’s interpretation and review. But that would have been almost as unpopular an idea as the evolution of species was in this family.
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Fairness is as Fairness Does
Friday, November 2nd, 2007Most family firm conflicts don’t result from anything “dysfunctional” in the family. There isn’t necessarily any “baggage” from childhood rivalries; nor are there always personality issues, spoiled brats, or greedy in-laws. Conflict is often simply a result of not having thought through the consequences of business succession and estate planning.
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Whose Wealth Is It?
Monday, July 30th, 2007Phil and Marty Edwards have co-owned Edwards Brothers, multiple franchise holders in the moving industry, since their parents died twelve years ago. Despite a seven year age difference, the brothers and their families are close. Marty, VP for Operations, has a more expansive vision for the businesses, but has yielded to Phil’s conservatism. “My day will come,” he told me.
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Your business or your wife
Thursday, June 28th, 2007At 39, Angela is tall, tanned, tailored, and tasteful. I couldn’t restrain myself from admiring her full-length, russet fur: “How’d you find a coat to match your hair so perfectly?” She looked at me quizzically until I realized, of course, she’d matched the hair to the coat.
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Board of Governors
Friday, October 6th, 2006Hewlett-Packard is the latest of many public companies embroiled in scandals resulting from boardroom misbehavior or negligence. Private companies, free of S.E.C. regulation, generally escape such damaging media exposure, but are their Boards any more responsible than those of Enron, WorldCom, Tyco et al.? If Directors can’t stand up to management in a public company, how can they be bold enough to govern a private one, where the Chair is not only the founder but the majority owner and parent of would-be successors?
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