The challenge of working in a family business

David Bentall is based in Vancouver and has really has two careers. The first was following his father and grandfather into the family real estate and construction businesses where he rose to be the President of Commercial Construction. However, as can happen with family businesses, things went sour when his father and two of his brothers fell out and the business was sold. Since then, David has become an author and consultant, using his to help other families to get a better result.

Family businesses are the backbone of the global economy. One of the biggest challenges they face is the relationship between different aspects of the business, the corporate role/personal relationship or the owner/employee. David was only an 8% owner of the family business but he wanted to put his ownership hat on all the time. On reflection, he realises that he needed to learn to use his employee hat more often. There is also the relationship between the founders of the business, the 2nd generation who drive things forward and then the 3rd generation where often things start to go wrong. There is a lot of background evidence around the ideas of succession and moving the business forward. Bringing new ideas on board can be difficult because of the power dynamics in a family business.

One of the critical dynamics of a family business is to manage relationships. Before you manage businesses, you have to manage yourself. David is very interested in the role of Emotional Intelligence as a catalyst for better relationships. He thinks that if he had been more patient it would have made a difference in his relationship with his family. He thought being impatient was a virtue, he was a young, driving executive who wanted to make things happen but making things happen destroyed his relationship with his uncle. The two characteristics David thinks would have made a difference are more patience and more humility.

Many people come into a family business as part of the succession plan and never work anywhere else. David feels they need work outside of the family business to gain some perspective. He worked for two years for an outside company and found there were many advantages but the main one was to develop credibility with both non-family employees and with other family members.

Working with an outside company helps develop different skills such as dealing with people.  You might not like other members of your family but they might be good at driving the business forward.  Skills need to be developed and it’s good to get genuine feedback from other people about your performance. At one point David had a mentor who would ask all eleven of the vice presidents working for David what things he had done badly recently.  He would then back and they would sort it out – in other words he got the real world thrown in his face twice a year!

The role of ego is also important. David played sport at college so he learned how important it was to be self-confident as an athlete but right beside this is pride. When he was brought into the family company he had a very inflated view of himself and this was further fuelled by his father who wanted him to become president. He could see no wrong in David and as he was the largest shareholder and president of the board it allowed David’s confidence in himself to undermine his willingness to admit he didn't know everything. Arrogance and pride can be an enormous problem and he thought he had all the answers.

There is a balance to be had between confidence and assuredness and arrogance and obstinacy. Sometimes wisdom brings that to the point of fruition. Wisdom comes from making mistakes - you can be wise and 20 or 60 and not wise at all. In his 40s David took up competitive water skiing and he was often nervous before an event. He told his coach that he wanted to be more self confident but the coach said that wasn’t the case, what was needed was to be confident in the process. There is a difference between focusing on doing the right things and thinking you are always right.

In some family businesses things are left to chance, things are not written down, not made clear about how things are set up and meant to work. There is an implied trust that everyone is working together but this is a dangerous assumption to build a company on. Family members are not always loyal and can decide not to work together. They don't always get on well and one person can turn against the rest of the family is they feel there is something to gain. Family bonds are more personal and can be more vicious. 

You can find out more about David at nextstepadvisors.ca David is also an author and his book, Dear Younger Me: Wisdom for Family Enterprise Successors explores the character traits critical for navigating the interpersonal demands of a family business enterprise.

   You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information here. Our upcoming guest list is also available along with our previous blogs.
Find out more about our innovative Resilience and Burnout solutions. 

Why businesses need resilience

Recent research by MHR International shows the challenges mid-size UK and Irish companies are facing in today’s VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world. Over 500 senior leaders from businesses employing between 500 and 5000 people were interviewed to find their views on the importance of resilience in dealing with change and challenges. The major threats they saw were the expectations surrounding their businesses growth as they compete against multinationals and of staying ahead of agile start-ups.

Recessions and financial crisis are of course not strangers to long-established companies but the pandemic brought unforeseen and previously unknown challenges. Now, businesses face another set of problems including the cost-of-living crisis and the war in Ukraine. 

Many businesses came though the pandemic and will now deal with these new challenges because they are resilient and have the ability not only to deal with change but also to use the experience as a catalyst for further development.

So, in the short term, a resilient business will get through challenging periods but then in the longer term they will start to see a positive impact on productivity and work quality as well as improved employee engagement, performance and an inclusive and secure work culture.

There is no doubt there will be tough times ahead but a resilient business will not just survive, it will thrive.

Are you connected?

In today’s turbulent business world, an organisation needs to be adaptive, agile and resilient. It needs to be able to build change, structural resilience and process improvement. In short, it needs a resilient culture.

To achieve this, leaders need to be connected to their teams and to their organisation to drive maximum resiliency. When team members work together, they can solve problems, rise above setbacks, provide innovative and agile solutions and draw strength from each other. They understand their place in the organisation, have the confidence that they know where the organisation is headed and understand how they and their role contributes to its overall success.

If employees take care of their physical, mental and emotional needs so they don't suffer from stress, the organisation benefits through improved productivity, job performance, staff retention, engagement and reduced absence.

Building a resilient culture will result in trust, accountability and flexibility. It will also enable an organisation be better placed to deal with change, so when a crisis or disruption hits, they are better able to adapt and pull through.

How resilient is the culture of your organisation?

How to survive a technology driven workplace.

The latest episode in our Resilience Unravelled series has now been released, Resilience Unravelled – How to survive a technology driven workplace.

In this episode, Dr. Russell Thackeray talks to Steve Prentice, a published author, keynote speaker, university lecturer, and full-time consultant to Fortune 500 companies. His specialty is explaining the practical and emotional impacts and benefits of technological change in regard to productivity, collaboration and life balance, and in providing practical steps to make these changes work.

Steve is interested in resilience from the standpoint of people and technology and how we manage the changes that technology brings. Although technology is a tool, we can struggle to use it. We need time to adapt and the speed of transformation over the last 25 to 30 years has overtaken our capacity for change. Our bodies haven’t learned to process the signals from technology such as the way we respond to light or even to the information itself. The false sense of urgency we feel to reply to an email immediately along can be manipulated by cyber criminals who use our response reflex to trick us into clicking a link to a piece of malware

Looking at the work scenario over the next five to ten years, Steve feels the soft skills of empathy and critical thinking will be key.  AI and robots will change some industries but the capacity to think critically will be essential to keep businesses safe. At the moment with so many people working from home, cyber security has become more important. Is the link between our home router and our place of employment safe?

A lot of people working at home have found they’ve been interrupted just as much as in the office. There have been too many Zoom meetings but Steve feels this is not the fault of technology rather our capacity to establish relationships to those making the bookings. The most powerful weapons in managing our time are being able to influence and relate to managers, customers and co-workers. Our calendars shouldn’t be telling us what to do but telling other people when we are available  

Technology means an increased speed of response is expected so it’s important to manage expectations. People get concerned if they don’t get a response straight away so we need to give them something tangible. An email saying you’ll reply within three hours or by the end of the day makes people feel more comfortable and provides a sense of structure.

There is a natural rhythm to work that has been disrupted by home working. At home we are always available. We go out for a walk at lunchtime but take our phone with us so can always be contacted.  We need to make sure we have structure to our day and have ‘time on and time off’. This can be difficult in some situations but even if we are in a continuous working environment we still have the capacity to hand over work. We need to choose this option even though it might be easier not to because it’s far healthier.

Digital literacy is the key to surviving a technology driven workplace. Information is universal and free and it’s essential to know how to keep pace with what’s important in the world.  We need to know what’s happening and have the ability to pull in information we can use for our education and career. The most important thing to remember though is that as with all information there is wheat and chaff. We need critical thinking so we consider where we get information from and question it before we connect with others.

You can listen to the podcast in full here.

You can find out more about Steve and sign up for his blogs and podcasts at steveprentice.com