The challenge faced by family businesses and their stakeholders, is to recognise the issues that they face, understand how to develop strategies to address them and more importantly, to create narratives, or family stories that explain the emotional dimension of the issues to the family. The most intractable family business issues are not the business problems the organisation faces, but the emotional issues that compound them. Applying psychodynamic concepts will help to explain behaviour and will enable the family to prepare for life cycle transitions and other issues that may arise.
Here is a new understanding and a broader perspective on the human dynamics of family firms with two complementary frameworks, psychodynamic and family systematic, to help make sense of family-run organisations. Although this book includes a conceptual section, it is first and foremost a practical book about the real world issues faced by business families.
The book begins by demonstrating that many years of achievement through generations can be destroyed by the next, if the family fails to address the psychological issues they face. By exploring cases from famous and less well known family businesses across the world, the authors discuss entrepreneurs, the entrepreneurial family and the lifecycles of the individual and the organisation. They go on to show how companies going through change and transition can avoid the pitfalls that endanger both family and company. The authors then apply tools that will help family businesses in transition and offer their analyses and conclusions.
Readers should draw their own conclusions from careful examination of the cases, identifying the problems or dilemmas faced and the options for improved business performance and family relationships. They should ask what they might have done in the given situation and what new insight into individual or family behaviour each case offers. The goal is to avoid a bitter ending.
MANFRED F.R. KETS DE VRIES brings a unique perspective to the much-studied subjects of leadership and the dynamics of individual and organizational change. He is a clinical professor of leadership development and holds the Raoul de Vitry dAvaucourt Chair of Leadership Development at INSEAD, France& Singapore. He is also the Director of INSEADs Global Leadership Center. He has held professorships at McGill University, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, Montreal, and the Harvard Business School, and he has lectured at management institutions around the world. He is a founding member of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations.
The Financial Times,
Le Capital,
Wirtschaftswoche, and
The Economist have rated Manfred Kets de Vries among the worlds top fifty thinkers on management and among the worlds most influential people in human resource management.
He is the author, co-author, or editor of more than 24 books and over 250 scientific papers as chapters in books and as articles. His books and articles have been translated into more than 25 languages.He was also the first non-American recipient of the International Leadership Award for his contributions to the classroom and the board room.
Kets de Vries is a consultant on organizational design/transformation and strategic human resource management to leading US, Canadian, European, African, Australian and Asian companies. As an educator and consultant he has worked in more than forty countries.
DR. RANDEL S. CARLOCK is the first Berghmans Lhoist Chaired Professor in Entrepreneurial Leadership, the founding Director of the Wendel International Centre for Family Enterprise and a founding board member of the Global Leadership Centre at INSEAD. Previously he was the first Opus Professor of Family Enterprise and founder of the family business center at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, MN (USA). Carlock has an MA in education and training (1976), an MBA in strategic management (1983), and a Ph.D. (1991), all from the University of Minnesota. His doctoral dissertation explored the role of organization development in managing high growth entrepreneurial firms. He has also completed a post graduate certification in family and marriage therapy at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, University of London (1998) and a certificate in psychodynamic counseling at Birkbeck College, University of London (1999). He was awarded a Certificate in Family Business Advising with Fellow Status (2001) by The Family Firm Institute, Boston, MA (USA).
He is the author of several books, articles, book chapters, videos and case studies. He has over 25 years of experience serving as an executive with a global family business and as CEO and chairman of his own NASDAQ listed corporation. He currently advises global business families and corporations around the world specializing in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
ELIZABETH FLORENT-TREACY, Research Project Manager at INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France, and Singapore, She works in the INSEAD Global Leadership Centre, and the Wendel International Centre for Family Enterprise. She has conducted research in the following areas: global leadership; global organizations; corporate culture in European and global organizations; American, French and Russian business practices; family business issues (governance, succession, strategy); entrepreneurial leadership; cross-cultural management; women and global leadership; cultural aspects of mergers and acquisitions; transformational leadership; expatriate executives and families; and the psychodynamics of leadership. She holds degrees in Sociology (BA) and Organization Development (MA).
Elizabeth has written authored or co-authored 4 books, 21 articles, working papers and book chapters and 18 case studies on leadership and family business topics.
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xxv
Part I: Questions and Observations 1
Introduction 3
Endnote 7
1 A Psychological Perspective on Business Families 9
Psychodynamic and family systemic perspectives 10
Key ideas from the psychodynamic approach 11
The role of transference and countertransference 12
The family systemic perspective 17
A therapeutic alliance 20
A summing-up 21
Endnotes 22
2 The Challenges of Love and Work 25
Conflicting goals in the family business 26
The three-circles model 29
How conflict can develop 32
Endnotes 38
3 Family Business Practices: Assessing Strengths and Weaknesses 39
The interface of business and family practices 42
Assessing the health of a family business 60
Endnotes 62
Part II: Reflection and Learning 63
4 the Life Cycle as An Organizing Construct 65
The multiple life cycles of the family business 66
Key models of human psychological development 68
The family life cycle 75
Carter and McGoldricks family-based life cycle model 76
Applying the life cycle in family businesses 78
Endnotes 81
5 Narcissism, Envy, and Myths In Family Firms 83
Personality types 83
Managerial implications of dysfunctional narcissism 90
The importance of individuation 91
The family firm as transitional object 92
The power of envy 95
Games families play: the role of family myths 103
The impact of family myths on the family business 105
Summary 109
Endnotes 109
6 the Entrepreneur: Alone at the Top 111
Common personality characteristics of founderentrepreneurs 111
Larry Ellison and Oracle 113
Deciphering the inner theater of the entrepreneur 117
Common defensive structures in founderentrepreneurs 128
Maintaining the balance 130
Endnotes 131
7 Leadership Transition: Replacing a Parent as Ceo 133
Options for tackling the succession problem 133
The inheritance 135
Psychological pressures on new leaders 136
Staying on course 144
Endnotes 146
8 A Systemic View of the Business Family 147
A two-way relationship 147
The evolution of systems theory 148
The development of family systems theory 149
The family systems proposition 154
Family scripts and rules 156
Family scripts in the family business 157
A practical example of family systems thinking 162
Endnotes 163
9 Diagnosing Family Entanglements 165
The family genogram 166
The Circumplex Model of marriage and family systems 172
Differentiation of self from family of origin 176
Two family stories 178
Endnotes 185
Part III: Integration and Action 187
10 Addressing Transitions and Change 189
Lewins ideas on change 189
A model of individual change 191
Major themes in the individual journey toward change 196
The process of change within organizations 200
The change process in families 205
Family focus or organization focus? 212
Endnotes 213
11 The Vicissitudes of Family Business 215
The Steinbergs: A study in self-destruction 215
The immigrant dream 216
His mothers son 218
The entrepreneurs vision 220
Sam as a family business leader 220
The entrepreneurs dilemma: Passing the baton 223
The next generation 224
Irving Ludmer: Play it again, Sam 225
A family systems perspective on the Steinbergs 228
The effects of Sam Steinbergs inner world on the family business 233
The inner theater of Sams daughters 236
What if? 239
Endnotes 240
12 Putting Family Business Intervention Into Practice 241
The Family Action Research Process 242
The succession conundrum 243
The role of the outside adviser 271
Advice to families seeking help 271
The benefits of a psychodynamic systems perspective 274
Final words 275
Endnotes 276
Appendix 1: Developing a Business Family Genogram 277
Creating the genogram 277
Therapeutic applications of the genogram 278
Using the genogram to identify family scripts and themes 279
How genograms improve communication 282
Endnote 282
Appendix 2: the Clinical Rating Scales And the Circumplex Model 283
How the CRS work 284
Endnote 287
Index 289
