to look to me to play the same role. But I was not my father. I had a psychology and music background; he was a tax attorney. I wondered how I could possibly take on this role.
Feeding the self-doubt were questions about why my father picked me and not one of my brothers. Most people, as I did, thought that my older brother, Bryan, would be the logical choice. He was the oldest and on the path to becoming an attorney. For whatever reason, my father chose me.
This was the beginning of my path to and passion for family business. Five years later, after pursuing additional education at Northwestern University, I landed at the Loyola University Chicago Family Business Center. Here, I was first exposed to the challenges of family business successors through the Next Generation Leadership Institute – an 18-month leadership development course specifically designed to help successors in a family business become the best leader that they can be – not the leader that their parents want them to be, but a leader that is true to him- or herself. A leader that leads with authenticity.
Leading this program for the last 18 years while helping it to grow and evolve, as well as witnessing the transformations in the leaders going through the program, inspired me to write this book. I am passionate about helping the world to not stereotype the family business successor as an unqualified, lazy person who got the job only because of his or her last name. I want the world to understand that the vast majority of successors are qualified; they work hard; and they only want success for their families and the people whom their business supports.
The world needs to understand the challenge that successors face in finding their own voice and establishing credibility with themselves and with others.
The stories of the successors in this book show a commitment to excellence, not entitlement; they reveal the humanity of having to grow up in the shadow of parents, grandparents, and others whom the world celebrates and mythologizes as all-powerful leaders.
We all face this challenge in some form: whether choosing our career versus those of our parents; taking the place of a mentor who helped shape who we are; or trying to repeat our parents' success as an actor, athlete, politician, or businessperson. The challenge is how to become one's own person in the shadow of those who have gone before.
We are all born into a story already being told. We are all, to some extent, following in the footsteps of those who went before us. At its heart, this book is about how one develops a unique sense of his or her identity without losing the connection to the family and what has gone before.
Although this book is written for the family business successor and his or her family, I hope that every reader can relate to the challenge of having to establish his or her sense of identity, credibility, and confidence in a world that wants to celebrate the past at the expense of creating the future.
Acknowledgments
As with any major endeavor, this book would not have happened without the love and support of my family and friends. I wrote this book with the help of many colleagues and friends. The ideas for this book have been shaped over a long period of time by those who have believed in me, taught me, and shared with me.
I'd like to start by thanking my brothers, Bryan and David, for their unwavering support in good times and in bad, and their wives, Debbie and Jenny, for always offering encouragement and feedback in the process. I'd like to thank my nieces and nephews – Bridget, Charlotte, Nathan, Owen, and Brandon – for reminding me to find joy in each day. I'd also like to thank Aunt Martha for her love and support.
In many ways, this book has been a personal journey, and it wouldn't have happened without my great friend and colleague Dr. Joe Astrachan. Early on in my career, Joe saw things in me that I didn't see in myself. He helped me to find my own voice in the field of family business. Much of my thinking about family business has been shaped and influenced by learning from and working with Joe. Joe helped me to conceptualize and shape this book, and it wouldn't have happened without him. Thank you, also, to his beautiful wife, Claudia, for her support.
Thank you to my friend and colleague Dr. Edward Monte for generously sharing his time in reviewing and commenting on the manuscript. Thank you to Dr. Robert Moore for teaching me so much about the process of identity formation.
Thank you to all of the successors who agreed to be interviewed for this book. Your generosity in sharing your stories will help many other family business successors feel less alone, while giving them the courage to create their unique visions for their family businesses. Thank you to Bill Wrigley, Christie Hefner, John Tyson, Dick DeVos, John Burke, Massimo Ferragamo, Pierre Emmanuel Taittinger, Karl-Erivan Haub, Dave Juday, Steve Thelen, Joe Perrino, Mike Hamra, Alexander & Bella Hoare, Mary Andringa, Bob Vermeer, Sam Schwab, Ron Autry, Steve Don, Lansing Crane, Milt Pinsky, Mike Medart, Steve Thelen, Kurt Bechthold, Kathleen Thurmond, and Jean Moran. Thank you also to those who wish to remain anonymous.
Many people helped me with obtaining interviews, preparing the interview transcriptions, sifting through them, coding them, and shaping the ideas that emerged from them into the book that stands before you today. Thank you to my friend Liz Zabloudoff for her unwavering support of this project. Thank you to Kathryn McCarthy for the introductions and for helping me get a new perspective on the field. Thank you to my good friend and colleague Dr. Torsten Pieper for helping me understand the research processes and protocols for coding and analyzing the interviews. Thank you to Dr. Corinna Lindow and Dr. Isa Botero for working diligently to sift through the interviews, code them, and help me identify themes. Thank you to Bobi Seredich of EQ Inspirations who has been a part of this project from the beginning and to my friend and attorney Domingo Such who is always looking out for my best interests. Thank you to Melissa Parks and David Goetz at CZ Strategy for helping me to shape these themes and ideas as well as my experience into what I hope will be a book that can help family business successors for a long time to come. And thank you to Jennifer Muntz, Julie Kelly and the team at Cave Henricks for helping to spread the valuable lessons shared by the successors in this book.
I'd also like to thank my family at Loyola University Chicago's Family Business Center at the Quinlan School of Business; my family business center team: Anne Smart, Ryan Sinon, and Erin Kuhn Krueger; the member families who have put their trust in me and shared their stories of both joy and pain, struggles and triumphs, and shared so much with me over the years; the graduates of our Next Generation Leadership Institute for sharing your struggles and achieving great things – it is your stories that inspire the writing of this book; Dean Kathy Getz and the faculty of the Quinlan School of Business, especially my colleague Al Gini for his input and advice on the process of writing a book; my colleagues Tom Zeller, Dow Scott, and Serhat Cicekoglu for their support and collaboration; and my colleagues Mary Nelson, Fraser Clark, Mark Hoffman, Gary Shunk, Linda Balkin, and Lisa Ryan. A special thanks to my colleague Dr. Carol Wittmeyer for her energy and support and continually teaching me the importance of showing gratitude.
To my family at the Family Business Network International and Family Business Network North America. Thank you to the families of FBN and the management team for allowing me to be a part of your story and building the strongest global network of family business owners in the world. What I have learned from being a part of this network is part of every page in this book. Specifically, I'd like to thank Alexis Du Roy, Olivier de Richoufftz, and Julia Mart for their friendship and support.
To my clients from 20 years of consulting – thank you for trusting me to support, push, poke, and prod your families in hopes of finding new ways to communicate, new opportunities to build unity and connection, and new ways to build more successful families and businesses. I am honored by the trust that you place in me.
Thank you to those who helped me find the path of working with family businesses – Dr. John Ward, Ken Kaye, and John Messervey. And those scholars and colleagues who have taught and influenced me in the classroom, through collaboration with clients, or their writing: Dr. George Manners, Ernesto
