Gaining experience before joining the family business

Her family and friends had expected Jane to join Robert, her father, in the furniture manufacturing company he'd founded and built to success.

Although Robert could be a tough boss, full of bluster and very demanding, he knew his business, and Jane was the apple of his eye.

But when Jane graduated from college, she headed instead for the marketing department of a multimedia company.

"I didn't have the moxie to tell him," Jane recalled, "but the last thing I wanted to do was work for my dad."

Ten years later, Jane was marketing director of her company, and Robert had diversified his furniture plant into a broad array of products. The competition was starting to eat him up, however, and Robert needed a marketing VP like a drowning man needs a rubber raft.

Every time he screened the list of people qualified for the job, Jane always came out on top.

So he made his daughter an offer, including a lot of decision- making authority and a budget, and she accepted.

They've been a great team ever since, and next year Robert will step down and turn over the presidency to Jane.

Robert and Jane agree that neither of them was ready to work with the other when Jane was younger.

"AI admit it," Robert says. "I would have treated her like my little girl, not like a qualified employee and certainly not like a partner. I had to see her succeed outside the family business before I was ready to accept her on even terms."

Jane knew at the time that she wouldn't be able to stand up to Robert's loud, pushy way of running the company.

"He wouldn't have taken me seriously. There would have been a blow- up, and I'd have left the family business with no possibility of ever going back. Today I have skills and credentials that he respects, and we're both mature enough to give and take at the office without souring our personal relationship."

Is there a "best time" for younger family members to come into the family business? Every situation is different, of course, but the experience of several families in business suggests some guidelines.

Preparation

An increasing number of families require at least a couple of years of working experience outside the family business as part of the price of admission. In addition, technology-based businesses may require specialized training that the rising generation can't get on the job. Being prepared might include completing technical or business management training before coming on board.

Maturity

In this case, maturity doesn't refer to a chronological age as much as an ability to relate to parents, siblings and other family members as co-workers.

For family members to function well together around the conference table, they have to put aside kitchen table expectations.

Someone else may pick your towel off the bathroom floor at home, for example, but at the office or the plant every family member has to be fully responsible for his or her share of the load. Younger members shouldn't come into the business until they're mature enough to accept the responsibility of employment.

Respect

On the other hand, younger family members shouldn't join the company until senior family members are ready to respect them as capable adults.

Some people never stop thinking of their offspring as kids, with kids' needs for parental supervision.

In a family workplace this can cause a lot of resentment as it stifles younger family members' professional growth. If mom's still cutting Junior's supper into bite-sized pieces -- figuratively or literally -- it's a good bet that the family isn't ready to welcome Junior into a responsible position in the company.

Teamwork

Competitiveness and ambition are essential characteristics of successful business people, and that includes younger family members coming into their families' businesses.

But unless competitiveness is focused outwardly, it can be dangerous to the stability and harmony of a family company. In some businesses, the younger generation's primary motivation is to show up the old man.

In others, the senior owner's highest succession priority is to prove that he's better than the successors will ever be. It's probably not a good time for anyone to join the family business if they bring with them, or have to face, harsh competitiveness that targets other family members.

James Lea, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is author of Keeping It In the Family: Successful Succession of the Family Business.

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