Beware of the Family-Business Paradox

Business-owning families have a great advantage, but the advantage can distract the family from seeing what is most important in the long-run. What is important is a family whose members enjoy one another and do good things together - one that can use the opportunities conferred by business ownership to the greatest advantage for all. Owning a family business makes it possible to stay together as a family without much attention to nurturing family relations or to developing leaders who tend those relationships. That is the paradox; owning a family business provides a strength, but it also makes it easy to take family relationships and leadership for granted. Successful families in business consciously work hard to avoid that tendency. Recommendations are presented.