Freedom of choice: don't force your kids to join the family business - let them decide

Entrepreneur, June, 1998 by Patricia Schiff Estess

How can parents be assured their children don't feel pressured but, at the same time, present a choice that's appealing and might eventually lead to a career in the family business?

THE EARLY YEARS

* Don't talk about a child's involvement in the family business early in his or her life. What's important to both the children and the business is that children do what they enjoy and are good at when they grow up. "That's one reason I urge parents to hold family meetings when the children are young. It gives them a regular opportunity to talk about their children's interests," says David Niemeyer, a family therapist and director of Rutgers University Family Business Forum in Piscataway, New Jersey.

In addition to talking about the kids' strengths, talents and interests, family council meetings can also be an opportunity for children to complain about the family business and express resentment that the business drains their parents of time and energy. "When that happens, parents have an opportunity to explain why they are so involved in the business and frame the explanation in terms kids understand," Niemeyer says. "Suppose your son is into hockey. Ask why he's willing to get up early to go to practice. He'll probably answer 'Because I love the sport.' At that point, you can explain that's how you feel about the family business."

* Encourage your kids to drop in. Ivan Gural's grandchildren, Alex, 8, and Eve, 7, often stop in at Gural Associates' office in Haverford, Pennsylvania, after school. For Alex and Eve, the family's Thomas Register of American Manufacturers franchise, which sells the largest industrial buying guide in the United States, is a nice place to help out with chores for pocket money, do their homework, or be with their parents and grandparents. They feel welcome to take part in the business . . . without any pressure.

THE TEEN YEARS

* Present the business in a fair light. If you spend 90 percent of your dinner conversations railing at your sister's incompetence, your brother's greediness or your frustration at your father's unwillingness to try new ideas, how can your children get the idea that the family business is a fun place to work? Instead, weave your stories with two threads: the challenges and the satisfactions of working with your family.

* Focus on building value into the company. There's no way of knowing at this point whether your children will want to join the family business, nor should they be forced into making any decisions. By continuing to run a successful business, you take the pressure off them and assure yourself that you have a company you can pass on to future generations or sell profitably if your children back away.

* Share your enthusiasm about the business. A boring company is unlikely to be a desirable career choice for a teen who's thinking about what he or she would like to do in life. "My negative feelings for the family's retail business were certainly fed by my parents' aphorism on it as a future career: 'There's always the family business,' "says Ira Bryck, director of the University of Massachusetts Family Business Center in Amherst. "The message was powerful: This isn't anyone's first choice, but if you can't get anything else, it's here."

* Let grandparents make the pitch. Whereas parental advice is viewed skeptically at best during adolescence, grandparents are often viewed as sages. So it's no surprise that when Robin Strauss Rashbaum and Debra Strauss heard their grand-mother go on and on about how wonderful family businesses were, they were influenced. This may not have been the deciding factor in their decisions to join the business, but it was certainly part of it.

AS YOUNG ADULTS

* Continue to share your enthusiasm. You never know when a child might decide the family business looks like a promising venture. Chris Carini, for example, broached the subject of joining the family business with his dad, Peter Carini, in October 1996, after a number of years in government and public administration. He knew it was risky, because his elder brothers had joined the Greenwich, Connecticut, energy services company and then left after a few years when they decided the fit was wrong. "But over the years, I had listened to my father talk about all the entrepreneurial things he was doing with Champion Energy Corp., and I got excited and energized by his talk. And then I thought I had something to give the company."

* Give them time. Again, on the "you never know" principle, Debra Strauss says she never would have gone into the business immediately after college. "I wasn't sure this was what I wanted to do," she says, "and as the younger child in the family, I didn't want to be treated as the baby." So she went into financial planning and strategy and earned an MBA before approaching her parents about joining the firm. "I needed to see the contrast, and I did," she says. It was that contrast - a more sane and flexible lifestyle and the opportunity. to work for herself and build on a family tradition - that finally brought her into the fold.