Case Study: A Cultural Dilemma - family business - Brief Article

Nation's Business, March, 1999

Maria and her family hold closely to their Greek roots. Nine siblings and cousins, including Maria, are working in the family's importing business, and their connection to one another is strong.

While Olympia Imports is now in its second generation, leadership is still in the hands of the first-generation patriarch, Nick, who is 73. He and his brother, An, 65, who is Maria's father, founded the company more than 40 years ago.

Given the current international economic scene, the $12 million business is performing fairly well. However, Maria, 35, and a few of her cousins and siblings want to effect some change. Maria heads up sales and sees new product opportunities.

"Times are changing, but my uncle and my father refuse to recognize that as being so," she says. "They come from a culture where leadership is exclusively male. Uncle Nick has no intention of retiring. When he dies, it will be my father's turn to run the business, and when he dies, the next-oldest male will take over."

Maria has a college degree, and so do most of her cousins and siblings, but the values of the males among them are still very rooted in their traditional culture.

"Succession planning really isn't an option for this family," says Maria. "The rules are prescribed in advance. The younger generation, and especially the women, want to be heard. I'd like to know how we can have a voice in decision-making. What happens to consensus? What happens to team-building? And how can we create a forum or structure to encourage the generation of ideas?"

Response 1

Raise The Bar

Maria needs to realize this is not a Greek tragedy-not yet, anyway.

In a culture where leadership is traditior ally male and where birth order dictates or ganizational hierarchy in a family business Maria's situation is typical if no less frustrating.

As such, Maria's challenges are more "generational" than "gender-based"-pitting her skills, goals, and objectives against the cultural ideologies of her father's generation.

This situation is some thing she cannot change today or first thing tomorrow.

The best way Maria can constructively bring about change in the business is by accepting this reality and focusing on raising the company's success bar, not by dwelling on the dramatics of "having her voice heard."

Let's look at this from another perspective. Maria already directs sales-a critical role in any business and one that her mother or aunts likely never could have achieved.

In her father's mind, Maria may have already reached rare heights for a female, and she is perceived as a "modern woman and as living proof that an evolution is taking place.

To move forward, Maria must focus on effectively communicating her ideas and goals both for herself and for the business.

If Maria can succeed in delivering on an aggressive sales objective or in carving out a new sales or product initiative, then she will best position herself to have the professional respect and the "ears" that she will need for her ideas.

Olga Staios, executive direct or of The Family Enterprise Institute in Cincinnati.

Response 2

Build Your Own Team

If we accept Maria s statement that "succession planning really isn't an option," then we must look for other ways to meet the needs of the younger family members.

They must clearly separate issues of participation in and contribution to the company from the issue of who will be the leader. Given the traditional values of the younger males, can this generation present a reasonably congruent view of the future, especially across gender lines?

Can they agree on the direction in which to move the business, on the changes to make, on a timetable for such changes, and on the roles they will play? As these questions suggest, they must begin team-building among themselves.

Would it be possible to assemble the entire family, look 10 years into the future, and talk about the goals and dreams of each family member, for both the family and the business?

If the whole family cannot be brought together, perhaps the younger generation can gather on its own.

Maria, her siblings, and her cousins may find it easier to get their fathers to accept change if the ideas come from their fathers' peers. It might be useful to look outside the company for men their fathers know and respect, men who are not so wedded to tradition and who can act as champions for the younger generation and help begin the process of introducing change.

Maria must decide if her needs can be met at Olympia Imports under any circumstances. Going to another company may be her only means of making a contribution. And if things at the family firm improve, she could rejoin it with more experience.

Paul L. Sessions, director of the Center for Family Business at the University of New Haven. in West Haven, Conn.

This series presents actual family-business dilemmas, commented on by members of the Family Firm Institute and edited by Paul I. Karofsky, executive director of the Northeastern University Center for Family Business in Dedham, Mass. Identities are changed to protect family privacy. The authors' opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the institute. Copyright (c) by the Family Firm Institute, Boston. You can comment on this case study on the World Wide Web at www.ffi.org/forums.html.>

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