Family Education for Business-Owning Families: Strengthening Bonds by Learning Together

89 Pages·2011·2.013 MB·English

by  Amy M. Schuman, John L. Ward (auth.)

Family Education
for Business-
Owning Families
Family Business Publications are the combined efforts of the Family Business
Consulting Group and Palgrave Macmillan. These books provide useful infor-
mation on a broad range of topics that concern the family business enterprise,
including succession planning, communication, strategy and growth, fam-
ily leadership, and more. The books are written by experts with combined
experiences of over a century in the field of family enterprise and who have
consulted with thousands of enterprising families the world over, giving the
reader practical, effective, and time-tested insights to everyone involved in a
family business.
The Family Business Consulting Group, Inc., founded in
1994, is the leading business consultancy exclusively devoted
to helping family enterprises prosper across generations.
FAMILY BUSINESS LEADERSHIP SERIES
This series of books comprises concise guides and thoughtful compendiums
to the most pressing issues that anyone involved in a family firm may face.
Each volume covers a different topic area and provides the answers to some of
the most common and challenging questions.
Titles include:
Developing Family Business Policies: Your Guide to the Future
Effective Leadership in the Family Business
Family Business Compensation
Family Business Governance: Maximizing Family and Business Potential
Family Business Ownership: How to Be an Effective Shareholder
Family Business Succession: The Final Test of Greatness
Family Business Values: How to Assure a Legacy of Continuity and Success
The Family Constitution: Agreements to Secure and Perpetuate Your Family and Your
Business
Family Education for Business-Owning Families: Strengthening Bonds by Learning
Together
Family Meetings: How to Build a Stronger Family and a Stronger Business
Financing Transitions: Managing Capital and Liquidity in the Family Business
From Siblings to Cousins: Prospering in the Third Generation and Beyond
How Families Work Together
How to Choose and Use Advisors: Getting the Best Professional Family Business Advice
Working for a Family Business: A Non-Family Employee’s Guide to Success
Letting Go: Preparing Yourself to Relinquish Control of the Family Business
Make Change Your Family Business Tradition
Making Sibling Teams Work: The Next Generation
More than Family: Non-Family Executives in the Family Business
Nurturing the Talent to Nurture the Legacy: Career Development in the Family Business
Preparing Successors for Leadership: Another Kind of Hero
Preparing Your Family Business for Strategic Change
All of the books were written by members of the Family Business Consulting
Group and are based on both our experiences with thousands of client fami-
lies as well as our empirical research at leading research universities the world
over.
Family Education
for Business-
Owning Families
Strengthening Bonds by Learning
Together
Amy M. Schuman
and John L. Ward
FAMILY EDUCATION FOR BUSINESS-OWNING FAMILIES
Copyright © Family Business Consulting Group, 2009, 2011.
All rights reserved.
First published by the Family Business Consulting Group Publications, 2009.
This edition first published in 2011 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-0-230-11119-6 ISBN 978-1-137-51496-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-51496-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schuman, Amy M.
Family education for business-owning families : strengthening
bonds by learning together / by Amy M. Schuman and John L. Ward.
p. cm. — (Family business leadership series)
Includes index.
ISBN 978–0–230–11119–6
1. Family-owned business enterprises—Management.
2. Organizational learning. I. Ward, John L., 1945– II. Title.
HD62.25.S368 2011
658.39124—dc22 2010036089
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First Palgrave Macmillan edition: January 2011
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
EXHIBITS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
PART I: FAMILY EDUCATION: THE FAMILY CORE
1 Introduction: The Power of Family Education. . . . . . 3
2 The Evolution of Family Education. . . . . . . . . . 9
3 Creating Your Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
4 Getting Down to Logistics . . . . . . . . . . . . .35
PART II: MEETING YOUR FAMILY’S PARTICULAR NEEDS
5 The Rodales: A Fourth-Generation Initiative . . . . . .49
6 The Schmidts: Everything Is Education . . . . . . . .57
7 The Dean: Preserving a Family Legacy . . . . . . . .65
PART III: THE FINISHING TOUCHES
8 Making Your Program a Success. . . . . . . . . . .73
9 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .81
RESOURCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
vi CONTENTS
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
THE AUTHORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Exhibits
Exhibit 1
The Nine Benefits of Family Education . . . . . . . . . 7
Exhibit 2
The Five Phases of Family Education . . . . . . . . . . 13
Exhibit 3
Top Six Family Education Topics . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Exhibit 4
Our Family Education Curriculum . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Exhibit 5
The Four Elements of a Family Meeting . . . . . . . . . 36
Exhibit 6
Five Topics Worth Repeating . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Exhibit 7
Rodale G4 Education Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Exhibit 8
The 12 Factors that Make Education a Success . . . . . . 80
PART I
FAMILY EDUCATION:
THE FAMILY CORE
When moms, dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins, and
second cousins learn together, something special takes place. Respect for one
another increases. Feelings of family friendship and intimacy are reinvigo-
rated, or perhaps ignited for the first time. Trust builds. People unite. Pride in
family grows.
Anything can happen.
Chapter 1
Introduction
The Power of Family Education
Not long before Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. clinched the
deal to purchase Dow Jones & Co. and the Wall Street Journal
from the Bancroft family in 2007, one family member, Crawford
Hill, sent an anguished, nearly 4,000-word e-mail to his relatives
urging them to accept Murdoch’s offer. Family members-owners
were “paying the price” for their passivity, which dated back a
quarter of a century, he said.
In his letter, Hill recalled that neither his mother nor his
grandmother, the family matriarch, “ever spoke of the legacy of
Dow Jones, much less the possibility of actually working there
or what it meant to be a steward of the business. There was no
effort whatsoever at promoting legacy or educating the next gen-
eration.” He and his grandmother shared a love of biology, but
when as a young man he accepted an offer to teach biology at the
Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia, she stunned him by saying
how disappointed she was that he was not going to join the fam-
ily business. “We talked about everything under the sun . . . but
never Dow Jones, again much less why one would want to work
there or learn about business strategy or how to make sure the
business flourished into the future,” he wrote.
“Our real legacy was an inherited lack of awareness as to what
it takes to nurture and pass on an effective legacy about what is