Rob and Brandi interview on NY Business Leaders: family business growth and prosperity

In my long career leading and advising both family businesses and non-family businesses, I’ve discovered a profound truth.

A family business and a corporate business are pretty much the same.

Every business has the same problems

• Keeping shareholders happy
• Keeping employees happy
• Keeping customers and suppliers happy

The only difference: in a family business, you go to Thanksgiving dinner with your shareholders and employees.

And that’s a BIG difference.

Brandi and I were recently interviewed on the NY Business Leaders podcast.

During this interview with Gordon Coyle, we discussed a wide range of topics related to family business growth and prosperity including:

• The very real relationship and emotional issues that separate family businesses from non-family businesses
• Common challenges: direction, growth, strategy, communication, family dynamics, financial issues, generational conflict
• Why family businesses often fail at the third generation
• What it means to be a “business first” family
• The importance of structure, culture, leadership, and being ready for change
• The importance of finding and stating the problem (and the cause of that problem) before trying to solve it
• How to manage the crossover between business and family
• A startling statistic about family business longevity trends – and how businesses can live forever, but this one thing gets in the way
• The most important quality leaders need to have if they want to effectively create change in their organization
• The 2 “buckets” of culture change: structure and behavior
• Real talk about how long it takes to implement culture change
• What leadership really is, and who can be a leader
• The importance of having everyone working in their “zone of genius” – and how to determine what that is
• Brandi’s advice for the younger generation in a family business, including the *worst* thing you can do

Listen to the podcast here: Ferguson Alliance Interview on NY Business Leaders