Let's Take the Family Out of Business

Pretending in order to please you

Often, children join a company because they feel they owe it to a CEO parent to carry on the family tradition—despite having little talent, passion, or ability to succeed in the business. The children spend their time attempting to hide this. Meanwhile, other employees go along with the pretense to protect their own jobs. You can imagine the problems that arise from this scenario. Here is an example.

Roberto was an artist. All he really wanted to do was paint, be with his young son, and sell his artwork. Unfortunately, he inherited a failing company, which was co-owned by another family. Roberto became the head of marketing and web design, though he had little experience or education in either. His staff—both experienced and talented—did their best to cover for Roberto, fearing their jobs would be at stake if Roberto did not succeed. The staffs’ attempts at covering for Roberto only accomplished one thing: making the whole company look bad. Brochures were sent out with the wrong pricing. Total sales decreased. Employee morale and productivity suffered. The company continued to limp along, barely surviving. This is a situation in which a business directly suffered from everyone’s good intentions.

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