Family Businesses

Dear HBR:

Harvard Business Review

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4.6 • 782 Ratings

🗓️ 12 July 2018

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Are you struggling with the complications of working in a family business? Dan and Alison answer your questions with the help of Ted Clark, who runs the Center for Family Business at Northeastern University. They talk through advancing when you’re not a member of the family, managing up when your parents are your bosses, and whether it’s better to work for a family enterprise or a big corporation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Dear HBR from Harvard Business Review.
0:03.6	I'm Dan McGinn.
0:04.7	And I'm Alison Beard.
0:12.2	Work can be frustrating, but it doesn't have to be.
0:15.5	The truth is that we don't have to let the tension, conflicts, and misunderstandings get us down.
0:22.1	We can do something about them.
0:25.6	That's where Dear HBR comes in.
0:27.6	We take your questions about workplace dilemmas, and with the help of experts and insights from
0:33.1	academic research, we help you move forward.
0:42.3	Today, we're answering your questions about family businesses with Ted Clark.
0:45.8	He runs the Center for Family Business at Northeastern University.
0:48.0	Ted, thanks so much for being on the show.
0:50.2	Thank you for having me here. I appreciate the opportunity.
0:54.3	So what do people not understand about family businesses?
1:00.5	I think a lot of people think family businesses are small, that they don't perform well,
1:06.5	that they're undercapitalized. I think what you find with family businesses is when they work well, they're unstoppable. They're altruistic. They're very focused. They're great places to work and they're
1:13.8	just tremendous businesses. And there's so many examples of success around there. And they can have a very
1:18.9	long history. If you look at the oldest businesses in the world, their family businesses.
1:24.1	One of the nice things is they're naturally incentivized to think longer term and think about
1:28.4	generations instead of the next quarter.
1:30.9	Yeah.
1:31.3	When you're making plans for the next generation and you're thinking long term and you're willing
	...

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