Perspectives
Short essays drawn from nearly two decades inside a multi-generational family enterprise, and from a teaching case on that family’s evolution.
Architectural detail: stone, ironwork or library interior. To be sourced, no people
Essay · Legacy
Families often describe their legacy as the company their founder built. But companies are sold, merged and outgrown. What endures is the family’s capacity to keep adapting: to make good decisions together, generation after generation, about whatever it happens to own.
Read the essay[Draft, from teaching case, Eric to approve]
Essay · Identity
A family business owns a company. An enterprising family owns a way of working. The shift begins when a family separates who it is from what it currently owns.
Read[Draft, from teaching case, Eric to approve]
Essay · Patience
Long-term orientation is a strength until it becomes inertia. How a family can tell the difference, and decide to sell without feeling it has failed.
Read[Draft, from teaching case, Eric to approve]
Essay · After the sale
When the operating company is sold, the daily reason to gather disappears. Money alone is not family glue. Purpose, governance and shared work have to take its place.
Read[Draft, from teaching case, Eric to approve]