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By Wayne Rivers, CEO Family Business Institute

 It’s 7:30 p.m. when you burst through the door clearly tired and frustrated. The children have already eaten, but rush to you, eager to share their joy that you are finally home. You barely acknowledge them as you  put a big stack of work on the table.
“Rough day,” your spouse asks?

“You wouldn’t believe it,” you reply. “The shipping department failed to get the Osborne job out last night like they were supposed to do, so our number one client threatened to cancel his business with us. I spent half the day trying to calm him down. Our biggest shipper is three days late with parts we need to finish four jobs and one of our trucks broke down 100 miles from here. It was a miserable day.”

If you are one of the children in a family business who hears this recitation, how would you feel? If you grew up hearing similar complaints night after night, how much enthusiasm would you have when your mother or father asked you to come into the family business?  Bringing children in to the family business and, later, succession planning may depend on your children’s memories of how you dealt with the stresses and rewards of the family business.

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