In a Family Business, Attitude is Everything!

Why is attitude such a big deal in family business? In short, it is because every family business is a font of attitudinal potential waiting to become a crises. When attitudes of the family members are consistently open, positive and, supportive the family business has immense long term potential. Perhaps the key word is “consistently.” Human nature, imbued with frailty, is laden with inconsistent skills in listening, adapting, and communicating. So life’s experiences can transform the positive to the wary, the loving to the circumspect, and the competent to the bumbling. A stock market crash, a troubled loved one, an unappreciative boss, an antagonistic relative can alter one’s attitudes truning wine into vinegar, hope into dispair, success into failure. Of course, the converse is also true.

Former Notre Dame football coaching legend, Lou Holtz is paid in the mid five figures per speech on the lecture circuit to encourage the practice of winning. He believes that choices, attitudes and dreams mean the difference between winning and losing. Holtz attributes the spectacular success of his many teams over the years not to superior players or coaching, but to player attitudes—which as a leader, he imbues on his teams. Holtz believes, “The greatest power we have is the power to choose, and the most productive choice we make is the attitude we are going to adopt.” Holtz further exclaims that life’s winners can answer “yes” to the following questions: 1) Can I be trusted? “With no trust, there can be no relationship.” 2) Am I committed to excellence? “God put us on this each to be the best that we can be.” 3) Do I care about people? “You can come up with hundreds of ways to show people that you really care.”

A few years ago in the restaurant business I met the kind of guy that would make coach Holtz proud. Mike was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. If you asked him how he was, he would usually acclaim, “If I were any better, I would be twins.” He was a natural motivator and had chefs and wait staff that would follow him around from restaurant to restaurant. If one of his employees made a mistake or was having a bad day, Mike would explain how the employee could look on the positive side of the situation.

When I asked him one day how he did this he replied, “each morning I wake up and say to myself, Mike, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose the latter. If someone comes to me with a complaint, I can just accept it or I can point out the positive side. I choose the latter.”

“That can’t be easy,” I said somewhat cynically. “Yes it is,” Mike retorted. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. Your choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or a bad mood. The bottom line is: It’s you choice how you live life.”

Not long after, I left the restaurant business to start my own management consulting practice. I lost track of Mike, but I often reflected on his comments.

Several years ago, Mike did something you are not supposed to do in the restaurant business. He left the back door open and was held up by armed thieves. During a tense moment while he was nervously opening the safe, his hand slipped off the combination. One of the thieves momentarily panicked and shot him. Mike was found a short while later and rushed to the hospital. After hours in surgery and months of physical therapy he recovered.

When I had occasion to visit him sometime later I inquired how he was doing. “If I were any better, I’d be twins,” he said offering to show me his scars. I asked him about the accident and he replied, “The first thing that went through my mind is that I should have locked the door. Then, lying there on the floor, staring at the tile, I realized that I had two choices: I could live or I could die. I chose to live.”

I bombarded him with questions and he continued, “…. the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I would be fine, but when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, ‘he’s a dead-man’. I felt I needed to take action.”

I asked him what he was feeling.

“Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,” Mike said. “When she asked if I were allergic to anything I said, “yes!” They all stopped working and waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, “Bullets!” After their laughter, I told them, “ I am choosing to live. Please operate on me as if I am alive, not dead’.”

Mike lived thanks to the skill of his medical attention, but also because of his amazing attitude. I have learned from him that every day we have a choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

In the typical family business there are myriad attitudes that can be modified to produce better harmony and results. Founders typically have substantial pride in what they have accomplished. They often started on a shoestring, bet their assets on the success of the business, and put in a gargantuan amount of labor to make their idea bare fruit. They frequently don’t see in their children, whose diapers they once changed, possessing the same kind of verve and tenacity. They enjoy having their sons and daughters close to them in the business but they smother them with their own needs for control.

Fathers in a family business frequently exhibit a parental attitude toward their adult children in the business. Mothers are concerned with egalitarianism. The children, waiting for their turn at the helm, are concerned with sibling encroachments and parental indecision. One or two will feel “entitled” to certain company powers, paychecks, and freedoms. When these and other family inspired attitudes have ample opportunity to grow and expand the ultimate conclusion can be rancor, severely bruised family relations, and too often, dismal business success.

Each family business member sees the business from a different perspective. Some will see it as a family monument. Some will see it as a family gold mine. Others will see it as a mausoleum to be avoided at any cost. The family business also offers something different to each family member: security, opportunity, power, legacy, freedom, and perhaps slavery. Working together can solidify a family, but with festering attitudes, can also dissolve it.

Successful business owning families adopt an attitude of dealing with issues, not personalities, in which everyone has a legitimate say, and every person is treated with complete respect, regardless of what has been transpired before. The present generation operating the company regards itself as stewards of the family asset, and want to turn it over to the next generation in better condition than when they took it over.

There is an important difference between management or stewardship on one hand, and leadership on the other. Managers are concerned with developing tools by which they can get work done through and with other people. “Leadership” conveys a broader mission than “management.” Leadership provides a sense of mission, a willingness to take risk, charisma, affection and respect for followers, a “we and us” attitude, contempt (perhaps even respectful contempt) for opponents, and the ability to galvanize and coalesce a group. Attitudes are spawned, developed, nurtured, and immortalized through leadership. The leaders of successful companies seek and analyze the attitudes of other business cultures. They adopt these attitudes in management meetings, mission statements, training programs, value statements, and in company policies regarding employees, customers, stockholders and the general public. Perhaps most importantly, they do it at the dinner table

In family businesses, attitudes are spawned, developed, nurtured, and immortalized beginning at the birth of the first offspring, and continue beyond retirement. Especially in the family firm, attitude development needs frequent water, fertilizer and pruning. With care and adjustment, sensitivity, and encouragement attitude enhancement can become a simple but amazingly powerful tool in family firm management. The leaders in the family firm will assume the responsibility for this. Both coach Lou Holtz, my friend Mike, and now presumably you realize that “attitude is everything.”By working with the Institute, firms identify which family dynamics most often affect business decisions and learn how to overcome these hurdles to continued growth and profitability. Institute-sponsored seminars and workshops will help companies in addressing topics of interest to them.

Our programs are presented in a verity of formats, ranging from small, interactive peer groups to large, speaker-led presentations. This structure allows you to determine your level of participation.

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