At The Peer Alliance, we’ve written about a handful of issues concerning the longevity of a family enterprise.  Bringing together many of the concepts we’ve addressed, Fast Company published an article today titled How Great Family Businesses Skirt The Feuds, And Other Pitfalls — an article that brought together the perspectives of multiple multi-generational family businesses and came to the following conclusion: entitlement plagues even the strongest family business.

The article provides the following measures for continual family enterprise success:

• Understand each and every role within your family enterprise
• Clearly define a chain of command; a hierarchical organization within a company is necessary for success
• Defined procedures for conflict resolution
• Transition planning between generations

The conclusion from the Fast Company article is two fold: (1) cultivate employee loyalty with a strong customer base; and (2) be cautious of entitlement where family meets business.

Focusing on the latter, it’s important that appointments be based on merit rather than on simply being a member of the family.

From the managerial perspective, this means hiring the right person for the business — not simply the next in line from the family tree.

From the individual perspective, an awareness that a sense of entitlement is a troubling characteristic for anyone in a managerial role within an enterprise, family or otherwise.

Read More at Fast Company