Sarah speaks about her Father

Welcome to my video diary. The idea is that I record my thoughts on the family business so that, in years to come, it’ll be easier to understand how we got to whatever level of success– or failure - that we’re going to reach. So, my name is Sarah. I’m a shareholder in the business and I work as the Chief Financial Officer. Numbers are my trade but this video diary is about people.

To keep things simple, it’s about just three people:

• My Dad – the President who has built up our business
• My Brother Charles – currently the Vice President of Operations
• My Nephew Rupert– who is the bright shining hope of the Next Generation

I’ll start with my Dad. If you look at his past record, it’s awesome. He’s grown the business; he’s made it more professional; he’s developed a great reputation for our family and our business. Now, here’s the thing. Dad is 68 years old. He doesn’t want to retire. Which is not necessarily a problem, but, if you look at his current record, it’s not quite like it used to be. To be honest, it’s not at all like it used to be. He seems to have lost interest in moving the business forward. He’s opposed to trying anything new. He gets obsessed about details, like our company car scheme. And then he becomes incredibly irritated when things aren’t exactly as he wants. When we try to talk to him about big picture issues he asks the same old questions. Then he goes back to talking about company cars. The question for us, as a family business, is how do we handle my Dad who still owns a majority of the shares? Stay tuned and you’ll see how things develop!

Sarah discusses her Brother

Now moving on to my brother Charles. He is a very ambitious man who is married to a very ambitious woman. They should be an excellent match for each other – except their ambitions aren’t the same. Charles is ambitious for our business. He wants the business to scale up because it would make it stronger and better at winning against the competition. His wife Susie is ambitious for herself. I think she’s only bothered about the business to the extent that it delivers a wonderful lifestyle and allows her to be at the centre of attention. Does that sound a bit harsh? Maybe it is. But that’s how it seems to me, at the moment. When Charles married Susie, he insisted that she became a shareholder of the family business. It seemed a good idea at the time but now I’m not at all sure. One of the consequences is that our owners’ meetings seem to be dominated by discussions between the two of them, with Charles explaining what he hopes for the business - and Susie demanding what she expects from the business. We haven’t had any major blow-ups so far. But it’s something I’m watching with a degree of nervousness.

Sarah talking about her nephew, Rupert

The third person I’m going to talk about is Rupert. He’s the oldest son of Charles and Susie – and he’s a genuine star. Top at school, top at sport, top at university. After graduation he was quickly snapped up by a well-known stockbroker but now he’s finding that, despite their ridiculously large salary, it’s not for him. It’s really exciting to think that we might be able to attract him to work at the family business - if we’re very lucky. What gives me hope is that he’s done several summer internships with us, and enjoyed them. We’ve also tried to involve him in our biggest project at the moment, which is building an entire new plant. I keep telling him that there’s job satisfaction that money can’t buy. With a little more encouragement, he might accept the idea of coming home to our family business where he’d be really valued.

I’ll give you an update next time. That’s all folks.