Talk business at dinner

“My son does not want to go into our family business,” the Spanish-Filipino founder of a retail firm told me. “We sent him to the best schools, even college abroad. Now he wants to go to a bank. Foolish! Why work for someone else if you can be the owner?”

“Banking is exciting,” the son told me. “Family business is boring. I want to be stimulated. I want to grow.”

The founder was shocked. “Buying and selling goods is not easy, but it’s exciting. One time…” and he animatedly told me about a deal he had made, with guile and wile and one-upmanship.

Family business can be exciting, I agreed. How could the son think otherwise, especially with such interesting stories?

“My father never talked business,” said the son. Not even at the dinner table? “At dinner, my father asked about school, told us to study hard. We know he went to the office early, talked to people all day, came home at night. He did not say much, so we thought that he must not like his work. For him, work is just a job. I want my work to have meaning. I don’t want to be bored.”

Books are wrong

When I reported the son’s answer, the founder sighed and said, “No offense, you work with family business. I consulted another expert before, and he told me to separate family from business and not to talk business at home. I followed him. Now you say that I should have talked business during dinner?”

I took a deep breath. “If you want your son to succeed you, then yes.” I couldn’t blame the founder. Most family business books, especially those written in the West, advise people to compartmentalize family and business because “business problems can flare up at the dinner table.” I used to agree with them (after all, they are the experts), but after working with real-life family businesses in the Philippines, I concluded that this advice is not only impractical. It is also just plain wrong.

If you want your children to work in the family business, expose them early. Talk business over dinner. Forget the books. Forget the experts. Many of the successful family businesses I know talk about everything over dinner, including business.

“How can we not?” said a Tsinoy second-generation scion of a food company, whom I’ll call Mike. “Since we were young, dad told us stories: How flour is made, how to spot the best quality wheat, how unscrupulous millers trick naïve customers. Dad taught us the tricks of the trade, since he wanted us to take over the family business.”

Did his father ever talk about negative issues? “When we were older, he did. Of course dad had bad days. Sometimes suppliers did not pay on time. Or wheat prices suddenly rose. Once, dad made a big error that cost the family business a lot of money because he trusted a friend (now no longer a friend). But he discussed how to deal with these problems.”

“Dad made us feel proud and lucky to be in the family business. My brothers and I worked with him straight out of college. We never thought about working anywhere else.”

Is the family business boring? “Never!” Mike was empathic. “In school, we bragged that we owned a bakery. During parties, we distributed our products, everyone envied us. We have expanded today, but the old bakery used to be our second home. After school, we played in the bakery while the workers gave us bread fresh from the ovens. We knew it was our family business. We knew it was ours, period. We knew we would run it someday.”

“We might not be investment bankers, doctors, lawyers,” said Mike. “We are not yet a multinational even if we have plans of entering China. Our work does not look glamorous, but we enjoy it.”

Emphasize the benefits

Talk business over dinner. When children are young, emphasize the positive more than the negative: How exciting the family business is, how it provides jobs for many people, what lessons it teaches. Keep your tone light, find the humor in daily happenings. Avoid complaining constantly, or else you may frighten your kids away from the family business.

When your kids are in middle or high school, open up about complex issues. Don’t exaggerate problems, but don’t conceal them either. Discuss how to improve from mistakes made, but end on a hopeful note. Let your children recognize the responsibilities of running the family business, but make them proud to be part of your legacy.

Tune in next Friday, as we discuss the concept of guanxi (connections) in Tsinoy family businesses.

Queena N. Lee-Chua is on the board of directors of Ateneo de Manila University’s Family Business Development Center. Get her book “Successful Family Businesses” at the University Press (tel. 4266001 loc 4613, e-mail [email protected].) E-mail the author at [email protected].