Help! How can my son become a worthy heir?

Last week we looked at the dilemma of a reader, who despairs over her good-for-nothing nephew, who works in the family business only because his own father believes he cannot get another job. I advised the reader to talk with her nephew and lay down the law: finish school first and develop skills, and afterwards find a suitable occupation.

The reader also asks about her son Jared (not his real name), who has been working in the business for 10 years now. The mother wants to retire soon, but even if the son expects to be the heir, the parent is worried that the business will fail if he takes over. The reader complains that Jared cannot make tough decisions, and asks for advice on what to do.

My reply

First I have to ask: are your expectations of your son too high? He has been working by your side for a decade, and surely, he must have imbibed your values and work ethic. You say your employees expect him to succeed you, so they must respect him in some way.

Talk to your trusted top managers and ask them for an honest assessment of Jared’s strengths and weaknesses, and with their help, design a program to address areas for improvement. Because of hidden dynamics—you are his mother, after all—you may not be able to evaluate your son with an objective perspective. Sometimes we tend to be hardest on our own kin (ironically, this is the exact opposite of how your brother enables the poor behavior and attitude of his own son).

However, if you still believe that Jared is not qualified enough, then I agree that the business might be in trouble if he cannot make difficult decisions. You say that you trained him, but how did you do so? Ordinary training (similar to what your other employees underwent, for instance) is not enough.

I suspect that your son is too scared to make good decisions because you have not trusted him with real-life opportunities to make hard choices. But if Jared is to be your successor, you need to confront him with what American business consultant Noel Tichy calls “crucible experiences.”

In his book “Succession,” Tichy says, “The real issue here is to avoid parents being overly protective with regard to preventing their kids from failing. The ultimate goal is to provide offspring with crucible experiences and training programs that above all carry real risks and real rewards. Even the most well-meaning attempt by hovering helicopter parents to protect their offspring from failure, or even the fear of failure, will in fact backfire, serving only to undermine their children’s and potential heirs’ often fragile self-esteem, in which they typically suffer from the fact that they recognize how hard it may be to live up to the high expectations placed upon them to succeed by their self-made entrepreneurial parents.

“Offspring who, with all the best of intentions, end up being steered by their parents to low-risk jobs … represent a circumstance that may have a deeply corrosive effect on the kids’ ability to demonstrate what it is that they are capable of doing.”

Training for potential heirs is supposed to be tougher than for regular employees. Let your son make hard calls—while you are still around to advise him if needed—and if he fouls up (which he likely will), ensure that he learns from the experience. He is in charge of marketing today, but he needs to have an overall view of all departments, such as finance, strategy, production and human resources.

Take him out of his comfort zone, and ask trusted senior people to train and to critique him (with your blessing). He is not an ordinary employee—he will be the next head of the business.

“Children need a real job, with real accountability, with real performance criteria, with real rigorous assessment and feedback, and with real risks of failure,” says Tichy.

“Unless you’re willing to take a risk of failing with your own children,” says family business adviser Ivan Lansberg, “they will never be able to demonstrate what it is that they are capable of doing.”

Queena N. Lee-Chua is with the board of directors of Ateneo’s Family Business Center. Get her book “All in the Family Business” via Lazada and Shopee, or the ebook via Amazon, Google Play, Apple iBooks. Contact the author at [email protected].