When I was a kid, our family business seemed to exist more as a “who” than as a “what” —a big, looming presence in the family. Always referred to among family members merely as “the business,” it came up in dinner conversations and in any discussion my father and aunt ever had regarding their upbringing.
My grandfather founded and built the business and, because he put much of his energy into so doing, the business probably un-built him in the end. He died early of a heart attack, which might have been preventable had he not worked so single-mindedly for so long. The business did make a name for him locally, though, and we still have elderly clients who recall how much they liked or respected him.
My father took over the firm when my grandfather died and worked to take it to the next level. He often shared stories with me about problems as they sprang up and got dealt with, and through this, I acquired a sense of what it takes to run an organization. However, there was never any pressure on his part for me to work for him upon graduation. Much the contrary: I studied art and history, not business, and was encouraged to find my own path. Though much of my upbringing would have pointed me toward working for my dad (my best friend’s dad said it was inevitable), my parents never stressed that that as an option.
In retrospect, there is nothing better that they could have done to leave the door open for me to eventually get involved. Why? Because I was able to travel and work at different jobs for a decade, and see what other alternatives were out there.
I spent time drifting about, gathering input and experience that I might later apply if I ever wanted to work for the family. Graduate school in Britain. A sales job in Germany (at which I was a failure). Hitchhiking in Germany (after said sales job). Back to Philadelphia to work for a small business and then for a major corporation, the Vanguard Group.
At Vanguard I was exposed for the first time to corporate business practices and the efficiency (read: tyranny) of Six Sigma, things I’d never seen before. Then, having enlisted in a local National Guard unit, the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry, I deployed to Iraq, which offered yet another series of new impressions. So much casting about, it would seem…
… but not really! For, though I liked trying new things, I deeply wanted a line of work to sink my teeth into and make my own. Though I never found a shoe that entirely fit, I was setting myself up more and more for getting back to the family business, without even knowing it. Working for many different masters, both civilian and military, I still carried in me the seeds planted to think like an entrepreneur. And by then I was craving the sort of work environment our family business would have offered from the beginning.
So at age 30, I signed on with my father. The first task he gave me on my first day at the office was the first task his dad had given him to do: take out the trash. Since then, things have been working well. He’s the best boss I’ve had to date, but who knows if I’d think that way had I not had the chance to have other bosses?
If those of you who own a business would like to keep your enterprise in family hands, consider how things worked out for us. If you plant the right seeds in your children’s heads; if you share your thought processes with them as problems at work arise; and if you give them the room to do their own thing for a while, they may wind up having no better option than to return to you thankfully!
G. Andrew Meschter is a commercial broker at Meschter Insurance Group in Collegeville, Pa. (g.andrew@meschter.com).