‘Violent agreement': Sara Stern and Katie Rucker on co-leadership

If your co-leadership structure is a compromise resulting from an impasse among NextGens, you're probably headed for failure.

It all started with a one-line LinkedIn post.

“How to fail as a family business guide: let them share leadership roles,” wrote Sara B. Stern, a family business advisor at EOS Worldwide.

Katie Rucker commented on the post soon after:  “So interested to unpack this one a bit more — are you suggesting that a shared leadership role for family members would be a fail? Or are you saying not to let the consultant share a leadership role with family business members?”

Rucker is co-owner and co-president (with her twin sister, Jenny Dinnen) of strategic consulting firm MacKenzie Corp., based in Orange County, Calif.

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Stern replied that she would love to talk. That led to a co-interview on co-leadership with Family Business Magazine, during which the two quickly discovered they actually were in, as Stern puts it, “violent agreement” on the subject.

Indeed, they concurred on a key, overarching takeaway: Co-leadership in a family business can work, but it's hard work, which is why it often doesn't work.

Divvy it up

“In my experience, when everybody owns something, no one owns it,” Stern says, likening family businesses with poorly delineated co-leadership roles to households that have failed to assign trash duty: Everybody just keeps shoving more garbage into the bin instead of taking it out.

Jenny Dinnen (left) and Katy Rucker
Jenny Dinnen (left) and Katy Rucker

When two people lay claim to a single top position in a family business, accountability can suffer.

“There are parts of that job that stink and, if nobody owns that part, it's going to stink up the whole company,” she says.

Rucker laughs at this metaphor — and wholeheartedly agrees.

That's exactly why she and Dinnen, with the help of a family business consultant, decided early on to clearly define each of their responsibilities. Rucker serves as president, operations, and Dinnen serves as president, sales & marketing.

Establishing a harmonious working relationship did not exactly come naturally, however. The two didn't get along growing up — they even went to separate high schools.

“Jenny was captain of the cheerleading squad and all that stuff. I was, for sure, not that kid. I was like the opposite,” Rucker says.

It wasn't until much later that they discovered how well their skillsets and personalities complement each other  — not to mention how much they enjoy working together. That realization ultimately formed the basis of their co-leadership plan.

“To be successful has to come down to communication, respect and understanding,” Rucker says. “And if that's not there, I 100% agree with Sara that this would be an absolute fail.”

Titles and entitlement

Rucker and Stern also agree that the single worst reason to establish a co-leadership role in a family business is to be “fair” to NextGens who all feel they're rightful heirs to the throne.

Stern says business advisors have a duty to encourage families to put egos and awkwardness aside in favor of picking the best candidate for the job.

“The thing I get super passionate about is … [when] people who don't have that love and that respect and that intelligence and an equal ability — or damn close to equal ability — say, ‘Well, we're twins, so we have to share it,' and the advisor doesn't say, ‘Wait a minute; one of you has a master's degree and one of you has finished third grade. I'm not sure you're right.'”

Sara B. Stern
Sara B. Stern

Rucker and Dinnen's father, Don Vivrette, founded MacKenzie as a market research firm in 1985 and originally planned to close the business when he retired. But the sisters had started to think about what MacKenzie could become.

Before they approached their father about taking over the business, they asked their coach, JoAnne Norton, to help them develop a plan to present to him.

Rather than try to reverse engineer a way for Rucker and Dinnen to be co-presidents, they focused on determining which leadership structure would best serve the company.

“We started [by] really going through strengths and weaknesses,” Rucker says. “Where are my areas of focus that I'm passionate about? What are you passionate about? What are our communication styles? How do we support each other?

We were like, ‘Gosh, you have those traits and I have these traits, and combined we can really kick ass … And I don't think, honestly, that either one of us would be the right person to be the one leader of the company.”

Slay the ‘two-headed monster'

It's not enough for just the co-leaders themselves to understand the demarcation of their duties — it also has to be clearly communicated to the rest of the company.

Stern says she has too often witnessed co-leadership arrangements turn into “two-headed monster” situations, with employees unsure of whom to go to for what. This invariably leads to conflicting messages, confusion and chaos.

Once they determined that co-presidency was the right model for their company, Vivrette, Rucker and Dinnen met with all of MacKenzie's employees to explain how the concept would work in practice.

After 30 years with Vivrette firmly at the helm, the first step was to break everyone of the habit of going to him for approval, Rucker says. The next step was to clearly articulate which topics were Rucker's domain and which were Dinnen's.

The third step? Be patient and recognize that it will take time for everyone to adjust to the changes.

“And then we had to hold ourselves accountable behind the scenes and amongst ourselves to actually stand strong on that,” Rucker explains.

United front

Equally as important as clearly defined boundaries is clearly demonstrated unity among co-leaders. Disagreements should be handled out of view of the employees.

Stern says that while, in her experience, there aren't typically many true “ties” in family business decision-making, it's still important to have a tie-breaker behind the scenes.

In some situations, the tie-breaker might be the company's board. For MacKenzie, the tie-breaker has been Vivrette, who, for the time being at least, retains a 4% interest in the company. (Rucker says she and Dinnen are working on purchasing that remaining stake from him.)

More than anything, though, the tie-breaker for any business should be a shared vision among leadership. On that point, Rucker and Stern find they're once again in alignment.

“Some smart person said this: ‘Fight about the vision, don't fight about the tactics,'” Stern says. “Unfortunately, I think a lot of family businesses spend a whole bunch of time fighting about the tactics. And when you can get in a room and duke it out about the vision, there's almost no debate about the tactics.”

Clearly articulating and reinforcing a shared vision is also what allows co-leaders to present a united front to the rest of the company (and family), even when an employee (or owner) attempts to sow dissent.

“There is always that, ‘If mom says no, ask dad' kind of risk” in a co-leadership arrangement, Stern says. To keep from being derailed, she explains, co-heads should always agree on the answers to two essential questions: “‘What are we actually trying to do? When is the date by which we're trying to do it?”

“So even if someone's trying to pit you against each other, it's like you can look at them and say, ‘Well, what about our vision tells you that you should be fighting for this?'”

About the Author(s)

Zack Needles

Zack Needles is Editor-in-Chief of Family Business Magazine.


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