While reading a recent blog post by Seth Godin, entitled “Sorry Confusion,” http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2015/03/sorry-confusion.html, I was reminded of a meeting with a business owner who was planning to retire. At that time he was pondering whether he should sell the business to his employees or to a third party. But internally what he was struggling with were two children who were not speaking with each other; a son-in-law working in the business who did not have the skills to actually run the business; a non-family manager who to a large degree was running the business but did not have resources to buy it. He also had grandchildren who, from his perspective, were too young to be considered for anything. His thinking and plans at that moment did not include any of his family.

One of the sorry things about this situation is opportunities being missed. By his thoughtlessness with regard to his family members and existing family dynamics–conjuring “escape plans” rather than face them–the businessman has willfully blinded himself to every possible resource, every possible talent, that one or more of his family members might contribute to bring the family business into the next generation.