When someone hears that I work with family businesses, one of the recurring problems they tell me about is that the children do not want to work in them; and I always find myself considering the origins of the issue.

In her article in the Harvard Business Review “Three Things that Actually Motivate Employees” Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Professor and Director of the Harvard University Advanced Leadership Initiative wrote that mastery, membership, and meaning are the primary work motivators (https://hbr.org/2013/10/three-things-that-actually-motivate-employees/)

Mastery and meaning play significant roles in both non-family businesses and family enterprises. It may be assumed that the third element, membership, is obvious and a given in a family business. Kanter writes, however, that membership requires “allowing the whole person to surface.”

“Allowing the whole person to surface” may be an obscure goal and an uncertain generational challenge for some family business founders whose sheer dominance and drive created the success of the family business in the first place. It is, however, critical to the next generation finding success under their own leadership.