According to four successful executives who grew up immersed in the daily affairs of small business, there can be immense joy in the interconnectedness of intergenerational family firms – as well as enormous stress in economically straitened times. Both are a study in the realities of leading a company.
Dr Terrance Fitzsimmons, a researcher in business leadership at The University of Queensland Business School, says that the children of small-business owners are often exposed from an early age to adult business talk that can serve as a profoundly immersive apprenticeship.
“Business becomes part of their DNA,” says Fitzsimmons. “They can walk into a company in their early 20s and have a sophisticated conversation about profit and loss, balance sheets, loans, risk and employee issues because they’ve been observing their parents and doing it themselves.”