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Judy Barber |
As man of us know, when children grow up in a family, there isn't always a level playing field. For a number of different reasons, some parents may favor one child over another, just as some children may be closer to one parent than the other. During childhood, issues of competition, comparison and cooperation - the three C's - are often the unspoken reasons for creating distance between brothers and sisters.* As children leave home and become more independent, the three C's may recede into the background, particularly when brothers and sisters don't own assets together. However, when siblings find themselves partners in a business venture, such as a closely held business, old rivalries can surface and the process of making decisions together may feel like a replay of the heated arguments or icy silences that once took place around the dining room table. This is particularly true when one sibling assumes the leadership in managing the assets. Such is the case with the Miller family. Maggie (55), a corporate lawyer, is the general partner of a $20 million partnership, along with her brother Roger (47), a history professor at a small, private university, and Julie (42), a successful artist. Dad died in 1986 and Mom passed away quite suddenly in early 1997, although she had been the managing partner since her husband's death. Although Mom sought Maggie's counsel and kept Roger and Julie informed, Mom pretty much handled the assets herself. She managed four 30-50 unit apartment buildings in high income urban neighborhoods and closely monitored three investment managers of a well diversified multi-million dollar stock portfolio. She did her job well and the assets grew. The decision regarding Maggie's role as general partner was made before Dad's death. At the time the partnership was set up, Maggie, Roger and Julie were each given one share as limited partners. Mom and Dad each had two shares. When Mom died, her two shares went to Maggie. Dad's two shares were divided between Julie and Roger, so together they could out-vote Maggie. Although the income from these assets provides all three children with a very comfortable lifestyle, the partnership isn't working. The three have very different views of how the commercial property and stock portfolio should be managed. The disagreements revolve around whether to make capital improvements on the buildings (very little has been done since Dad died) and whether to continue to retain the threeinvestment firms that Mom and Dad hired 25 years ago, not long after Dad sold his business. Maggie wants to put a large sum of money into the buildings which would, in the short term, reduce income but eventually bring in more dollara sn enhance the value of the real estate. Roger is adamant about not doing that right now and would rather build up a larger cash reserve. Julie doesn't feel strongly one way or another. Both Julie and Roger want to interview new money managers "to see what is out there," they say. Maggie disagrees. These three adults together cannot get along. The reasons are older and deeper than disagreement about the management of the partnership. To begin, the siblings were raised in a highly competitive environment where Mom and Dad had pretty rigid beliefs about the right life course for all three of their children. The parents believed by providing a healthy competitive environment they were preparing their children for the real world. These values were subtly expressed by mom and dad through an unrelenting teasing, played out by their comparing and contrasting of the three children's personalities, strengths and vulnerabilities. Yet Mom and Dad were proud of all three of their children's achievements. As Roger and Julie reached their twenties, they both moved across the country and sought careers outside the business world. Althought both parents supported their decisions to pursue academia and art, respectively, neither parent felt as comfortable with those choices as they did with Maggie's decision to continue practicing in their community. The dynamics in this family were set up long before the siblings chose careers. As a teenager, while Julie and Roger were still in elementary school, Maggie sat in on Dad's business meetings, many of which were held informally at her parents' home. By the time Roger and Julie were old enough to attend, those conferences took place at Dad's office. Roger was disappointed he wasn't included as Maggie had been. Julie didn't care. She didn't want to have anything to do with the business or the growing tension between Maggie and Roger. Later, when Dad invested the profits from the sale of the business, Maggie was an associate in the law firm where the transactions took place. She later became a partner in that firm. Maggie's special relationship with her parents is a bone of contention with her siblings. Roger and Julie resent that she is the general partner, while Maggie believes she knows what Mom and Dad would want. Furthermore, because of her close proximity to the real estate and positive working relationship with the portfolio managers, she feels her vote should have "more weight" than the other two. She's also hurt at how little Roger and Julie acknowledge the support she gave her parents over the years and how, as she believes, her management skills are holding the partnership together. Roger, on the other hand, feels Maggie is cavalier about her role, secretive, and basically wants to make the decisions on her own. Julie would just like them to get along and be released from being caught in the middle. Before these siblings can work effectively in the partnership, they need to spend time together understanding each other better and be willing to communicate more openly about their feelings. They need to explore the early family relationships, examine how their parents perceived each of them and analyze their feelings about each other and how their past hurt has influenced their current business relationships. They can begin by listening to each other and answering the following questions: What was it like for each of you to grow up in the family? How did you perceive your parents' attitude toward you individually and how do you think they perceived your siblings? How do those experiences of growing up in your family affect your current business relationship? What do you need to do to accept each other so you can work together better? In concrete terms, what do you need from each other to promote greater equity in the decision making and work together as a team? Although raised by the same parents, each family member had a unique childhood experience which he or she has probably never shared with the others. Maggie, for example, knows in some ways she was favored by her parents. She also felt burdened from a very early age by their expectations and embarrassed by their setting her up as a role model for Julie and Roger. She often felt lonely and left out as her siblings paired up. She watched with envy as their childhood squabbles turned into a close relationship during their teenage years. Roger, whose early academic prowess pleased his parents, began to feel estranged from them in adolescence, and turned inward. He marveled at Maggie's ease in the world and envied her closeness to Dad. As a child, Julie was not so aware of trying to please Mom and Dad and didn't feel as much pressure as the older siblings. She does, however, remember a rivalry between Roger and Maggie, which in her view, still exists. She escaped into art and friends and was happy to graduate early from high school. Maggie envied the freedom Roger and Julie enjoyed, while she parents. Jealous of Maggie's special relationship with his parents, Roger saw his mother's death as a way for him to begin to have influence and prove to himself that he could make a significant contribution to the partnership. Maggie's attitude toward him is reminiscent of his father's - that Roger lives in an academic ivory tower and is not a shrewd analyst of data. Once the Miller siblings: (1) can begin to talk about these past issues which influence them today, (2) have regular meetings where they can continue their discussions, (3) speak out openly about the differences they face today, and (4) learn to trust each other and their ability to maintain the partnership, then they can begin to relate as equals and solve their current partnership problems as adults. [The Miller family is a composite. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.]
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