This review was first published in Business Standard on July 14, 2021
Book: The Ultimate Family Business
Survival Guide
Author: Priyanka Gupta Zielinski
Price: 399/-
Pages: 256
Year: 2021
Publisher: Pan Macmillan, New Delhi
The author
of “The Ultimate Family Business Survival Guide”, Priyanka Gupta Zielinski, is
a lucky [as she admits in the acknowledgments section of the book], successful,
second-generation family business scion and she clearly loves being one. Her
book is a love letter to and on family businesses.
I write
this review as an academician with years of research on family businesses.
Therefore, I would like to put this out at the outset that I am an advocate of
family businesses myself, though not unaware of the challenges. This is not to
say that the author is not aware of the challenges. She is. It’s just that the
book is skewed towards the positives. And that is exactly why it is such an
important book for the next generation members of family businesses.
I hear from
many next-generation members of family firms that they “have it too easy.” The
author lays out her fears of making mistakes, losses, letting her father down,
in a very vulnerable way. So it’s not so easy after all. Many others don’t want
to join the family firm as it’s “not fashionable enough”, “not challenging
enough”, “not glamorous enough”, and “not the first option for a career.”
Zielinski
lays down many reasons as to why the next-gen should join the family business.
She effectively communicates that family businesses contribute in a big way to
nation building, creating jobs, supporting local communities, contributing to
the exchequer and preserving history and legacy. She systematically creates a
strong case for the next-gen to join their family businesses and how there is
plenty of opportunity for them to learn, grow and make a difference.
The
father-daughter conversations are endearing, realistic, and depict the informal
knowledge transfer that is an integral part of family businesses. The book
lucidly captures the informal yet important communications within a business
family, the stakes of the family in the business and the rich resources basket
that the family is for the business and each member of the family. “Shirtsleeves
to shirtsleeves in three generations” might be an adage of the past if more
family businesses read books such as this!’
The author
takes each stereotype about family businesses heads on and turns them upside
down to depict how they are actually good business practices. There is merit in
what she writes and is true for many family businesses. Yet, many of the family
businesses genuinely need to change. An example is the role of that gender
plays in family businesses. The author writes that family businesses “have
allowed women freedom, flexibility, and job security.” The picture in many
family businesses is not so rosy. There is no doubt that family businesses can
be important vehicle for upliftment of gender equality. There is a lot greater
involvement of women now. Yet, overall, they have miles to go.
The toolkit
to “help develop a sustainable framework to empower multiple generations in a
family business” proposed in the book is fun, logical, creative and unique. The
swiss army knife as an analogy for adaptation is particularly apt for change
and having the ability to adapt. The book also provides the readers with some
astute survival tools and throws light on how family businesses can make better
decisions in difficult situations, such as in a pandemic or when they are
pushed against the wall. For most families, survival of the business is
extremely important as their entire wealth, reputation, legacy, and many
emotions are linked to it.
But, to me,
the most important contribution of the book is it’s impassioned appeal for the
policymakers to recognize and respect family businesses for their
contributions. It stresses on the need for a policy framework that is tailored
for family businesses. The author talks about centres for conflict resolution
outside the courts. Which is a very important point as the more family matters
stay out of court, the better it is for the family and the business. Also, so
far the world of management education has designed curriculum for and imported
lessons from large multi-national diversified corporations. In this book, the
author makes a case for these corporations to learn from family businesses.
That is refreshing.
Lastly, in
India, and globally, we need champions of family businesses like Zielinski. We
need more of the next-gen members who joined their family businesses to come
forward and narrate their experiences, both good and bad. As Zielinski’s father
would say, “kag padhaya pinjare, padh gaya charon ved – samjhaye samjha
nahin, raha dedh ka dedh”, applied to the context of family businesses, it
means, if you educate a family business owner or next-generation member like the
manager of a non-family corporate, it will not be adequate for him. Therefore,
we need more next-gen members to read books such as these when they are in a
dilemma whether to join the family business or not.
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