Book Review: Keeping the Family Baggage Out of the Family Business: Avoiding the Seven Deadly Sins That Destroy Family Businesses, by Quentin J. Fleming

Family businesses are interesting organizations. They often struggle to differentiate two different, but frequently overlapping, systems: the family system and the business system. In “healthy” family businesses, these two competing worlds are skillfully and intentionally managed and kept in their respective places. Far too often, however, the family system inserts itself into the business and creates unique and dire challenges.

Quentin J. Fleming has done a masterful job in explaining what he identifies as the seven deadly sins that destroy family businesses. This is a highly relevant topic to the business world, in general, due to the high percentage of businesses that meet the definition of family-owned. Fleming defines a family business as “any instance in which two or more people from the same family work together in a business that at least one of them owns.” Fleming, using that definition, goes on to explain that family businesses are “the major force in our economy.”

Before we look at the seven deadly sins, consider the scope of family businesses in America in 2013. Here are some of the statistics in 2000 as cited by Fleming:

  • There are more than 12 million family businesses in the US
  • FBs make up 75 to 95 percent of all US companies
  • FBs generate 40 to 60 percent of the US GNP
  • FBs represent more than half of all wages paid
  • FBs make up one third of Fortune 500 companies traded on the NYSE

Do these numbers surprise you? This area of family business is big business. Helping family businesses sort through the unique set of challenges they face is a great need in the corporate world (and many non-profits as well) of 2013. Add to these statistics that most family businesses do not survive multi-generationally.

  • Only 30 percent of FBs survive to the second generation
  • Only 10 percent of FBs survive to the third generation

So why don’t family businesses survive? Fleming answers that question as he unpacks the seven deadly sins, the seven intrusions of the family system into the business system. These invaders destroy the organization from within. Successful and wise family businesses would do well to heed Fleming’s prophetic warning. Here are his seven deadly sins:

The Syndrome – The Consequence

  • “It’s the same old song” – People’s behaviors, roles, and beliefs from childhood are perpetuated in the business.”
  • “We’re one big, happy family” – “Failure to acknowledge that the business system requires different practices than the family system.”
  • “They may have become adults, but they’ll always be my children” – “Parents are unable to accept their children as grown adults.”
  • “You’re not loyal to this family if you insist on being selfish” – “Failure to acknowledge family members as individuals.”
  • “Father knows best” – “Business founders usually possess dominating personalities and/or are consumed with the business.”
  • “Maybe it will go away if we ignore it” – “Failing to address problems that will inevitably emerge with increasing intensity and destructive potential.”
  • “Tell me about your childhood?” – “Children enter the family’s business before experiencing significant distance to resolve critical issues from their childhood.”

Fleming does a masterful job of unpacking each of these deadly syndromes and goes on to explain proven strategies for overcoming these family temptations. This is a must read for everyone involved in a family business (which is lots of us in the US). I highly recommend this book and the wisdom it contains.

1. Quentin J. Fleming, Keep the Family Baggage Out of the Family Business: Avoiding the Seven Deadly Sins That Destroy Family Businesses (2000, NY: Fireside), 11.

2. Fleming, 12.

3. All of the above statistics are taken from Fleming.

4. Table derived from Fleming, 48.