Family Business on the Couch (eBook)

A Psychological Perspective

Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, Randel S. Carlock (Autoren)

eBook Download: EPUB

2010
John Wiley & Sons (Verlag)
978-0-470-68747-5 (ISBN)

Infos

The challenge faced by family businesses and their stakeholders, is to recognise the issues that they face, understand how to develop strategies to address them and more importantly, to create narratives, or family stories that explain the emotional dimension of the issues to the family. The most intractable family business issues are not the business problems the organisation faces, but the emotional issues that compound them. Applying psychodynamic concepts will help to explain behaviour and will enable the family to prepare for life cycle transitions and other issues that may arise.

Here is a new understanding and a broader perspective on the human dynamics of family firms with two complementary frameworks, psychodynamic and family systematic, to help make sense of family-run organisations. Although this book includes a conceptual section, it is first and foremost a practical book about the real world issues faced by business families.

The book begins by demonstrating that many years of achievement through generations can be destroyed by the next, if the family fails to address the psychological issues they face. By exploring cases from famous and less well known family businesses across the world, the authors discuss entrepreneurs, the entrepreneurial family and the lifecycles of the individual and the organisation. They go on to show how companies going through change and transition can avoid the pitfalls that endanger both family and company. The authors then apply tools that will help family businesses in transition and offer their analyses and conclusions.

Readers should draw their own conclusions from careful examination of the cases, identifying the problems or dilemmas faced and the options for improved business performance and family relationships. They should ask what they might have done in the given situation and what new insight into individual or family behaviour each case offers. The goal is to avoid a bitter ending.

MANFRED F.R. KETS DE VRIES brings a unique perspective to the much-studied subjects of leadership and the dynamics of individual and organizational change. He is a clinical professor of leadership development and holds the Raoul de Vitry d’Avaucourt Chair of Leadership Development at INSEAD, France & Singapore. He is also the Director of INSEAD’s Global Leadership Center. He has held professorships at McGill University, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, Montreal, and the Harvard Business School, and he has lectured at management institutions around the world. He is a founding member of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations. The Financial Times, Le Capital, Wirtschaftswoche, and The Economist have rated Manfred Kets de Vries among the world’s top fifty thinkers on management and among the world’s most influential people in human resource management.

He is the author, co-author, or editor of more than 24 books and over 250 scientific papers as chapters in books and as articles. His books and articles have been translated into more than 25 languages. He was also the first non-American recipient of the International Leadership Award for “his contributions to the classroom and the board room.”

Kets de Vries is a consultant on organizational design/transformation and strategic human resource management to leading US, Canadian, European, African, Australian and Asian companies. As an educator and consultant he has worked in more than forty countries.

DR. RANDEL S. CARLOCK is the first Berghmans Lhoist Chaired Professor in Entrepreneurial Leadership, the founding Director of the Wendel International Centre for Family Enterprise and a founding board member of the Global Leadership Centre at INSEAD. Previously he was the first Opus Professor of Family Enterprise and founder of the family business center at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, MN (USA). Carlock has an MA in education and training (1976), an MBA in strategic management (1983), and a Ph.D. (1991), all from the University of Minnesota. His doctoral dissertation explored the role of organization development in managing high growth entrepreneurial firms. He has also completed a post graduate certification in family and marriage therapy at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, University of London (1998) and a certificate in psychodynamic counseling at Birkbeck College, University of London (1999). He was awarded a Certificate in Family Business Advising with Fellow Status (2001) by The Family Firm Institute, Boston, MA (USA).

He is the author of several books, articles, book chapters, videos and case studies. He has over 25 years of experience serving as an executive with a global family business and as CEO and chairman of his own NASDAQ listed corporation. He currently advises global business families and corporations around the world specializing in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

ELIZABETH FLORENT-TREACY, Research Project Manager at INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France, and Singapore, She works in the INSEAD Global Leadership Centre, and the Wendel International Centre for Family Enterprise. She has conducted research in the following areas: global leadership; global organizations; corporate culture in European and global organizations; American, French and Russian business practices; family business issues (governance, succession, strategy); entrepreneurial leadership; cross-cultural management; women and global leadership; cultural aspects of mergers and acquisitions; transformational leadership; expatriate executives and families; and the psychodynamics of leadership. She holds degrees in Sociology (BA) and Organization Development (MA).

Elizabeth has written authored or co-authored 4 books, 21 articles, working papers and book chapters and 18 case studies on leadership and family business topics.

Inhalt

Preface

Acknowledgements

PART I: QUESTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS

Introduction

Endnote

1 A Psychological Perspective on Business Families

Psychodynamic and family systemic perspectives

Key ideas from the psychodynamic approach

The role of transference and countertransference

The family systemic perspective

A therapeutic alliance

A summing-up

Endnotes

2 The Challenges of Love and Work

Conflicting goals in the family business

The tree-circles model

How conflict can develop

Endnotes

3 Family Business Practices: Assessing Strengths and Weaknesses

The interface of business and family practices

Assessing the health of a family business

Endnotes

PART II: REFLECTION AND LEARNING

4 The Life Cycle as an Organizing Construct

The multiple life cycles of the family business

Key models of human psychological development

The family life cycle

Carter and McGoldrick's family-based life cycle model

Applying the life cycle in family businesses

Endnotes

5 Narcissism, Envy, and Myths in Family Firms

Personality types

Managerial implications of dysfunctional narcissism

The importance of individuation

The family firm as transitional object

The power of envy

Games families play: the role of family myths

The impact of family myths on the family business

Summary

Endnotes

6 The Entrepreneur: Alone at the Top

Common personality characteristics of founder-entrepreneurs

Larry Ellison and Oracle

Deciphering the inner theater of the entrepreneur

Common defensive structures in founder-entrepreneurs

Maintaining the balance

Endnotes

7 Leadership Transition: Replacing a Parent as CEO

Options for tackling the succession problem

The inheritance

Psychological pressures on new leaders

Staying on course

Endnotes

8 A Systemic View of the Business Family

A two-way relationship

The evolution of systems theory

The development of family-systems theory

The family-systems proposition

Family scripts and rules

Family scripts in the family business

A practical example of family systems thinking

Endnotes

9 Diagnosing Family Entanglements

The family genogram

The Circumplex Model of marriage and family systems

Differentiation of self from family of origin

Two family stories

Endnotes

PART III: INTEGRATION AND ACTION

10 Addressing Transitions and Change

Lewin's ideas on change

The Kets de Vries model of individual change

Major themes in the individual journey toward change

The process of change within organizations

The change process in families

Family focus or organization focus?

Endnotes

11 The Vicissitudes of Family Business

The Steinbergs: A study in self-destruction

The immigrant dream

His mother's son

The entrepreneur's vision

Sam as a family business leader

The entrepreneur's dilemma: Passing the baton

The next generation

Irving Ludmer: Play it again, Sam

A family systems perspective on the Steinbergs

The effects of Sam Steinberg's inner world on the family business

The inner theater of Sam's daughters

What if?

Endnotes

12 Putting Family Business Intervention into Practice

The Family Action Research Process

The succession conundrum

The role of the outside adviser

Advice to families seeking help

The benefits pf a psychodynamic systems perspective

Final words

Endnotes

Appendix 1: Developing a Business Family Genogram

Creating the genogram

Therapeutic applications of the genogram

Using the genogram to identify family scripts and themes

How genograms improve communication

Endnotes

Appendix 2: The Clinical Rating Scales and the Circumplex Model

How the CRS work

Endnotes

Index

Rezensionen

"...explores the reasons why some family businesses are
dysfunctional - and how to cure them." (The
Guardian, Saturday 15th September 2007)

"fascinating new book" (The Independent, Tuesday 9th
October 2007)

"a unique insight into the subject." (Guardian Unlimited
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 13th December)

"You'll find this book well worth reading" (Edge,
February 2008)

"...an insight into addressing key family buisness issues."
(Gulf Buisness, February 2008)

Textauszug

CHAPTER 1

A PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON BUSINESS FAMILIES

In most societies the family is a fundamental institution for transmitting values to succeeding generations, and for ensuring their physical and emotional development. Families are usually driven by a deep concern for both the well-being of individual family members and for the family legacy. However, in a business family, normal family goals may come into conflict with the business’s economic goals because an important theme within the family system is to meet the human and psychological needs of its members rather than to arrive at the best economic return.

It is a truism that human beings are subjected to many elusive, out of awareness processes that affect how they make decisions. We all know that executives (including people working in family businesses) do not always act rationally, logically, or sensibly [1]. However, we have discovered that many leaders of family businesses seem to be especially prone to irrational behavior (as will be illustrated in the various case studies that appear in this book) [2]. Clinical investigation has shown that many problems in family businesses stem from the fact that their leaders (as well as other family members employed in key positions in the business) are often unknowingly acting out their deepest conflicts, desires and fantasies in the larger arena of the family business. The task for anyone studying family businesses is therefore to look at deep structures: the inner motives, fantasies, desires and defensive reactions of the principal actors. What drives them? What makes them act the way they do? How can we make sense of their behavior?

In a family business (particularly one in crisis) there will be a need at some point for its members to reflect on how their family is organized and to tease out the structures and rules that drive their interpersonal relationships. They will have to discover which of their interaction patterns are functional and which are dysfunctional. Carl Jung often asked his troubled patients, ‘Is this behavior working for you?’ If the answer is ‘No,’ it may well be time for the family to consider other approaches to relating to each other.

A very effective conceptual way of understanding individual behavior and motivation is psychoanalytic psychology, particularly objects relations theory [3]. However, when studying family businesses we have found that this orientation to understanding complex human processes needs to be enhanced by theory from the more recent fields of systems analysis and family therapy—known as family systems theory [4]. We have discovered that combining psychodynamic thinking with family systems ideas into a psychodynamic-systems approach can be invaluable as a key to unlocking many of the knotty problems faced by business families.

PSYCHODYNAMIC AND FAMILY SYSTEMIC PERSPECTIVES

One of the challenges we faced in writing this book was overcoming some of the institutional or academic barriers to working across the boundaries between psychodynamic and family systemic therapy. In 1998, Christopher Dare, in a paper on the practice of psychodynamic and family systemic therapy, commented:

The two disciplines of family therapy and psychoanalysis remain organizationally and conceptually disassociated from each other despite the two subjects having considerable overlap, plying adjacent trades and using theoretical ideas which show considerable parallels [5].

At the time, Dare encouraged a stronger link between the two disciplines. But in fact, a rapprochement of these two ways of looking at human behavior is increasingly becoming a reality. In practice, we have found it extremely useful to establish a link to the inner psychological theater of the individual and explore how the scenes of this inner theater are enacted in the larger family system.

To have a greater impact in family business interventions, this book is designed around the application of psychodynamic and family systemic frameworks for studying human behavior [6]. Applying these two perspectives creates a more complete and balanced view of individual behavior and interpersonal relationships. It is an ideal way to bring a degree of rationality to what can, at times, be extremely perplexing behavior.

Because of this orientation, we use theories, concepts, methodologies, techniques, and vocabularies that are more often used in psychology than in discussions of management issues. In particular, we draw on concepts and theories taken from psychodynamic psychology (particularly object relations theory, self-psychology, and ego psychology), dynamic psychiatry, developmental theory, cognition, and the study of narrative.

In this search for rapprochement between various disciplines we like to emphasize that object relations theory, an offshoot of psychoanalytic theory that emphasizes interpersonal relations, primarily in the family and especially between mother and child, will be especially helpful to bridge the gap between classical psychoanalytic psychology and family systems theory. Object relations theorists are interested in inner images of the self and other, and how they manifest themselves in interpersonal situations. Consequently, there is a degree of overlap between this derivative of classical psychoanalysis and family systems theory. As Christopher Dare said, ‘Psychoanalysis and family therapy can come together now, [. . .] by agreeing that both are preoccupied with the therapeutically useful, ethically apt re-creation and telling of stories’ [7].

KEY IDEAS FROM THE PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH

The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud postulated that the human mind functions through the interaction of opposing forces. A person has wishes and fantasies that evoke anxiety, leading to defensive reactions that range from relatively normal to dysfunctional. The conflict between these forces is mainly unconscious, and yet can have a huge impact on people’s emotional life, self-image and relationships with other people and larger organizations [8].

Children are born with certain innate desires that cause them to seek pleasure and avoid pain. These desires become transformed into mental images that govern their feelings and behavior. As their parents attempt to socialize and fit them for society, children inevitably experience frustration of such desires as they learn what is allowed and what is forbidden. Gradually their childish impulses are modified and transformed more in line with societal norms. During this process many of the original desires and anxieties associated with them are seemingly forgotten. However, these unacceptable wishes and desires are not really forgotten but continue to linger below the surface, retaining the potential to affect adult behavior significantly in later life.

Freud later went on to formulate a general theory of mental development, part of which involved defining ideas such as the unconscious, defenses (the desire of the conscious mind to cope with wishes and fantasies emerging from the unconscious), and character patterns. He also described the developmental stages of childhood in his ‘psychosexual stages of development’ (which we look at in more detail in Chapter 4) and the idea of transference.

THE ROLE OF TRANSFERENCE AND COUNTERTRANSFERENCE

Everyday conversation consists of one person attempting to transmit feelings to another. We talk about ‘putting something across,’ or giving someone ‘a piece of our mind.’ For example, when we are in distress, we may try to convey to another person our distress in such a way that he or she can literally feel it. The normal communication process consists of fairly rapidly oscillating cycles of projection and introjection: as one person communicates with words and demeanor (projection), the other receives and interprets the communication (introjection); then the listener, having understood the speaker’s message, reprojects it to the original speaker, perhaps accompanied by an interpretation [9].

Similarly, at some stage in any research or process involving the investigating of human behavior, the subject of that investigation is likely to evoke certain responses in the researcher—responses that in a therapeutic encounter between a client and therapist are usually referred to as ‘transference’ and ‘countertransference. ’ This cycle of projection and introjection—a ubiquitous phenomenon—is what transference and countertransference processes are all about.

Transference is normally used to describe the way in which a client perceives or experiences in their therapist characteristics or behavior that belong either to an important figure from the client’s own past (a parent, for example), or that are a denied part of their own personality (for example, the client perceives the therapist as being angry or sad when in fact these are the client’s subconscious feelings ‘projected’ on to the therapist).

The term ‘countertransference’ is normally used to mean the feelings that a client evokes in a therapist—again, possibly relating to an important figure or figures from the therapist’s past. It describes feelings that therapists become aware of that do not seem to belong to themselves but which they experience as a result of being with the client. For example, at the end of a therapy session the therapist may feel inexplicably frightened, sad, confused, or worried. This may be due to the subtle transference of these feelings to the therapist by the client.

In short, transference refers to the feelings of the client about the...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 2.3.2010
• Co-Autor: Elizabeth Florent-Treacy
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Beruf / Finanzen / Recht / Wirtschaft ► Bewerbung / Karriere
• Themenwelt: Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Planung / Organisation
• Schlagworte: business • Business & Management • Businesses • Business Self-Help • effectively • Family • Firm • groundbreaking • holistic • Impact • Individual Personality • interpersonal • Irrationalities • Officer • Powerful • Ratgeber Wirtschaft • Rational • relationships • Singapore • Soul • Surface • topic • View • Way • Wirtschaft /Ratgeber • Wirtschaft u. Management
• ISBN-10: 0-470-68747-9 / 0470687479
• ISBN-13: 978-0-470-68747-5 / 9780470687475