PODCAST: From Wall Street to Running the Family Business with Ken Natori

From Wall Street to Running the Family Business Listen to the full episode of “From Wall Street to Running the Family Business” with special guest Ken Natori. iTunes Spotify My guest in this episode of The Secret Thoughts of CEOs is Ken Natori, president of the Natori Company. I met Ken several years ago at a conference where we were both speaking. I immediately liked his vibe and started following him on social media. Ken’s mother founded the business in 1977. Ken was raised as an only child by a trailblazing mother and father. He talks about the story of pursuing his own path before joining the family business to now working today at his mother’s side. We talk about …

An End of Life Discussion and Lesson for Family Businesses

  In the majority of my work with family business clients, I find one crucial thing to be missing, especially as they begin to look at a succession or transition. I’d like to share a personal experience dear to my heart to illustrate this. In 2018, one of my heroes, Ken Yonker, passed away at the age of 99 years young. Ken was my grandfather, and I was honored to have known him so well. He was a very important fixture in my life all the way up to the end. In early 2018- several months before Ken passed on- I was able to spend time with him over the course of a couple of days talking about his life …

Family Business Transition: How One Family Smoothly Handled a Family Member’s Exit

A couple of weeks ago in a previous blog, I shared a story about a time I was speaking at a global family business event. One of the families in attendance asked a question. They were having a challenge around a family business transition and member who wanted to exit the business against the family’s wishes Below is an example taken from my work with a client of mine. It illustrates very powerfully what can happen when the vision of each individual family member is considered in any sort of transition or family business succession. Personal details, such as names and industries, have been changed to protect the client’s privacy. Family Dynamics The Garrison’s were a two-generation family business who …

The Top 2 Reasons Family Business Succession Plans Fall Apart

    Over 50% of succession plans fall apart and fail… This has been documented time and time again. So WHY do succession plans fail and what can you do about it? In my work with family business clients I have found two things to be true for most failed succession plans.  1. Lack of Vision and Values Alignment Many organizations have not taken the crucial step of not only mapping out the vision and values of the organization, but then doing the same for the family and the individual members of the family.  Most often this leads to family members or other individuals working in the organizations who have a vision of where they want their life to go …

A Family Business Story: From Dysfunction to a Life and Business by Design

This is the story of a family my team worked with over the course of 18 months.  Names have been changed to protect their privacy.  Since the early 80’s, Brad had seen his family business flourish and grow into two businesses. But over the years, his businesses slowly began running him. He often found himself in the weeds with a family, two companies, and over 50 employees. Brad was at a crossroads.  Succession planning became a serious option. Brad wanted to devise a plan that would eventually let him step back from the helm of the company and let his two children take the reins, but how? This is where he reached out to us for help.  Discovering Misalignment and …