Guest post by Gary Beckwith, author of How to Make A Million in Business
I never saw my dad. When I was eight years old, he left the family home. He never called, never visited; he just checked out of the whole ‘being a parent thing’. As I grew older, though, I was determined to have some sort of relationship with him, anything. So I kept showing up at his workplace on the River Thames, where he was an engineer on the tugs and barges. The longer I spent there, the more we had to talk about, and by the time I was 16, we were not only much closer, we were colleagues.
Running a Family Business, How to Make A Million
I guess that’s why I have such a complex view of the ‘work family balance’. For me, business has always been about family. Long before I ever ran one myself. Besides, what’s the alternative?
I’ve seen wonderful, committed couples become like passing ships in the night as their jobs dictated their schedules, locations, and, often, what they did in their spare time. I’ve witnessed wonderful people become parents who work so hard for their kids that they never actually see them.
When I started my first business, I was always conscious of not following in my father’s footsteps, but if I was ever going to succeed, I knew I’d need to work every hour I could. There was only one answer: bring the family on the journey with me.
When I first met my wife, Rita, she worked in publishing and loved it. Meanwhile, I was run off my feet operating a fuel barge, and desperate for an extra pair of hands. The paperwork alone was burying me, and my dyslexia didn’t help. At the end of each week, I’d grab all the papers, dump them in a shopping basket, and take them home to Rita.
Slowly but surely, I wore her down, and she gave up the job she loved to come and work on a barge that had no toilets and not enough customers. I guess she saw it even then. The relationship or the business: it was all in or all out.
We have two children together, Matthew and Lucy, and both have experienced the positives and negatives that come with a lifetime in the family business.
Every meal time becomes a boardroom meeting.
You get to a stage where all you talk about is business. Who phoned in sick today? What are we going to do about this new legislation? How’s the new boat coming along? A company becomes your own little Coronation Street; you get so tangled up in the stories of people’s lives.
They need to transcend the family name.
If you believe in succession planning as much as I do, you’ll know you can’t give your kids special treatment. If anything, you need to work them harder than everybody else. They need to earn the respect of their peers. My son Matthew started working with us when he was 12 years old. He went from stocking cupboards to serving snacks, to doing the commentary on our site setting ships. He trained to be a captain, worked in engineering, took over HR, and did years of management training. He worked across every department, and by the time we had 500 staff, Matthew knew all their names, their kids’ names, and where they were going on holiday together. It’s hard work, and at times they won’t see your vision for them, but without this preparation, everything you’ve built could fall apart within a generation (and that will be your fault, not theirs).
Sometimes they’ll be left out.
My daughter Lucy had a huge part to play in City Cruises, but as she grew older, she wanted to do her own thing. Matthew, Rita and I were still entrenched in the business, but Lucy wasn’t a board member, so she had zero control over any decisions. It’s hard to be an employee sometimes, but when the business is so intertwined with your family, it can leave you feeling ostracised from both. Lucy understood that she couldn’t be on the board without experience, and deep down, it wasn’t what she wanted, but knowing all this didn’t make it any easier.
Maybe they had shorter childhoods than some kids, but I wonder how many parents get to see their children every day? How many get to mentor them, share in their losses and wins, and work towards the same goal for decades?
There are many obstacles in a family business, but to me, scaling them together is what makes any of it worthwhile in the first place.
Gary Beckwith is the author of How to Make A Million in Business, out now. He is the founder of City Cruises, an entrepreneur, and a public speaker.
Gary Beckwith is a pioneer of the UK tourism industry, he is an entrepreneur and a public speaker. He is the author of new book How To Make A Million In Business,which documents his career from operating London’s first floating cash and carry to becoming the visionary founder and CEO of City Cruises PLC, the book offers a compelling and candid account of a family business owner who shaped the future of the UK’s tourism industry.
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