Path for the Rising Generation

Listen to Gaia explain the importance of creating a proper path for the rising generation. In a family business, it is important that the future generation is passionate about the business as they are often expected take on challenging roles and responsibilities.

The minute you actually step into the process, it’s to understand what is your role, what is the contribution you can bring, how you handle that with the other people because we don’t operate in a vacuum, right, so the context being the family context, being the managers already working in the company, being recognized from the other family members, being acknowledged, being appreciated by other families, deserving that. So it is actually, not to make that sound to negative, but it is a long path with a lot of difficulties, which is the reason why, and I think I started with the idea of, is that what I want? Because, if not, you’ve set yourself up for something which is really, really hard. You become the one with the full responsibility, and you are the one who actually has to make the final call, because that’s when you ultimately, when people look at you and say, ok, now I need you to give me that answer, the whole power thing changes. And not power, I mean sometimes people think that power has a negative attribution – power is neither good nor bad, it’s how you use that, right? But the truth is that when you have that responsibility you also have to make the call, which is difficult because at that point, you don’t know, you have to make the best out of the decision, and still you have to bring the people around with you, you have to have them believing in you, there is a trust component that you have to build, so a lot of difficult situations to handle.