interior Planning The graveyards of commerce and industry are full of the tombstones of businesses which have perished in this way or which have lost precious and valued identity through amalgamations and mergers. And yet there is often to be found a persistent belief in many families that, by some almost divine right, theirs is the obligation to go on leading, long after the urge or the incentive and the capacity to lead have gone. Sons feel they must show their fathers, even though their characters and tastes are utterly dissimilar, that they can 'pull it off' and that they can do every bit as well. There are, in fact, deep complicated psychological forces at work here which are too seldom given proper consideration. An interesting and recurring example is of the succession to an autocratic family leader by two sons. There are occasions when such a succession works well because the two brothers complement each other: one has the father's tough character; the other brings more humane standards to bear. As a combination it can be highly successful. The problem usually arises with the generation after that: cousins don't so often get on together ! But when a family firm is just holding its own, though signs of decay are not hard to see, there are different problems from the employees' point of view. It has so frequently been stated in this book that, financial rewards apart, responsible participation is vital to a worker's satisfaction and there can be no question that access to a boss who is easily identifiable, who carries with him something of the history and the 'ethos' of a firm, is an important consideration. This is particularly true of women employees, who respond to paternalism however remote it may be. But if there is no efficiency, if the owner is simply there because he feels he ought to be, without having thought through whether or not he has the proper qualifications, it is pretty certain that the employees will soon become disenchanted. Management, it cannot be said too often, implies leadership; it is almost asking too much to expect that every generation in a family will supply a leader. There are outstanding exceptions to these rules. In the brewery business in Britain, to take but one from many possible examples, there are notable cases of generation succeeding generation and making an admirable job of it. The point to note here, however, is that in such instances not only has the fullest training been given to young Mr Tom (or Dick or Harry) when he entered the firm, but he must have made it clear to himself and his colleagues that business is a career that he seeks and he must bring to his eventual management tasks a thorough knowledge of what he is doing. There are no short cuts because, when there are, directors and managers who get (or should one say, inherit?) their positions without competition invariably and naturally arouse the resentment of other able and ambitious employees who want a chance to get to the board room. to buy a house