The brother came to quarterly board meetings, but that was about it. He happily pulled his share of the profits from the family business for years and years and years.  Amazingly, he became tired of having to go to board meetings and asked his siblings to just buy him out which they did.

The sister had an impressive title.  According to the company’s organizational chart, she oversaw four departments. The reality was that professional managers had been brought in to really run the departments.  They each kept her informed just in case, but no real value resulted from their meetings with her.

The younger brother was president, and he wanted the business to truly grow, be successful, and stand for something.  He developed a strategic plan, invested in multiple locations, and occasionally tried to motivate his sister. One day, the sister came into a management meeting and loudly declared, “I don’t want to be held accountable by anyone,” and the sibling president was put on the spot.  He could have just fired his sister, bought her out, and kept growing the business.  But instead, he invested hours and hours, days and days, weeks and weeks to get a fair valuation, find buyers, and negotiate the best price.

The parent and each sibling ended up with a great deal of money…multi-millions.

So now, no one in the family is talking to the younger brother. He got them more money than they could have ever imagined. He was the only sibling actually working.  The reasons?  “[He] had embarrassed his siblings.  [He] should have tried harder.”

The sister spoke up recently and actually asked to help.  She didn’t want her children to think that she didn’t work/have a job or career.

Aldonna R. Ambler, CMC, CSP has earned the right to be called THE GROWTH STRATEGIST®. She has won over 2 dozen national and statewide “entrepreneur of the year” awards for the resilient growth of her international businesses across 4 recessions.  Her midsized BtoB clients get on…and then stay on…the published lists of the fastest growing privately held companies. She owns and operates a suite of companies that help privately held midsized companies achieving accelerated growth with sustained profitability® through opportunity & resource analysis, 4 approaches to strategic planning, executive advisory services, growth financing, and targeted search.  2012 is Ambler’s 8^th year hosting a weekly peer-to-peer-to-peer syndicated on line talk show that features interviews with CEOs/Presidents of midsized companies (typically between $20 and 200 Mil/yr) sharing success tips about the growth strategy-of-the-week. An archive of over 300 interviews is available at www.GrowthStrategistShow.com. She can be reached toll free at 1-888-Aldonna or at Aldonna@AMBLER.com.