Drucker In The Journal

From the writings for The Wall Street Journal of Peter Drucker:

From "How to Save the Family Business," Aug. 19, 1994: Family members working in the business must be at least as able and hard-working as any unrelated employee. In a family-managed company, relatives are always "top management," whatever their official job or title. On Saturday evenings they sit at the boss's dinner table and call him "Dad" or "Uncle." Mediocre or lazy family members are therefore--rightly--resented by non-family co-workers, and respect for top management and the business as a whole rapidly erodes. Capable non-family people will simply not stay, and the ones who do soon become courtiers and toadies. It is much cheaper to pay a lazy nephew not to come to work than to keep him on the payroll.