Helping Family Businesses Succeed - As Businesses and As Families

Telford, PA...Three decades ago, Henry Landes, then a management consultant, realized the largest obstacles his family business clients faced were more about family than business:

“Dad and I can’t talk to each other.”

“My kids don’t appreciate what I have done with this company.”

“My siblings and I aren’t able to plan for the future.”

The underlying problems were similar to those all businesses tackle, but family dynamics made things significantly more complicated. “They were all afraid that talking about an issue would harm their relationship with their parent, daughter, or son,” said Landes, who himself grew up within the Harleysville plumbing and heating business his grandfather I.T. Landes founded. “Avoiding a discussion meant problems lingered or even got worse, and they wound up damaging both the business and the family relationships they were trying to protect.”

Guided by his epiphany, Landes founded the Delaware Valley Family Business Center (DVFBC) in 1988. The company is now celebrating its 30th anniversary of helping business families successfully navigate family relationships while growing as individuals, families, and enterprises. “We want these families to do well, just as much as they want their businesses to do well,” Landes said.

Creating a Community of Peer and Advisory Learning

It’s fitting that the DVFBC celebration will highlight three clients’ achievements and experiences for the benefit of other families in business. Such learning opportunities are a key part of the DVFBC mission. “We’ve done hundreds of events where members tell their stories in a very intimate and safe space,” said Managing Partner and Senior Family Business Advisor Sally Derstine, whose familiarity with family businesses stretches back to Gra-Brams Meats, Inc.,
founded by her grandparents in Harleysville. “We provide customized consulting for multi-generational business families, but we also want to create a community so that our families not only learn from us, but from each other.”

The successful transition of leadership and ownership is often the biggest hurdle family businesses face. Only about 30% even make it thru the second generation.

DVFBC members help support each other through the process by meeting in Peer Group Leadership Labs, which Landes launched in 1989. The Leading Generation Lab is geared for

anyone in upper management at a family business, including members of the founding or currently leading generation and focuses on developing governance and goal setting. The Rising Generation Lab is for those in the next generation who are working to develop the skills that will allow them to become the next generation of company leaders. The Women in Family Business Lab is designed around the particular challenges women face in family business. All groups work
on self-awareness and understanding the needs and roles of other family members at their work stage, as well as how the family, business and ownership systems can work together in healthy ways.

Defining Roles and Expectations Within the Family and the Family Business

DVFBC helps each family member clarify how they can make their best contribution in the family business now and in the future.

“We are essentially people developers, developing the personal and professional capacities of family members so they can make good decisions about their future, either as owners or not owners, managers or not managers, in the family firm,” Landes said.

In 2010, Derstine developed a framework to establish common language, clear boundaries, and a process to separate the confusing overlap of family and business roles while planning for the future of a family business. It’s called the 5 MOUNTAIN™ Process, and each mountain represents a key set of goals and responsibilities that a team of people must address if the business is to succeed into the future. The Family Team, for example, focuses on individual and family development and establishes expectations regarding the family and business. Every member of every team has to commit to leaning into awkward, crucial conversations and be open to unexpected outcomes.

“It takes courage, compassion, and forgiveness,” Derstine said.

Leading - and Learning - by Example

Derstine and Landes can now speak to all of it from personal experience. Nearly a decade ago, Landes began the process of preparing for his own company’s succession of leadership and ownership by promoting Derstine to managing director.

Landes’ children, who both work in medical practices, were never interested in running the company. But Landes, now 72, and Derstine, 56, have worked together a very long time. He hired her in 1992 for administrative/marketing support. Through a series of promotions, Derstine – who is his second cousin - began helping him shape the company. She became a partner in 2012.
In 2013, they created a Transitional Advisory Council of voices and expertise from outside DVFBC to help map out every element of the succession. The group included the former president of one of their clients, Lee Delp of Mopac, beef processing company. “We took all of our own advice,” said Landes, who continues to work part time as a senior family business advisor. It’s not easy for anyone, Landes said, but the process has helped – as has seeing someone who shares his values and business philosophy use them plus her unique skill set to add staff and services.

Derstine became majority shareholder and managing partner in 2014. The transition is ongoing. “As we preach, it is a long process,” she said.