in the Age of Anxiety Family businesses

ftuene HAsN'T BEEN THIS naucH fear and uncertainty, I- lack of confidence in what the future will bring, along with questions of reliability of our govemment and corporate leaders, since the Great Depression.

There is plenty for family businesses to be anxious about these days. But the truth is, during anxious and uncertain times, family businesses are better situated than most other businesses not only to survive, but to grow and prosper.

The stock market and consumer confidence index have been bouncing as if they're on a bungee cord. Economic concerns, accounting practices, and enormous bankruptcies have made business owners question their financial pictures, particularly since their banks, creditors, suppliers, and friends are asking questions they haven't asked before. Across the country, prescriptions for tranquilizers and antianxiety medications have risen about 107o. Anxiety is contagious.

In my work with family businesses, I've certainly seen an increase in anxiety. The issues may be the same, but the worry puts those issues in an entirely different context and adds a risky new element to working through them. During these times, even normal or inevitable changes become supercharged with anxiety.

Anxiety usually affects decision-making in one of two ways, both of which are ill-advised. People become glued to the spot, afraid to make major decisions or moves. Perhaps on the theory that anything is better than sitting in a hot spot, they succumb to their panic and make hasty, reckless decisions. People are either spending far too much time trembling on the brink or wanting to charge forward.

Families who used to worry about transitioning from one generation to the next aren't just worrying about how to gracefully ease the founders out or how to choose the new successors without touching off battles and bruising egos. Some families want to act more precipitously than they might have done before the economic crisis: the Old Man has to go now, before things get worse.

Other companies that clearly need to change want to put their succession plans on hold. Now is not the time to be rocking the boat, they say. If the boat is taking on more water, we can all just bail a little faster for a while.

It's not just succession issues that have become charged with anxiety. Businesses entering a new stage in their natural development aren't asking the kind of positive, confident questions that go along with the excitement of growth. Instead of asking what they need to do, or how they can do it, people are asking whether they should do anything at all.

Acknowledging today's unique business and social environments seems important. It helps people see their concerns as something normal. It puts their anxiety in the proper place-as something that may make them more hesitant or reckless about making the necessary decisions, but not as something that's directly related to what's really happening in their business. We may not be able to destroy the beast, but we can certainly put it in its cage, where all it can do is occasionally rattle the bars and put on a distracting. but harmless, show.

Family businesses can cope by replacing their anxiety with a renewed sense of mission. Family businesses are better situated than other companies to grow during uncer-

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tain and anxious times. Instead of having stockbrokers and Wall Street analysts second-guessing, giving contradictory advice and worrying them into paralysis or recklessness, family businesses are ultimately answerable to their own internal, long-term support system.

Personally and professionally, families have developed long-standing ways of supporting one another and sticking together, a reliable system that will continue to serve them well. If the anxiety seems too far out of proportion to the issue at hand, I ask them how they have supported each other in the past when things were scary or uncertain.

Family businesses have qualities that help them not just stay afloat, but move ahead through uncertain times. By their nature, family businesses are more entrepreneurial and more flexible. They also have a deeper reservoir of loyalty to draw upon, not just from each other but also from their employees. Less prone to lay people off and more willing to hold onto employees longer, family businesses often have a more motivated workforce.

I try to replace their anxiety with a renewed sense of mission. Dickens wrote: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Those words were never truer than when applied today to family businesses. As the backbone of our economy, family businesses will be among those who lead the way out of fear.

- Bernard Kliska is an associate of the Family Business Consulting Group, Marietta, Ga.; (800) 551-0633. He can be reached at kliska@ efamilybusiness.com.

Reprinted with permission from The Family Business Advisor, a copyrighted publication of Family Enterprise Publishers. No portion of this article may be reproduced without permission of Family Enterpfise Publishers-

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