In a previous article, we wrote about one of the deepest issues facing family businesses today, that of entitlement. With a digitally connected world and a global fast-paced lifestyle, many business scions are at the risk of squandering their precious heritage on illusory image-building.

This chimera can destroy both the family member and the family business. At the business level, it causes tangible and intangible capital erosion. At the personal level, it can mean anything from relatively harmless spending sprees to meaninglessness, drug addiction, alcoholism, womanizing and depression. There are enough newspaper reports of wealthy kids running over pavement dwellers in their father’s swanky imported cars.

In our years of consulting family businesses at FABRIC, we have seen many cases where poor investment in building human capital has resulted in serious personal, moral and financial liabilities for the company...

To be continued..