In a familly firm, often guided by emotions, I first thought of sharing this nice quote.
"Enemies" being a stronger word than needed, this illustration applies for the way competition between generations just as much as within generations helps improve performances in work. It does so for emotional factors such as pride, ego, or even passion, but it can also be induced by purely detached reasons such as competitivness within the firm between two men for a same mission, juste like capitalism teaches us. Indeed, Rachel Kranton reminds us of the basics according to which in a competitive market, to survive, companies are incited to offer better quality products for better prices (Kranton, 2003). We can say that for both emotional and logical reasons, competition if well managed increases performanes.
And as I went along in my thoughts, I remembered the forum's key word : 'Paradoxe'.
In the same theme, how else to explain if not by pointing out a paradoxe, that :
Familly Emotions usually drives FB strategic descisions instead of pure logic (Labaki and Bernhard, 2023). (=Possibly frightening).
But 75% of large family businesses are over 50 years old, compared to an average lifespan of 15 years for non-family businesses ((EY United States, no date) and (Johnson, no date)). (=Good)
Studies highlight that internal conflicts of interests within the familly (like succession) often leads to tensions which handicaps FB growth (The Family Business Consulting Group, 2025) and Ronald Diamond insist on ego as the major barrier to growth in family offices, leading to risky decisions that can endanger family wealth (Ronald Diamond, no date). (=Possibly frightening)
But INSEAD studies shows that "Founders Syndrome" (exessif control) can prove to better performances in starts or crises (INSED, 2021). And in Covid crisis, family businesses indeed fell 7% less and rebounded 3 weeks earlier than other companies (Deutsche Bank, no date). (=Good).
Even though statistics can be made to say anything, it is still interesting to notice how paradoxal the assessment factors of a Familly Buisness's performance can be.
PS : Familly Buisnesses as 70% to 90% of companies worldwide (FFI, 2025), for 70% of global GDP (Asaf et al., 2023).
Kranton, R.E. (2003) 'Competition and the incentive to produce high quality,' Economica, 70(3), pp. 385–404. https://sites.duke.edu/rachelkranton/files/2016/12/Kranton-2003-Economica-competition-and-the-incentive-to-produce-high-quality.pdf.
Labaki, R. and Bernhard, F. (2023) Family emotions can drive business decisions. https://familybusiness.org/content/Family-emotions-can-drive-business-decisions
EY United States. How the world’s largest family businesses are proving their resilience
Johnson, C.S. (no date) Family business Facts. https://business.cornell.edu/centers/smith/resources/family-business-facts/?
The Family Business Consulting Group (2025) The Family Business Consulting Group. https://www.thefbcg.com/.
Ronald Diamond. LinkedIn (no date). https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ronalddiamond_is-ego-the-real-enemy-of-family-offices-activity-7323681367119069184-UKzN/?.
INSEAD (2021) Making external executives successful in family businesses. https://www.insead.edu/system/files/2023-07/making-external-executives-successful-in-family-businesses.pdf?_ref=finder&utm
Are family businesses more resilient? (no date). https://www.db.com/news/detail/20220809-are-family-businesses-more-resilient?
Family Firm Institute - FFI (2025). https://www.ffi.org/.
Asaf, E. et al. (2023) The secrets of outperforming family-owned businesses: How they create value—and how you can become one. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/private-capital/our-insights/the-secrets-of-outperforming-family-owned-businesses-how-they-create-value-and-how-you-can-become-one.