A Good Therapist Might Help

After a dozen years of island life on Maui, Tama Starr decided to return to New York City in 1982 to join the family business, which her grandfather had founded: Artkraft Strauss, known for its innovative Times Square signs--and the giant ball it lowered each New Year's Eve. She hoped to help her father, who had suffered a heart attack shortly after inheriting the business, to develop the company so it could thrive in the coming century. She knew it wouldn't be easy: her dad was irascible, and the place was "crawling with relatives," not all of them productive. Fortunately, she was able turn to an old friend, "a super shrink who encouraged me to accept my own perceptions and not to assume I was the one who was crazy." Ultimately she became president of an increasingly successful company. But she never told her father about the therapy. "He would have been furious," she admits, "if he knew any analysis was going on."

In today's business culture, such taboos are disappearing fast. Members of family businesses are increasingly--and openly--using consultants trained as psychotherapists to deal with the complex emotional and psychological problems associated with succession. While there are no statistics on how many family businesses are seeking such help, psychologist Lee Hausner, founder of Glendale, Calif.-based consulting firm Doud/Hausner, has in recent years noted "an enormous recognition of soft, that is, interpersonal, family issues." When she asks clients to list 25 issues of importance to them, "about 20 are soft, like sibling rivalry"--issues that are beyond the expertise of accountants or lawyers.

"If your basic problem is communication, a family therapist might be more important than a business consultant," suggests Rob Singh, entrepreneurship professor at the University of the Pacific's business school. "If you can open the communication lines and face issues, you can move on." Neil Koenig, a psychologist from California and author of You Can't Fire Me, I'm Your Father, has recently included among his clients a family-business owner who is 93, another who is 82. "Fifteen, 20 years ago, these gentlemen would not have talked to someone like me. They would have thought what I had to say was just a bunch of baloney."

As with psychotherapists in general, family-business counselors must have the respect of all family members and not be tainted by previous alliances with any individual. They must also have a strong business background. "This person has to understand strategic, estate and succession planning--and how a family can work together when power, money, positions and messed-up relationships are involved," says David Kipper, president of Executive Psychological Consulting in Chicago and research professor at Roosevelt University's School of Psychology. Attorneys, university business schools or groups like the Family Firm Institute, the Aspen Family Business Group or the Family Office Exchange may refer families to suitable psychotherapists.

These counselors typically meet first with the whole family, then interview each person alone to discover more about what is wrong. Later they gather family members in a workshop, sometimes at a retreat, where they will help develop strategies to resolve conflict and reach necessary goals. This approach works, says Thayer Willis, an Oregon psychotherapist who works with inheritors, "because most people are relieved to find a way to resolve conflicts, and it is really powerful to have a neutral third party present to help them do that."

When all this works, says family-and-work expert Azriela Jaffe, it can engender "a level of intimacy and respect that you will never find in another family." That, generally, is also good for business.