Preserving a Family-Owned Business

“You should look at a family business as the goose that lays a golden egg. It’s okay to cut up the egg, but you should preserve the goose,” says Chris Lansing, president and CEO of Lansing Building Products. At COMPOSITES+POLYCON 2009, Lansing will present an education session titled Preserving a Family-Owned Business, during which he’ll offer 10 maxims for running a family business successfully in turbulent times.

The first maxim: “Treat your family like a family, and your business like a business,” he says. Lansing, who is a second-generation owner of the 55-year-old company, learned many of his lessons during the first transition. Two of his four children now work for the company. “The owner of a business is typically president, CEO and chairman of the board, and he has a fiduciary duty to the business side,” Lansing says. “But he’s also the head of a family and has to continually balance and reconcile those competing issues.” One strategy involves hiring a family counselor or creating a Board of Directors that includes non-family members as means to communicating and solving conflicts. 

This session takes place on Thursday, Jan. 15 from  11 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. For more information, click here.