Fathers and Sons

Just about the time we've reduced our life's history to a series of neat, orderly decisions, along comes something to dredge up an unsettling cluster of feelings. An idle comment over lunch reminds us we haven't really forgotten that long-ago dispute. A well-put question forces us to reexamine our not-so-logical motivations for pursuing this business strategy instead of that one. Most evocative of all, a stranger's story can bring back memories of pivotal episodes in our own lives -- of what happened, certainly, but mostly of how it felt.

Such a story came to light last summer, when An Wang announced the end of his son Frederick's three-year term as president and chief operating officer of Wang Laboratories Inc., one of the world's largest publicly traded corporations, with a sizable portion of the stock controlled by its founding family. The then-38-year-old scion had not only failed to bring Wang out of its mid-1980s doldrums, but had left the $3-billion company some $424 million in the red. Today An Wang, nearly 70 and under treatment for cancer of the esophagus, is supervising a nonfamily president, and COO Fred Wang is out of a job.

Some readers may have written off the Wang story as a big-business story, or as more fallout from the latest computer-industry shakeout. Others may have dismissed it as just another sorry saga in the stereotypically troubled annals of family business or as an example of the effects of Chinese managerial values on an otherwise American company. But there are many parents and children -- fathers and sons, especially -- for whom the Wang story is all too familiar.

These people know well the combination of pride and distrust with which fathers goad sons into a family business. They know, too, the equal parts of ambition and insecurity within the typical successor-son. Moreover, having lived through similar circumstances themselves, they understand the pressure that comes from trying to run a company in a world that both reveres and reviles family business. They've been there to see outsiders root for the success of their companies. They've also seen the supposed boosters pounce on the slightest indication of failure.

In the following pages, you'll meet six men who tell about the stresses and strains they've experienced in trying to establish a business relationship with a father or a son. Using the Wang story as a springboard, a few eagerly share newfound perspective, even wisdom, on the subjects of family business and succession.

Others, for whom such topics still sit like ice cream on a sore tooth, only manage to tell their tales and face their own conflicted emotions. Still, if advice and acceptance are in relatively short supply, empathy is not. To these men, father-son conflict isn't just the stuff of Greek mythology. And it's unlikely that it will ever register with them as just another stranger's story, just another forgettable headline.

PAUL SNODGRASS

"Working for your dad is always tough," says Paul Snodgrass, 33, who last September took over as president of Pella Products by Clark-Snodgrass Co., a $7-million window distributor headquartered in Toledo. "People say that all the time, but it's more true than people appreciate. There's loyalty -- you really want to carry on the family line. But you also have your own pride to consider. And then, aside from the personal relationship between father and son, there are always the economics. Dad loves you and wants you to take over the business, but he also put heart and soul into that business, and he's not going to let anybody screw it up -- not even you. And sons like me think, hey, don't discount me so quickly. I'm young, but I'm experienced, and I have some good ideas that don't deserve to be shrugged off.

"I'd always wanted to be an oceanographer, and my father never discouraged me. He always said he just wanted me to know there was something for me in the company, if I ever wanted it. As I matured, I did begin to recognize the opportunity in the family business, and I did go to work for him. But after a while I took a leave and went to California to find myself. I worked for another window company out there, and found I really enjoyed the design aspect of the work. What finally brought me back to Toledo was my father's open-heart surgery. I saw my calling; I decided to sacrifice for the sake of my father.

"Why? Partly because I wanted my father's approval. I'm sure he would have respected anything I did, but doing what he does -- and following in his footsteps -- was what would mean the most to him. I can understand it better now that I have a son of my own. He's just eight years old, and I'm already hoping he'll be a business manager like me. I don't want him to make a decision he'll regret. I want to make it a nonpressured decision, just like my dad made it for me. I am, however, going to insist that my son get his first experience outside of this part of the window business. I don't want him to go through what I did in the early years.

"My father seemed very relieved when I came home to work for the company. But once his recovery got under way and he became more active in the company, the pressure mounted. It got to the point that he actually said, hey, you're going to have to prove to me that you can handle this business.

"He had formed what we called the A-team, consisting of him, me, and two officers who were the next logical choices to succeed my dad, if I didn't. And each of us was assigned a test. Mine was to set up another branch of our operation in Lima, Ohio. And it worked out great. I think it was then I finally impressed the employees that maybe the kid had some smarts after all. Maybe I wasn't there just because of the father-son thing.

"But we also had a board of advisers, some real sharp financial people, and they made it a practice to really drill me about the things I was doing. These were people who were there basically on behalf of my father. I felt very much on the firing line, like I was standing there in my armor, just trying to ward off the bullets. It didn't seem fair. I came to help my father in his hour of need, and to get all these tests and budgeting and analysis -- well, my father hadn't had to go through that.

"Finally I pretty much told them that if they were really a board of advisers, fine, I'd consider their advice if there was something they wanted to discuss. But if they and my father thought they were going to have authority over me and my destiny, then they should go out and find somebody else. After that, the inquisition, as I call it, got more constructive.