The real-life family business drama you don't see on HBO's Succession
CNBC Leadership Insights
November 2021
Actors often don't like to watch their own work once it is out in the public, but no one finds it more difficult to watch HBO's Succession than those who have actually lived the life of a family business.
"Family businesses are different from other businesses because there's just a lot of underlying, unspoken emotionality. These are not just business decisions but hopes and dreams of a legacy generation." "Lots of stuff goes on. Coercion, harassment, manipulation ... There's just a lot of 'Succession' that other people wouldn't deal with in another corporation. It's a hotbed of promise ... and a sense of entitlement," says Ionnie McNeill, who recently transitioned out of a management role with MCO Construction, the company founded by her mother and which she had at one time been convinced she would eventually lead.
What is true, according to experts who study family business, is that the transition from a founder to the next generation is challenging in a different way, and potentially in a bigger way, than a transition in a non-family firm...