In the Blood Book Review

Family run businesses are the backbone of Canada, from corner shops to institutions such as Molson Inc. and Ellis-Don Construction Ltd. More than just money-making establishments, they are traditions handed down, ventures embarked on a century ago that have been handed off from father to son and mother to daughter. But from this seemingly heavenly custom springs frustration, anger, rebellion, jealousy and revenge as new generations of entrepreneurs-to-be decide they want nothing to do with the family business and it's all going on in the corporate boardrooms and living rooms of Canada's family-owned businesses - all the way from small convenience chains up to the level of the Bronfmans, McCains, Irvings and Eatons. An estimated six million Canadians work for them full- or part-time, whole communities depend on them, and their combined approximate sales volume is around 1.3 trillion dollars.

Transferring power is difficult, often painful. To see a family business pass successfully into a third or fourth generation is rare. What happens when the entrepreneurs who established these great companies try to pass the wand onto the next generation in their family? As Gordon Pitts reveals in In the Blood, the unfortunate result is often disruption, pain, and familial splits, that can leave not only the fate of the company, but sometimes even whole communities hanging in the balance.

Pitts has talked to numerous survivors for his profiles of twelve companies, sensibly drawn from all across the country. Some of the families are extremely well known - like the Molsons and the Batas - the others, such as the Mitchells of Saskatoon, the Prices of Alberta, the Bentalls of Vancouver, and the Cuddys of Ontario are no less captivating. Many of Pitts' interviewees talk with truthfulness and often bewildered hurt about family issues.

In these extremely open profiles, these business families describe the successes and failures of their businesses at the hands of family members. Pitts takes these stories further, offering observations and advice to those trying to avoid such family strife while building empires of their own .

Pitts has discussed twelve family businesses, each having a different story yet sharing the very same dilemma of succession. The Cuddies, The Wilsons, The Smiths, The Mitchels, The Bentals, Warnocks and Chaplins being the most interesting. However I will discuss only a few of these.

Mac Cuddy, founder of Cuddy International Corporation, which is the largest breeding and hatching company in Canada with a $350 million plus business, was suffering from the succession problem. Mac Cuddy is wracked with pain and contradictions. He doesn't trust three of his five sons, although they are great entrepreneurs, but in his mind they possess serious flaws that have forced him to drive them out of the family business. The disputes within the family Ð'- lawsuits, volumes of angry words Ð'- all have been damaging the family and the business for almost a decade. The main problems being, ageing father not leaving the business, failure to develop a sound succession plan, untrained children who have never worked outside the company and also failure to attract good managers from outside the company.

Peter Cuddy son of Mac Cuddy filed a lawsuit to sue Cuddy International, a company in which he himself owned shares. He stated that the company's funds were being misspent and misallocated. However after a while he dropped charges and left the company to give attention to his own entrepreneurial venture.

Mac says, "I never said this is for you (his children)," and on the other side he orchestrated events so that his sons would want to join in.

Bruce Cuddy, Mac's oldest son was in charge of operations in North Carolina. He quickly made his reputation as the smartest poultry man in North America but his father was convinced that he cannot run the international business or as Pitts says that he was afraid that his son might be too good a successor. After some time the sons started to feel that Mac Cuddy should retire and hand over the company to the sons so Mac made Bruce his eldest son the COO and he himself remained the CEO. Mac complained that Bruce never acted as COO of the whole company but of American operations only. Both father and son labelled each other greedy. However during these ongoing disagreements Mac choose the new chairman and CEO which effectively sidelined Bruce from any hope of becoming the same. "Having the name Cuddy should not and will not provide any divine rights with respect to authority," clearly indicated that Mac had no intention of handing over the company to his sons whom he thought of as incompetent to run it. I believe that Mac Cuddy remained confused. He never had the answer to the succession problem. He at times wanted his sons to join in and at times hired outside managers and CEO's to run the company who never stayed for a long time because of his constant interference in their decisions. The same complain of his constant interference and him thinking of his sons as incompetent had driven all of his sons out. However until now only Mac Cuddy remains with the firm with all the sons doing their own businesses. In conclusion "The sons needed to be trained in professional management, as Cuddy International evolved into a mid-sized multinational facing strategic challenges. But it was too late for that kind of training and discipline" as Pitts puts it. There was also no sound succession plan, which could have solved the matters long before they had even begun.

The Wilsons on the other hand have been very impressive with the succession problem for seven generations. Wilsons might not be as big as the companies discussed in the book but for pure staying in power, nobody beats them. Since 1788, there have been no blowups and no public quarrels. The reason they have been successful is that, "We keep out of each other's hair" states Dave Wilson. This tactic has made the business one of the longest running in Canada's history shared with The Molsons. The Wilsons are proof