Copyright © 2015 by Andrew Keyt. All rights reserved.
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Published simultaneously in Canada.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Keyt, Andrew, 1969–
Myths and mortals: family business leadership and succession planning / Andrew Keyt.
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-118-92896-7 (hardback) – ISBN 978-1-118-93229-2 (epdf) -
ISBN 978-1-118-93230-8 (epub)
1. Family-owned business enterprises – Succession. 2. Family-owned business enterprises – Management. I. Title.
HD62.25.K49 2015
658.4′092 – dc23
2015007884
Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Image: Monument © iStock.com/Djete;
Circle Paving © iStock.com/daizuoxin;
Walkway © iStock.com/STILLFX;
Young Man © iStock.com/Alija
It was the early 1990s. I was a fresh college graduate. Like many fresh-outs, I wasn't sure what to do with my life. I was passionate about people but didn't know how to turn that into a career. Becoming a psychologist was an option, but the life of a therapist was unappealing.
I felt very lost.
In my quest to match my passion with a career, I returned to my roots. My grandfather was a county judge in Ohio; my father was an attorney for Northern Trust in Chicago; my brother, a paralegal, was on track to become a lawyer. So what was my natural conclusion? Pursue law. I tested out the idea as a paralegal.
While working as a paralegal, I traveled to San Francisco to meet with a client. It was April of 1992. I remember it clearly. While I wasn't particularly enthralled with the work, I felt important as a 22-year-old flying cross-country to hobnob with attorneys and business people from a large multinational corporation. One night, while I sat in my hotel room at the Hyatt Embarcadero, the phone rang. It was my father. I knew something was wrong. My father never called. Normally, my mother called and handed the phone to my father: “Here, talk to your son.”
My father (age 52), who had quit smoking 15 years before, said he had lung cancer.
I was shocked. Then I, along with my mother and two brothers (I am the middle child), rallied around the idea that it could be treated. My father would beat the cancer.
Slowly, it became clear that he would not. The weekend of July 4th 1992, my father was determined to get up to our summer home in Wisconsin for our annual family vacation. Because he was undeterred, we flew him up from Chicago. It was a short-lived and frightening vacation. He was hospitalized and then Medivacced to Chicago. For the next month, our family life was organized around getting our work done as quickly as possible, so we could spend as much time as possible with him at the hospital.
