With the first run of the simulation, my company reached national; in
my last run, the company went global and international. I think
running these simulations is good practice for real-world scenarios, at
least for me. I can only imagine how hard it is for some people to step
into a family business and make decisions on how the company will
run and who to keep and who must go.
In the first round, the company's growth was prevalent in the
decisions I had made. In the first run, I made the decision for the
family to stay focused on the honey division and not branch out into
the cosmetics industry. I took the approach of "do what you know"
rather than is this the right move for the company. In the last run, I
decided bringing in outsiders would be a better move because we're
bringing in people with more knowledge and a fresh perspective. It's
easy to be blindsided in a family-owned business because most
decisions made are made from emotion. Not wanting to hurt
someone's feelings or cause bad blood between each other.
I made decisions with the family in mind however just not the
decisions that some members wanted. The family members didn't
want anyone from the outside coming into the company however,
there were times when there was nobody competent enough to take
control of the company. Bringing in a new CEO and new board
members was the right decision because there were decisions that
needed to be made that the family just couldn't and ideas that
couldn't get across without outside influence.
Now that I know what actions affect the company and the growth
potential I would have brought in outsiders sooner. In the end, we
have global reach however, I feel that you really can't run a family
business based on emotion. To fear hurting a relative's feelings only
hurts the company and everyone in the company. In the end family
members wished that they had more say and ownership value was
high and shareholders were quite pleased.
