Family Feud

Family Feud <----- Situations such as these can happen when God is not central in the family. If His Word does not wholly guide a family, expect that love for money will gradually creep in until money becomes their god. Eventually people are killed and destroyed by it.

The father, being the founder of a business, usually controls it. He goes on to assign specific duties within its operations to his children. When conflicts arise, they are resolved in the light of the father’s authority. Since all transactions revolve around the patriarch, trouble creeps in when he dies.

I’ve seen businesses crumble the moment this happens. It happened to some of my father’s friends. And it even happened to some of our relatives. The children start to fight bitterly over the spoils left to them. Some of these conflicts are never settled.

I’ve read some stories that had the same kind of situations in Francis Kong’s “The only real matters” book.

Leonard Sheon is the founder of U-Haul, which later became Amerco, a $1-billion revenue enterprise. He thought it wise to transfer the stocks, totaling 95% of the business, to this eight sons and five daughters while they were still young.

In 1986, two of them, Mark and Edward, seized control when they voted their father out. Sam, the eldest, quit after some time and the family split in two. Edward and Mark were running the firm while Leonard and Sam were suing to regain control. Stockholders’ meetings fumed into fistfights. As things became worse, the old man could only grieve and say, “I created a monster.”

Some conflicts are never settled. In 1924, Adi Dassler and his brother Rudolph opened a sporting goods company in Germany called Adidas. In 1948, they broke up after a bitter legal battle that led Rudolph to set up Puma. Since then, the two never spoke to each other again.

Today, Adidas is among the top companies in sporting goods while Puma trails not so far behind. Still the battle is on as the Dasslers avoid each other like the plague. In fact, this has contaminated the workforce. Adidas employees seldom, if not never at all, socialize with Puma workers.

It is always very sad when families are torn apart by the issue of money. Blood relations are too often ignored when power and control are sought. Children misread the values of diligence, hard work, and industry as clean and effective means of acquiring wealth and power. The focus is put on money, and no longer on the gratification and the nobility of doing one’s best in the work. Instead, the signal children get from hardworking parents is that there is nothing more important to life than earning money and gaining profit, all for the cause of a good and comfortable life. In turn, siblings compete for their father’s attention; they do everything they can only to get hold of the business. Almost too often, stories that go this direction end tragically. It is lamentable to see a once thriving business fold up, but more so around the breaking up of a family.

If you are a father reading this blog or soon to be a father and is in charge of a business, God’s Word says, “The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. And you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.” Deuteronomy6:4-7

Teach your children to love God above anything else. Their lives and their future-in fact, their eternal destiny- are far more important than your business. Teach them fear of the Lord, for no business school can do that. Only you can. If you do so, both your family and business will flourish.

Go and bring your family closer to God. That is the father’s main business.