So our whole goal is not to build a wall. We are working now with a Latin American company in which the consultant put up a wall that we are in the process of taking down. Because if you don't, you lose the potential for capturing part of your inherent advantage. Third, companies don't deal with building relationship capital because their roots are familial, not business-oriented, Habbershon says. It's very hard to transition intuitive familial dynamics into intentional business strategy.
Families develop communication styles, for example, that then get translated into the business.
So if you are a family that shouts at each other at home, where it might not mean much, you probably don't realize there are costs to this behavior when it is done in front of employees. Which raises the question of family relationships in general. It's the hardest transition to make in a family company, and the consequences of not doing it can be devastating. A more unusual case, says Habbershon, involves a 3 rd generation U.S. manufacturing company that has a huge competitive advantage in its technology. But that technology is historically intuitive, residing particularly in one son in the current generation.