Family businesses are weak-link systems that can be undone by incompetent heirs.
A family business can survive a mediocre CEO, but rarely survives weak owners.
Most family businesses spend years preparing or searching for the right CEO successor, even though the person who will ultimately determine the business’s success is generally not the CEO at all.
Soccer and basketball offer a useful insight. Basketball is a strong-link system. A superstar like Michael Jordan or LeBron James can elevate the entire team and compensate for any weaknesses on the roster.
Soccer is different. Economists David Sally and Chris Anderson analyzed thousands of soccer matches across Europe’s top leagues. Their research showed that soccer is fundamentally a weak-link system: success is not determined by a team’s star player but by the mistakes and weaknesses of its worst players. One player’s mistake that allows the other team to score a goal undoes ninety minutes of brilliant play.
