Evolving Roles on the Pathway to Generational Transition

It was seven o’clock in the evening in the Gold Coast, Australia, and the sun had just gone down. Gary Douglas, the second-generation managing director (MD) of Douglas Family Property Group Proprietary Limited (Douglas Family Group), had spent the last 10 hours on the phone, and he was still in his pajamas from the night before. He felt emotionally drained and mentally exhausted. Just a few months back, the whole family, including his parents and three siblings, had seemed aligned with the new strategic direction for the company—and Gary had been unanimously appointed the MD responsible for the change ahead. The property development company planned to undergo a major transition in 2022 to professionalize and streamline several organizational processes to allow for a successful growth strategy implementation. To this end, the family hired an experienced non-family chief executive officer (CEO). But to Gary’s frustration, harmony and unity among family members and top management was now a distant memory.

To Gary, it felt like yesterday when the four siblings were asked by their father about their interests in the family business: “When Mom and I pass away, what do you want to do with the company?” his dad had asked. This was in 2005. Annalise, Lisa, Matthew, and Gary had to make a life-changing decision, individually and collectively. Should they stick together in the company and eventually have 25 per cent of a shared whole, or would it be more lucrative to sell the company, go their own ways, and effectively get 100 per cent of their individual 25 per cent shares? The siblings decided to stick together as one business-owning family. They were so emotionally invested in the company that they cared about continuing the business under their family name and wished to uphold the values under which the business had been established. The siblings saw the business as something special and worthy of their time to further develop. From their perspective, the company name stood for something greater than what met the eye. It was an important pillar not just for the family itself, but also for the customers and the wider community. None of them had expected to stand at the crossroads on this early summer day in December 2022.

Several members of the family and the top management team, including the newly appointed CEO responsible for a successful implementation of the growth strategy, had dumped their complaints on Gary. Their criticisms were manyfold, yet the overall message was simple: the implemented structural and personnel changes did not work. They all called for Gary to come back into the role of the CEO to clean up the mess.