Category: Commentary

‘SOBs’: The Real Power in Family Businesses

"Saviors Of the Boss" have the trust of company leaders and often serve as their gatekeepers. Here's how to understand them and work with them. Family businesses are driven by a blend of deep-rooted Read more

Articles About Relationships, Succession Were Top Draws in 2024

FamilyBusiness.org attracted more than 5.5 million page views in 2024, and judging from the best-read articles published last year, many readers wanted advice about handling toxic family Read more

EIX attracted more than 12.5 million page views last year, and many of our visitors yearned for information about testing and launching a venture, judging from the articles published last year that Read more

e-Fest �, our annual business idea competition for undergraduates, returns April 24-26, 2025! If you're a professor or advisor to students in an entrepreneurship program at an accredited US-based Read more

Steven Mould and Lisa Lazure, partners in business and life, left jobs in law enforcement and marketing to start a knife company. Steven Mould and Lisa Lazure left the security of salaried jobs for Read more

Family Firms Must Address Mental Health Challenges

Anxiety, depression, and other conditions disrupt business operations and strain relationships. Ignoring them won’t make them go away. In the world of family businesses, success often comes with a Read more

Family Businesses Can Learn From the Battling Brothers of Oasis

Over the past month the entertainment world has been buzzing about the reunion of Oasis, one of the major bands of the '90s. This concerns brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher, who were able to rise to Read more

UNC-Chapel Hill Professor Howard Aldrich said focus and grades improved once cell phones were out of the picture…and students engaged with one another more. Schools everywhere are talking about Read more

'Performance-Enhancing Vices': Good for Business, Bad for Relationships

Many legendary business leaders -- think Steve Jobs, or Elon Musk -- have had troubled personal lives. According to business advisor and author David Werdiger, the same traits that make someone Read more

This new EIX series features people who left behind jobs with a guaranteed salary and made the leap to being business owners. Many entrepreneurs don’t start out that way: they may spend years Read more