ONLINE COURSE
Should I Join the Family Business?
A Roadmap for Deciding
This course guides you through a methodical, decision process as you explore whether to join your family business for your career.
You don’t need to make this decision about the next chapter of your life alone.
Professor John Davis guides you through an introspective, analytical, and careful process to arrive at the right career decision for you and your family business.
Course Overview
Your career decision feels complex because it is. Deciding whether to join your family business for your career is a significant life decision.
The stakes of this decision often feel high for all involved—for you, your family, and your family company. As you have likely experienced, professional decisions in a family business tend to blend together with other factors such as family relationship dynamics, emotions, expectations, and your own personal aspirations. There are plenty of thorny issues to consider, opinions to weigh, and goals to honor.
How do you sort through the complexity and reach a decision? And then, how do you effectively communicate your decision to others?
You are here because you want to think critically about this life decision and make the right career choice. You want to do this with intentionality and thoughtfulness.
This self-paced course leads you through a decision process that is analytical, respectful, and where you take responsibility for this life choice. Use this course to do a full analysis of your situation, and make a clear, well-reasoned decision about whether to join the family business.
Elevate Your Approach to This Career and Life Decision
Gain clarity about the next stage of your life by using our methods to sort through the complexity, think deeply about your options, and make an intentional decision.
IN THIS COURSE YOU WILL:
Know Yourself
Understand Professional Life for a Family Employee
Analyze Your Family Enterprise
Assess Compatibility
Decide
Communicate Your Decision
Enroll in the Course
Self-paced course (approximately 5 hours)
Learning materials, videos, readings, and resources from the leading expert
Personalized digital notebook
In-depth analysis and interactive exercises
Access to private discussion forum
For students of this course to exchange ideas and share experiences with next generation members from around the world
STUDENT EXPERIENCE
"I appreciated the expertise, content, and homework assignments. Everything had tremendous value."
Family Member
John A. Davis
Professor of this Course
Family Enterprise Professor,
MIT Sloan School of Management
Founder and Chairman, CFEG
About the Course
What you will learn
This course guides next generation members through an introspective, analytical, and careful process to arrive at the right career decision regarding whether to enter the family business.
You will learn:
- An analytical process that leads you to a thoughtful, reasoned decision about whether to join your family business.
- How to think about this decision in a comprehensive manner, deeply exploring the most essential factors of this decision
- Methods and exercises to explore your own personal and professional interests, goals, aspirations, and motivations
- Your options: an array of different roles where you could contribute to your family enterprise
- How to identify and navigate the unique dynamics of your family business system, regardless of your career decision
- How to move forward once you’ve made your decision
Additional Resources Available to You:
As a student of the course, you have access to a number of useful resources:
- Your personal, digital notebook of analytical exercises and reflections that you can continue to build on after completing the course
- A global network of next generation members facing the same life decision through our private discussion forum. In the forum, you can ask questions, share your experience, and exchange ideas with next generation members in similar situations around the world.
- The course materials, videos, readings, and resources. You have access to these materials for one year.
You will gain:
- Clarity about your next step in your career
- Understanding of whether the family business is the right employer for you
- Insight into yourself and your professional interests and ambitions
- Exploration of your family and family business dynamics
- Conceptual frameworks to deepen your understanding of your family business system, your career options, and yourself
- Guidance from the world’s authority on family enterprise
Who should take this course
This course is designed for next generation members from family businesses who face a crossroads in their professional life. You want to evaluate whether you should join the family business as your full-time career—no matter how close or distant that decision is.
The concepts and recommendations of the course are relevant and useful to next generation members at different stages of life, whether:
- Those deciding whether to join the family business post-university or post-graduate school.
- Those who have had professional experience outside the family business and are deciding whether to join the family business for the next stage of their career.
- Those who have progressed to leadership positions outside of the family business and are determining a lateral move to the family business.
The urgency of this career decision varies between students of this course:
- For some, the decision is pressing: their family is eager for their decision whether due to a crisis or a lack of options.
- For others, the decision is distant: they have the time to make a decision on a relaxed timeframe.
- Still for others, this is an intellectual exercise of self-exploration to understand themselves, their aspirations, and their family companies better.
Instructor
Professor John A. Davis
Global Authority and a Founder of the Family Enterprise Field
Family Enterprise Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management
Chairman and Founder, CFEG
John A. Davis is a globally recognized authority on family enterprise, family wealth, and the family office. A founder of the family business field as an academic discipline, Professor Davis has created MBA courses and executive programs, and conducted research, at numerous universities around the world since the 1980s. At MIT Sloan, he leads the suite of family enterprise programs, including an MBA course, which help family enterprises position themselves to succeed in this disruptive age. Prior to joining the MIT faculty, he spent 21 years on the faculty of Harvard Business School where he founded Harvard’s family business management studies.
Trained in management, psychology, and economics, Professor Davis advises family enterprises from over 70 countries, including many of the world’s leading families. In 1989, he founded the Cambridge Family Enterprise Group (CFEG), a global advisory, education, and research organization dedicated to helping enterprising families navigate the new economy and achieve multigenerational success. Professor Davis delivers keynote addresses at conferences for the World Economic Forum, Harvard Business Review, and other organizations as well as conducts private workshops for individual family enterprises worldwide. His observations are regularly cited in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, Economist, Bloomberg, and other media outlets. He has authored four books, and an extensive body of articles, case studies, and research publications, including seminal works that have shaped the field of family enterprise.
To follow Professor Davis’ writing and speaking: visit johndavis.com
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do I take it the course?
Are there any special technical requirements?
To access the course, participants will need the following:
- Computing device connected to the internet: We recommend that you take this course on a laptop as opposed to another device.
- Latest version of their preferred browser to access our learning platform
- Microsoft Office suite and PDF viewer
About CFEG
Cambridge Family Enterprise Group (CFEG) is a global leader in education, advising, coaching, and research of family-owned enterprises around the world.
We are dedicated to helping family ownership groups with growth aspirations navigate the new economy and achieve multigenerational success.
For more than 30 years, we have worked closely with many of the world’s leading families and family enterprises to help them steer, shape, and build the assets, talent, and unity needed for their family’s successful journey across generations.
Through work with us, families transform. They build high-performing companies, investment portfolios, and family offices; sustainable wealth; prepared heirs and successors; engaged family members; agile leadership and governance; unity in their ownership group and family; thriving philanthropy; and an enduring family enterprise grounded in their family mission and values.
What does CFEG offer?
Education Programs
live, short programs and customized workshops—virtually and in-person
Individual Coaching
assessments and customized roadmaps to identify career goals, life purpose, strengths, interests, and opportunities
Advisory Engagements
bespoke, private advisory engagements that strengthen a family enterprise, problem-solve issues, and position it to build value for generations
Research and Publications
insightful articles, books, videos, newsletters, and research on vital questions asked by family enterprises, found in our Digital Library
