The last 3 firms I worked for (all were very large and in business for 50+ years) had been turned over from fathers to their sons who had just completed their MBAs.
Two of these firms were privately held while the third had a majority stockholder turn his controlling interest over to his son.
In all 3 cases, these successful companies went bankrupt in 3 years or less.
Now it is either sons are failures at running a business started by their fathers (some truth to that) or there is something seriously wrong with the MBA programs.
In all 3 cases, the MBAs completely ignored what had made the companies prosper and immediately started to manage strictly by the bottom line.
Customers, who in some cases paid a higher price to do business with these companies simply because of the great service provided, started to leave in droves once the service either deteriorated or eliminated.
I can only assume nothing in the MBA programs teach students to focus on the core values or services of a company.
At this point I have zero respect for MBA programs.
That is a fascinating data point.
I think there is something inherently difficult about the second generation running the family business. That rarely works. It’d be interesting to study the “why” of that. I’m thinking that the first generation in your cases was probably aware of that trend...so they thought that having the son get the MBA was a good way to start to make sure that their Empire didn’t crumble.
And look what happened.
Probably it would have been better to start the son in the mail room, and let him work his way up to ownership. Now that might actually work....
Years ago I decided that I would supplement my BS CE with an MBA.
What I learned was most of the MBA direction was not suited to a small family business. I did not finish but did take several courses that seemed to apply to a small family corporation.
An MBA is no substitute for experience in the trenches. The MBA is background that allows a person to understand what is going on from a deeper context. Look at it this way: a driver’s ed class teaches teenagers the basics of how to drive so they can get a license, but they are not experts in driving. They now know the rules of the road.
The MBA is just like that. People with MBAs know some of the rules of the road, but there is no replacement for time behind the wheel gaining experience. Both are necessary! The sons should not have been turned loose without the experience part, and learning from their family’s success.