Before there was a United States of America, there was a Lindley’s Mill, in what today is Graham, North Carolina. In 1755 the mill was established to grind local farmers’ grain into flour for their families and the community. The methods have been updated for electricity instead of water power and our products are distributed nationally, but my father (Joe Lindley, a 9^th generation descendant of the original founder), still grinds organic flour for bakers much like it would have been done in 1755. He has been milling flour for 37 years and has succeeded in creating a whole grain flour (Super Sprout Sprouted Wheat Flour™) that tastes great and is more nutritious than either white flour or whole wheat flour. My mother, Teresa Lindley has also managed operations and finances at the mill for more than 30 years. Growing up in a family business created my interest in the family business courses at Kenan-Flagler where I have gained valuable insights. I hope to one day return to the mill and carry on its’ legacy by providing a consistent and high quality product for bakers so they can create the best bread possible.

The Asheville Artisan Bread Festival, held every year in late March, is the perfect time to see what our flour creates and we enjoy attending to see our bakers in person. It is always a treat to taste their wonderful breads made from our flour! Other bakers and bread enthusiasts from across the Southeast come to taste the variety of Artisan breads created by bakeries across North Carolina. This year, local flour was the focus of the Festival and many of the products were made out of North Carolina grown wheat ground at Lindley Mills. Rob Welsh, of Chicken Bridge Bakery in Pittsboro, NC created one of the first Super Sprout Sourdough loaves sold to the public-and it was delicious! Although we got our fair share of taste testing in, we were also able to talk to a multitude of professional and home bakers at our booth during the first part of the Bread Festival. We spread the word about Super Sprout (our new and more nutritious whole grain flour) and sold out of the product we brought to Asheville. We were joined on this trip to Asheville by June Forbis and Kathy Cooper, who have worked with us at the Mill for more than 10 years. They represented all of our employees who work hard to make sure the bakers receive the best flour on time. The entire Lindley Mills team greatly enjoyed meeting many of our customers face to face and discussing the potential of Sprouted Wheat Flour with so many bakers. We are always excited to go to the Asheville Artisan Bread Festival and have the chance to see (and taste) the final product!

Marissa Weiss, BSBA ’13

Marissa Weiss, BSBA ’13, is inspired by class speaker to talk to her father about their family business and plans to construct a board of directors…. On Wednesday, March 27^th, Todd E. Schurz from Schurz Communications spoke to our Family Business class. Todd spoke with us about how his family firm has evolved over the past five generations and the importance of having a family agreement and board of directors.

Since its founding in 1872, Schurz Communications has adapted to the changing demands of the market. For example, in 1980, segment revenue was made up of 26.6% electronic and 72.8% newspaper. Today, however, it is almost exactly a third newspaper, a third broadcasting, and a third cable.

Each generation has taught the current leaders of the company what is needed to survive in this ever-changing economy. One of those lessons is to value culture and to hire those who respect the one that is already established. Evolution is an important facet of the industry and the company needs to hire those who will help it evolve. The most recent lesson learned is that in order to add independent directors, the company has to change processes and add more work for management. The best board or directors will be one composed of people who challenge assumptions and ask excellent questions.

Todd is an independent director for another family business’s board. From this experience, he has learned what can make families stronger – sticking to family and company core values. Additionally, the importance of knowing one’s role on a board and what each member brings to the team is essential.

I am only the second generation in my family business and am not working for the company after graduation. Todd E. Schurz’s presentation, however, inspired me to talk with my father about our family’s core values and when my father envisions the need for a board.

*First published in and reproduced with permission from The Smart Manager, India’s first world-class management magazine (www.thesmartmanager.com).

Dini Cecil Pickering, who is the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Biltmore Company spoke to our Family Business class on March 20^th, 2013. Pickering talked with us about the history of the Biltmore Company, and she also discussed her role as the Family Office Director.  Pickering serves as the leader in planning family meeting and training for future generations.

Pickering mentioned that family meetings are  important for all family businesses to have, yet  few family businesses actually have them.  At these family meetings, it is essential to make sure that “fun” is incorporated into the agenda in order to ensure a high retention rate from all family members.  Pickering also recommended that the meetings be at a location different from the home office of the family business if possible.  The family meetings help to build communication and trust between all members of the family.

Pickering was a pleasure to have in class. Many students, who are from family businesses, left the lecture eager to start planning family meetings in their own family businesses.

Read more about the Biltmore and Dini Cecil Pickering’s visit to class last year.

Read full newsletter here .

On Wednesday, February 13, 2013, Michael Mangum visited Kenan-Flagler’s Family Business weekly lecture. Mr. Mangum, the Sr. Vice President and Director of Saulsbury Industries, spoke to the class about his experience as a non-family executive with the engineering and construction firm after being Chairman of C.C. Mangum, a highway contract and asphalt producer founded by his grandfather in 1927.

From the beginning of his lecture, Mr. Mangum stressed his premise for the day: sustainability. He emphasized that success is necessary for a business to continue, but “just because you are great does not mean you are sustainable.” In family businesses, he witnessed many factors that can derail success: lust for money, using the business to serve family, and lack of communication. Mr. Mangum highlighted the ability to attend to the needs of each person (owner, family, or worker) as key to moving from success to sustainability.

A lesson that resounded with me came from Mr. Mangum via the film, Field of Dreams. One particular scene from the movie refers to expecting the unexpected (“He’s not gonna wanna load the bases, so look low and away…But watch out for in your ear.”). Over Mr. Mangum’s career, he expected to find the relationships between family, ownership, and the workforce of a firm to be quite separate from one another. The reality, he found, was that the interrelationships among these groups are more like the Family Business Three Circle Model, where any one person can be a part of one, two, or even all three of these groups.

 On behalf of the Family Business class at Kenan-Flagler, I want to thank Michael Mangum for providing his unique and inspiring perspectives and lessons to all of us.

Daniel Sullivan, BSBA ’13, relates Stephen Shuford’s presentation to his own family business….

“Sibling partners [in a family business] will always run into conflict,” said Stephen Shuford in an oddly encouraging way. “It’s inevitable. The trick is dealing with it with openness and honesty.” Stephen Shuford, the CEO of Shurtape Technologies LLC, has worked alongside his brother for the past fifteen years; growing exponentially a small branch of his family’s diversified business.  He describes his experience working with his brother—to whom he is very close—as one of tireless effort towards successful cooperation. “Our last argument was this morning,” he says jovially. For years now I have denied the thought that my brothers and I might have conflict with each other if we end up working together. My argument was that we’re too close, there’s no way conflict could arise. But what was I thinking? Despite our closeness, we are immensely competitive, and have been in countless scraps from childhood to young adulthood. Of course conflict will arise.Shuford’s words were encouraging because I know that I—in addition to my brothers—have and am capable of the self-awareness and social/emotional intelligence to be able to deal with such conflict accordingly. Shuford argued that these conflicts are inevitable, but actually invaluable to a family business that harbors trust, openness, and honesty. Conflicts—if they are worked through with care—create a greater consistency of high quality, intelligent business decisions. Conflicts are not just inevitable, they are necessary.

Stephen Shuford, MBA ’97, with Cooper Biersach and Steve Miller

 ”Conflict is inevitable;” I’m still breathing a sigh of relief. I no longer worry about my brothers and I having fear of conflict, or dangerously suppressing our feelings and emotions only to have them climactically rise up and lash out. In our family of 5 kids, we have been trained our whole lives to deal with conflict with each other and we have always grown closer and stronger because of it, as Stephen and his brother continue to do.  It is now my mission to be a student of social/emotional intelligence strategic transparency, that family conflict would not only be inevitable, but that the handling thereof would be a great key to the enduring success and growth of the Sullivan family business.Read about Stephen Shuford’s 2012 visit here.

Marissa Weiss, BSBA ’13

 On Wednesday, January 23, 2013, the class was lucky enough to welcome speaker Ted Wentz, MBA 08’, who started his own business, Firecraft, in 2010 after partnering with his family’s firm, Quadratec. Not only did Ted utilize the knowledge that he gained from the family business class, but he also shared lessons he had learned once in his family’s business, including how to successfully fund and start his own business within his family’s business.

Ted Wentz, MBA ’08

Ted Wentz grew up surrounded by Quadratec, his father’s business of selling Jeep parts online and via catalog. Throughout his schooling, he never wanted to go into the family business, but once he received his MBA, he felt that he had all the skills to really succeed in it and that he owed his fortunes in life to his parents. But he did often worry about how he would fit in being the “boss’s son” so he joined the company “his” way. He started at the bottom of the totem pole, packing boxes in the Quadratec warehouse. He knew if he was ever going to be successful, he needed to feel a struggle and gain the respect of the other employees. It was inspiring to hear about a man who could have worked half as hard for the same position and salary, but instead decided earning respect and maintaining fairness were essential in defining his success. I was humbled by Ted and the value he placed on working in every aspect of his company (not just token positions or executive, high-salaried positions). Ted worked to get his father’s employees to move from feeling threatened to feeling comfortable with him and it worked.

 Another lesson I learned from Ted Wentz was how to maintain the balance of power with your family in the work environment. Ted and his father speak to each other as employee and boss, respectively, in the office. However, if they close the office door, they act like son and father again. They do this so other workers will see Ted as a young professional. It also helps keep the seriousness of the job between Ted and his father. Ted was never given more power than anyone else in his position would have been given.

Lastly, Ted exemplified the most important quality any person can have, “self-awareness.” Ted entered the business world knowing his strengths and where he could enhance his skillset. He assessed what his needs were from his career and defined what success meant to him. He scores high in emotional and social intelligence and this ultimately led him to start a company that may one day even outgrow his father’s.

I am grateful to the Family Business class at Kenan-Flagler and Ted Wentz for providing me with inspiration and guidance in my pursuit to join my family business.

Read about Ted Wentz’s visit to the FEC in 2012 here.

Michael Hornsby, BSBA ’13

 Susan Gravely, Chairman and CEO of Vietri, recently visited the students of UNC Kenan-Flagler’s Family Business I course to discuss what it takes to start and sustain a family business. In 1983, while on vacation on the Amalfi coast in Italy, Susan, her mother (Lee) and her sister (Frances) became fascinated with the ceramic dinnerware on which they were eating. It was beautifully designed, and more intriguing, different from most dinnerware that they had seen in the United States. They inquired about the ceramicist and, shortly after, visited his factory nearby. At first a simple fascination, these three women decided to make a business venture out of the experience and became the ceramicist’s main wholesaler in the United States. Vietri Inc. was then born.

In her discussions with the students, Mrs. Gravely discussed the numerous conflicts that can arise in operating a family business, especially when Vietri was experiencing rapid growth shortly after inception. Having years to learn from her triumphs and mistakes, Susan learned an important lesson about working in a family business: the importance of leaving work discussions at work and not carrying them over into family time. Susan said that it was difficult to uphold this unwritten rule at times, but that it was of the utmost importance to do so. According to her, should one fail to do so, he or she faces the risk of losing not only the business, but his or her own family as well. The Binghams and the Louisville Courier-Journal companies are a perfect example of such a situation.

Susan Gravely, Vietri, Inc.

 Mrs. Gravely left us with one last bit of advice when considering our future plans: “Do what you love. Doing just this will make you the happiest that you will ever be.” As someone who is considering a future in a family business, I must remember to refrain from feeling pressured to do so if I find that I am interested in other fields. This realization will only come through time and experience, but the lessons that I have learned from Mrs. Gravely and her family’s story will persist and stay with me as I make life-changing decisions down the road.

I hope that Mrs. Gravely will continue to visit the Kenan-Flagler Business School in years ahead. Having been a guest speaker in our Family Business class since 2006, she has made an impact on a number of students’ lives through her story, valuable insight and sound advice.

George Alexander (MBA ’11), Vice President of Muthoot Group Finance, shares how UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and the Family Enterprise Center equipped him to lead in his family business in India. Watch the video here.