The Full Episode Audio:
Show Notes:
Family conflict doesn’t stay at the kitchen table. It follows you into the boardroom, the paddock and every important decision the business needs to make.
A farming family may look productive from the outside while resentment, avoidance or unresolved tension quietly slows decisions and limits what the business could become. The cost is not always a failed deal or a lost property. Often, it is years of lost momentum that never appears on the balance sheet.
In Episode 135 of the AgriCoach Wealth & Wisdom Podcast, Ben speaks with family business psychotherapist Tom Skotidas, director of everpath, about the patterns that develop when family relationships, business expectations and ownership become intertwined.
Tom explains why people cannot simply compartmentalise problems at home and perform differently at work. The same patterns—anger, withdrawal, people-pleasing, overworking or avoiding difficult conversations—inevitably appear in business decisions, leadership and family business succession.
But what happens when only one or two family members believe there is a problem? Can anything genuinely change if Dad, Mum or another key person refuses to take part?
Tom offers a perspective that challenges the tendency to identify one person as “the problem.” Every family member plays some part in the pattern, even through silence or withdrawal. That also means one person changing how they respond can begin shifting the wider family system.
Ben and Tom also discuss why anger is often covering something deeper, how unresolved family patterns affect business performance, and when a trusted adviser or succession facilitator may be enough—and when a family may need more specialised help.
If your family keeps returning to the same arguments, avoiding the same subjects or struggling to separate family history from business decisions, this conversation may help you see what is really happening beneath the surface.
About:
Tom Skotidas is a family business psychotherapist and the director of everpath. Working with individuals, key pairs, and groups, Tom helps business families resolve entrenched conflict patterns, repair relationships, and thrive as a system. He is also the author of the newsletter Family Business Therapy.