However, recent data suggests that for many companies, the family approach has not held them back. About one in four family businesses reported double-digit growth last year, even amid recent uncertainty, according to PwC Global Family Business Survey 2025, conducted with Kellogg’s Ward Center for Family Enterprises. In doing so, these companies not only exceeded expectations but, in many cases, outperformed non-family businesses.
How did these companies do it? Matt Allenprofessor of family business at Kellogg, says the fastest-growing family businesses take a long-term view, move quickly when they need to, and stick to their values in tough times.
These same principles, he adds, can help any company thrive in tough economic conditions. Allen offers advice on how non-family businesses can look to family firms for inspiration.
Think beyond the next quarter
Leaders of public companies tend to prioritize delivering quarterly results for shareholders, with less concern for what happens beyond their own tenure at the top. In contrast, many family business leaders take a longer-term perspective and are less likely to make knee-jerk reactions to short-term economic fluctuations. In turbulent times, this stability can help a company respond more purposefully—and avoid accidents.
“You might think, oh, a long-term perspective means you’re going to be a little more conservative, you’re going to move slowly,” says Allen. “But in times when everything is so uncertain, having a longer-term plan means you’re more anchored. Turbulence hits and you stay the course.”
This long view helps family firms stay disciplined when others may be chasing quick wins. Allen experienced this short-term pressure firsthand at a large public company before entering academia. As each quarter closed, if sales were behind, pressure mounted to “fill the channel”—offering deep discounts to suppliers so shipments could count as sales. The tactic boosted results in the short term, but hurt performance the following quarter, forcing the company to play catch-up again.
Family businesses, in contrast, keep a longer calendar. Their continuity in leadership, with families often running the business from generation to generation, helps them stay true to their values over time—reducing the temptation to fill the channel or chase short-term wins that can hurt the company in the long run. The PwC survey found that those family businesses that experienced double-digit growth were more focused on the long term than their slower-growing counterparts.
“This culture shift toward long-term thinking beyond the family business can be achieved through creative compensation tied to long-term executive and company performance,” says Allen. “For example, how important are relationships with customers, suppliers, or the community? What is the long-term cost of sacrificing those relationships for short-term financial gains?”
Including non-financial performance metrics encourages leaders to balance decisions across a portfolio of important outcomes.
“True change in mindset requires broadening what is valued in the organization beyond financial performance.”
Take your time with technology
One advantage of this long-term perspective is that it allows family businesses to make significant but patient investments in technology. While family-owned businesses are often seen as conservative or slow to adopt new tools, Allen says the opposite is true for companies that are showing stronger growth.
An example is artificial intelligence. Allen notes that while AI and other new technologies offer long-term potential to improve performance and growth, they also require serious investment.
“You can’t just say, ‘Oh, we’re going to adopt AI.’ There’s a learning curve and there’s a cost to integrating it and building it,” he says.
This more deliberate approach can pay off for family businesses. According to the survey, nearly half of family businesses report that genetic AI has boosted revenue and profitability, compared to about 30% for non-family businesses.
Other companies can learn from this by recognizing that new technology requires work and investment to pay off. When the outlook is uncertain, investing in technology becomes more important, not less.
“For organizations, taking the long-term approach to technology means being patient with technological change,” says Allen. “This patient approach means that companies are more likely to see real transformation than superficial gains. Dwelling on potential technological developments or taking a wait-and-see approach is unlikely to lead to growth.”
Let values guide your growth
Another pattern among family firms that report stronger growth is that their purpose and values are clearly defined and communicated. Clarifying these principles helps avoid knee-jerk reactions that can occur in turbulent times.
“Having values is a level,” says Allen. “Communicating those values within the company—and knowing and understanding those values—is a level above.”
Family firms make their values easily understood by using specific stories. Such stories help express and reinforce a company’s purpose. Other businesses can take the same approach. The point is to give people a shared sense of direction when things are uncertain.
“The difference here is knowing what the values are versus understanding what the values mean,” says Allen. “It’s one thing to say, ‘we care about the customer,’ but that statement has no meaning if leaders, managers and employees don’t know what that looks like in everyday practice.”
Allen describes how a non-family service company implemented this approach by giving customer-facing line employees a discretionary monthly budget to spend on customer appreciation initiatives, such as discounts, lunch or coffee, birthday gifts—even a “sorry” gift for customers who had a bad experience. The impact of the initiative in making customer appreciation an actionable value far exceeded the relatively modest cost.
Focusing on expressing corporate values has the added effect of enhancing a company’s reputation. For family businesses, this process is often deeply personal.
“They’re embedded in the communities they operate in,” says Allen. “They may employ multiple generations of the same family. They care deeply about their staff, not because the employees provide profit, but because they feel like family.”
This can lead them to make different calls in difficult times, such as avoiding layoffs or major cost cutting. Allen points to LL Bean, the retailer, as an example. The company still does much of its distribution from remote northern Maine, a place a profit-driven business might have abandoned long ago because it’s less cost-effective than other locations.
In turbulent times, employees who feel supported are more willing to work together when the business needs them. “We’ll probably get a lower yield this quarter in exchange for that increased loyalty,” Allen says. “Non-family businesses can learn to do the same by broadening their measures of success.”
Reduce red tape wherever possible
Simpler ownership and governance structures allow family businesses to move quickly and avoid getting bogged down in red tape when conditions are uncertain. This “structural flexibility,” as Allen describes it, is a decisive advantage of family businesses. Adopting the freedom to make decisions with fewer levels of approval can make the process more agile for non-family businesses as well.
“Because I’m privately held, I’m not beholden to a whole bunch of random shareholders,” Allen says. “I don’t have to go through the bureaucracy of a big complicated public company.”
This agility tends to work best at a certain scale. The PwC survey found that many of the companies reporting the strongest growth were mid-sized – a “sweet spot” where businesses are flexible enough to adapt quickly, but have the resources and capital to take advantage of opportunities, without the red tape that can slow down larger companies.
Non-family firms can learn from this by reducing approval levels so that they can respond with speed when circumstances change.
“To benefit from organizational flexibility, it is important that businesses, whether family or not, focus on preparing leaders who can think and act strategically, not just maintain what their predecessors have achieved.”
