At its peak, in the early 1990s, Smorgon Consolidated Industries was one of the largest and most diverse family businesses in Australia.

David Smorgon estimates that there were 25 family members across three generations working in the business, whose origins can be traced to a kosher butcher in Lygon Street, Carlton, in 1927.

On top of that, there were another 200 family members who didn’t work in the business, but who were nevertheless involved as direct and indirect shareholders.

The company was broken up in 1995 and the family members went their separate ways when it came to business, but in the case of David Smorgon, who many in Melbourne would know was the president of the Western Bulldogs Football Club from 1997 to 2012, a legacy of more than 30 years working in a family business led to a wealth of knowledge that he now passes on as the chief executive of Pointmade, a Melbourne-based family advisory firm.

He and his fellow advisers counsel family businesses across a variety of issues, and in the latest Lap of Caulfield Park podcast, he tells Ashley Browne that communication issues often run at the heart of conflicts in family businesses.

“Are you really calling a spade a spade? Are you really getting to the core of issues when you’re relaying messages to other members of the family or are you playing around the boundary line rather than being in the centre square,” he said.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Smorgon discusses:

• The need for open, honest and transparent discussion between family members, without boundaries.
• Succession planning and how elderly family patriarchs and matriarchs can be convinced to finally cede control
• Where the Smorgon family sometimes got it wrong
• Some case studies where independent mediation has helped solve family business issues
• The need for regular family business health checks?
• Succession, the TV series and how many people in family business watch it religiously
• His beloved Western Bulldogs and their prospects for 2022.

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