Author Archives: mleynes

The movie Inheritance captures the essence of the issues that a family business encounter when there is no succession plan on hand. The death of Aksel, Christoff’s father triggers the  “collapse” of the harmonious relationship of Christoff to his family and the workers of their steel company because he failed to balance his work and life relationship to the people around him. Christoff knows that his first attempt to get involved in their family business didn’t end well for him. But when his mother urged him to take over the family business after his father, Christoff feels like he had no choice because his mother accuse Ulkirk (Christoff sister’s husband)  of not having the talent to run Borch Moller Steel. Although he and his wife already decided on not accepting the offer, he feels trap on being the only person who can save their family business.

Before Aksel’s death, Christoffer had a very simple but happy life with his wife, Maria. They live in a small apartment and are just contented with their jobs as a theater actress and a restaurant owner/manager in Stockholm. The death of his father, that leads to his unplanned decision to take over Borch Moller Steel company, make Christoffer’s life turn 360 degrees. He started to be the compassionate person with the people that’s why he accepted the offer of taking over the company. First, he wanted to please his mom and second, to save the company for the sake of the 900 workers that are at risk if the company closes. As he work on saving the business, audience can now notice how Christoffer’s character change from the loving and compassionate person to a cold-hearted, ambitious person who only cares for succeeding and bringing in money. The scenes where he fired Ulkirk, when he tried to rape the maid and by not showing up to Maria’s performance before the movie ended all shows how he have changed towards the end.

I also think that the emotional intelligence of the majority of the characters is very low. According to our textbook, the family emotional intelligence aims to improve the ability of individual family members to know their feelings in order to use them appropriately to make decisions (Poza, pg. 37). Christoffer fired his brother-in-law because of the rumors that spread about him but he didn’t made enough effort to investigate himself. He only relied on what Nils told him and he didn’t even consider talking to her sister first before doing the action. This scenario also makes me look back on the “Power Play at the Inn” case in the textbook because Christoffer is like Jake when they made a decision without consulting to the other family members first. Christoffer’s mother also demonstrate  a low emotional intelligence on the movie since she also did not consider the feelings of her own daughter, Benedotke and her son-in-law when she wanted Christoff to overtake Ulkirk as the CEO of the company although she knows that Ulkirk has been in the company for many years. She also did not consider the feelings of Maria regarding the entire situation and she even call her weak in front of Christoffer. Aksel is another problem in this movie because he rather choose to take his own life (as his exit strategy) than talking and telling the truth to his family.

Maria I believe is the only character here that is doing the right thing. She wanted to know and understand what entirely is going on in the business and the family but the people around her shuts her down. She is the only person who is willing to sit down and talk when there is a problem before it gets out of hand. I think she tries to be the glue of Christoffer’s family but they didn’t give her a chance.

Overall, I think the characters did a great job in showing how a typical family business functions. There are a lot of flaws that could be change in the story if you put yourself on the characters’ shoes but this is a great way to exercise future entrepreneurs like me to identify the problems and make a difference as a leader, entrepreneur and as a family member.