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The Inheritance can best be summed up as a story of loss. Christoffer, our protagonist, gains control of the family business, but ultimately loses control of his life. He manages to save the business by guiding it through a restructuring and a merger but alienates nearly everyone important in his life.

What stood out to me was how much of a negative influence Christoffer’s mother Annelise was. Her line early on in the movie was especially telling: “Your choice to leave the firm 4 years ago was your choice, never ours.” She essentially forced her son into the CEO role, pushed him to fire Ulrik, and blasted Maria for being wrong about having objections to Christoffer taking over the company. Her demanding nature was a major factor in Christoffer’s transformation to a cold and uncaring personality. Given her dictator-like leadership style, it really seems like she was really the one in charge this whole time.

Looking at the business aspects, it’s clear that Christoffer was able to save the business despite his initial objections. He was able to keep the company solvent through the firing of over a hundred employees and the merger with Lyon Steel. However, when looking at it from a family business management perspective, the whole thing was a tremendous failure. It’s not clear if Aksel had any real succession plan in place. While Christoffer thinks that Ulrik was the intended successor, his mother claims otherwise; whether this was the truth or her using the situation to put him in the CEO position is never revealed. In addition, he puts the health of the business over that of the family’s, and fails to seek the counsel of his wife who has to fight for his attention before finally leaving him. There is no attempt at family unity or harmony, best demonstrated by the episode of Ulrik’s firing. Christoffer did not even try to hear Ulrik’s side of the story regarding the rumors going around and just kicked him out while being encouraged to do so by the mother. Failure to communicate. That was really the key problem in the family.

As a side note, I found the cinematography interesting. There is a sense of uneasiness throughout the whole movie, and the director’s choice to shoot it with handheld cameras and their associated unsteadiness echoed this theme. There was little in the way of flashy dramatic effects which made the story all the more powerful. Events simply occurred and we are left to contemplate them.

In the movie The Inheritance, we see the interaction and complications between the family and the family business. The movie displays how the unhealthy family business destroy and tear down family relationships. When the movie starts, the father of the family and head of the family business commits suicide. This works as a red alert that just keeps growing stronger throughout the movie and development of the plot. In my opinion, the mother of the family is the one creating the tensions and separations between the family members. She controls the family and the family business with an iron hand. She manipulates and enforces fear into her son Christoffer, who against his inner will, takes over after his father’s death even though that position would have been better fitted for his brother in-law who has worked for the company for the past fifteen years. Throughout the movie, we see the gradual shift in behavior of Christoffer, and how his relationship to his wife weakens for every month he works in the family business. Even his relationship to his sister is tested. The family could have greatly benefited from open and sincere communication, and implementing more transparency regarding decision-making since numerous times important decisions are made behind the backs of the family members. If the family would have been able to clearly communicate, and the mother would have set her private agenda aside to instead concentrate in what would have been in the best interest of the family, the family members would not have suffered so from the family business.

Prior to the death of Cristoffer’s father, Aksel, he was living a perfectly happy and simplistic life with his love, Maria. The Inheritance shows how handling the responsibility of taking over a business can affect someone not only physically, but emotionally as well. It is said that when a person manages a business, they become married to the business. Cristoffer’s relationship with his wife definitely deteriorated after he announced he would be taking over the family steel business. Tension existed as there was a lack of communication between Cristoffer and Maria as she did not wish for him to take part of the business.

Cristoffer decided to take over the family business to save the 900 employees his father’s death and company left behind. From there on, we see a shift in the change of Cristoffer’s character from a compassionate, warm person who wanted to do good by taking over the business and to make his mother happy to a man who wanted to bring money and profits into the company. Some may even call him cold-hearted and wicked. His relationship with his wife strained severely, and after she left him Cristoffer ended up raping the maid.

Another example of how Cristoffer’s behavior changed is when he fired his brother-in-law after hearing rumours spread about him. This strained the relationship between him and his sister. In the end, in order to sever their relationship, he re-hired Ulkirk, his brother in law.

Aksel never planned out the next steps for succession. If this were planned out, the family would be more open and expect Cristoffer to take over, or even his brother to take over the family business. Cristoffer’s relationship with his wife wouldn’t have been so strained. He wouldn’t have had to leave the happy life he was leading with his wife and Maria could’ve possibly played a more supporting role for the business if open communication occurred.

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.

The Inheritance shows us how different a man’s life is when he decides to enter his family business as a successor to his father.  Christoffer’s life and character completey changes after he decides to take over his father’s role.  In the beggining of the movie you see Christoffer enjoying life with his wife Maria.  His life seemed to be care free until he decided to run his family business.  In the early stages of his leadership role Christoffer showed compassion for those in the business which is why it was difficult for him to lay off employees.  As the movie progresses you can see his relationship with Maria fade away as he deals with the stress of managing the business.  I think the circumstances in which the business was handed over to Christoffer forced him to become cold-hearted which almost lead him to abuse his maid after his wife left him.  I feel like that was a major turning point as he realized what the business has done to him.

The mother  seemed to be cold-hearted throughout the movie.  Her main concern was the health of the business and not the family.  I feel like there shoud be some sort of balance between the family aspect and business aspect of the organization.  The mother definitely played a role in gearing her son in the wrong direction as she tried to mold him into her own character.  She had no regard for Maria or her own daughter’s feelings throughout this major transition.

A shocking moment in the movie was when Christoffer’s brother-in-law Ulrik started a rumor that Christoffer was planning on taking money from the business.  This forced Christoffer to fire Ulrik before a board meeting where he was likely to be voted as the director.  Although this was definitely the right choice, it created tension between Christoffer and Benedikte (his sister).  Here we saw how a business decisions can ruin a family relationship.  What I found interesteing was how towards the end of the movie Christoffer rehired Ulrik in order to mend his relationship with his sister.  This was a very difficult decision for Christoffer but it was definitely necessary to create a better balance between the family and business.

This movie showed just about all the dynamics that come into play, when dealing with a family business, as we’ve been discussing so far in class. It showed the relationship between children and their parents and how that can be conflicted by the introduction of a family owned steel business. This just made me rethink that maybe allowing my family to be a part of the management team may not be the best idea in the world. I’m not sure I would want to risk the peace and support a family is supposed to provide for the sake of the company. It seemed as though it can lead to family members, such as Annelise and Aksel, harboring some major issues over the years.

At the beginning of the movie, Aksel seemed distant when addressing his son and his son `s wife. He came over for a surprise visit and began getting sentimental. He referenced Christoffer being a part of the business as ‘the dream.” After watching the movie in its entirety, I can’t help but believe this was the start of a cycle that, once entered, it is extremely hard to exit. Aksel seemed a bit envious of the carefree life his son made for himself. He stated that his son left the business on his own accord rather than being kicked out. He also stressed the importance of Maria being a nurturing wife to his son. This could perhaps be because Annelise didn’t seem to be the nurturing type at all. It is unfortunate to say, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she is the cause of him committing suicide. Also, I think it is significant to show how the father chose to visit his son rather than his daughter one last time before killing himself. I think that may be because talking to someone who isn’t a part of the business and can provide conversation about other important things in life may be something comforting for a stressed out businessman. He probably wanted to spend his last moments stress-free.

Annelise is first shown in the funeral parlor at which point you can begin to see that she is the brains behind the operations of the company. For a brief moment, we are shown a family meeting where the mother makes the decision that Christoffer, their son, will announce Aksel`s death to the employees. It shows her dictatorship type of personality. Later on, we see her again in a meeting with what I believe is an advisory board member, Nils, and her son. Her way of imposing her views onto others without even taking a second thought as to how they may see the situation is horrible. She personified all the negative stereotypes of a family business. She showed nepotism when choosing the next director of the company and was making business decisions based on her being a partner in the business rather than based on the effects on the family.

Before Aksel died, Christoffer’s life could be described as perfectly happy. He had a good restaurant which was going really well and he was engaged to a lovely woman with whom he had a very good relationship.

After Christoffer’s father died, his mom was clearly pushing him to take over as the CEO of the firm. At the beginning, I think he acted correctly by talking to his wife about the situation. But after that, when they informed the employees about the father’s death, he immediately told everyone that he was going to take over the firm. This was an emotional decision; he just looked at everyone there and let his emotions guide him for saying that. In situations like this the best option they had was to have family counseling. They should have had several meetings with an expert in this kind of situations that could serve as a mediator between the family members.

If you think about the family situation they were clearly in tension because of the both the fact that the father had just died and the fact that they had a deficit in the company financed by a bank that wanted to take the firm. After Christoffer made the decision of taking over the firm that created another tension which was between him and his wife Maria who didn’t want him to do that.

If you think about the relationship between a person as important as the CFO of the company (in this case Nils) and the family, I don’t think it was quite good. He was a distant person who didn’t have any type of communication with anybody but the CEO. After the father died he seemed to get closer to the mother because she was the one taking the decisions for the moment, but overall there wasn’t an atmosphere of trust between the family and him.

When the situation of Ulkirk and the rumor occurred, I think it was the ideal circumstance for having a family assembly in which everybody could talk about their feelings and how do they think they should handle the situation. They never asked Ulkirk if the rumors were true or not, they just believed Nills.

I absolutely agree with the possibility of discussing the situation with him. Sometimes things happen and you don’t even realize they did. You just do something stupid with no bad intentions and it’s misunderstood by someone who gets you in real trouble. So that’s why a conversation is never a bad option.

The board of Directors of the company was composed by the mother, the CFO (Nills) and eventually Christoffer when he accepted to be the new CEO. This was very strange because of how big the company was, it was supposed to include more people in the meetings but those were the ones I could see.

In the situation of letting go Nils as the CFO of the company, I would’ve acted differently. I would’ve told Nills the situation since it was informed to Christoffer by the owners of the merging company, and just be honest with him. Not all of sudden tell him that he’s not going to need him, I don’t think that was classy.

When Christoffer and his mother ran-into Ulkirk and Benedotke at the restaurant, they acted so rudely. They are family and if the run into each other in any place they have to at least say hi. They acted as if they didn’t care and when you are dealing with family issued you always care.

When they were at the dinner after the merger and Christoffer talked about the future, he demonstrated autocratic leadership style. He was talking about things that affected his wife without talking to her in advance. That was probably why she left the dinner with the excuse of the headache.

After Chistoffer’s wife left him he became very unstable emotionally. He began drinking, he was transformed.  He even tried to rape a woman that was cleaning his pool area. He clearly needed psychological help immediately.

In terms of the the primary values that you want your successor to have, I would say that Christoffer seemed to express the value of integrity before his father died. If you think about commitment, he probably had that but not with his family business.

When the father died he became a workaholic. He didn’t spend any time with his wife, he became cold like his mother and seemed not have any emotions with nobody.

The nature of Christoffer’s succession was normative. He was not into the business before the father died. Indeed he was concentrated in his own business. When the father passed away he was pushed by his mother to take over as the CEO of the firm so he made it to accommodate the family (which is the definition of normative succession), in this case to accommodate his mother.

A succession plan was not developed before the father died. They had no idea who would take over if something happened to Aksel. If they would’ve had a plan, immediately after Aksel dead they would’ve know that they needed an immediate meeting with the family, board of directors and owners of the business. Probably with a succession plan already prepared they would’ve had a resolution that explained what’s going to be the role of everybody in the company from this moment on, the new CEO of the company would’ve taken place immediately, and the whole process would’ve been smoother.

If I were Christoffer, from the beginning I would’ve let my brother take over the firm. He had worked there for several years and he loved the company. I already had a good life and I wouldn’t ruin it because my mother wants me to.

The Inheritance was a perfect example of how work life cannot only inhibit your everyday decisions and actions but also greatly impact relationships with individuals in your life.  The movie demonstrates a roller coaster of emotions especially concerning Christoffer and his wife Maria.  Pre-inheritance they were madly in love, living a simple yet sweet life.  Instantly, conflict arises between the two when Christoffer announces he is taking position of Board of Director.  Even though there seems to be evidence of succession planning (Ulrick taking the position) a major pivot is made and decisions are changed without even discussing matters with the entire family.  This lack of communication and openness is the downfall not only in the marriage but also in the family.  It even extends as far as family friends and other individuals involved in the business (i.e. layoffs). Christoffer seems to allow his job to cloud his judgment and makes major decisions/actions that keep his spiraling downfall continuing at a rapid speed.

One specific incident that intrigued me about women’s roles involved the scene when the mother finds Chistoffer asleep outside.  She screams to Christoffer, “you are like me, your sister is weak like your father!”  This scene mixed with the way she involves herself in the business makes me wonder why she did no just take over herself.  The only conclusion that I can come to is that it would not seem suitable for a woman to take over the company.  Not only would it be seen that way but I am sure the bank would not support the decision either.  This plays into the idea of gender roles.  The wife is involved in the business for support and back-up not to eventually run it, that position is for the son.

The Inheritance contains many different dynamics in a family business that displays how a lack of family unity and succession planning can drive the business and family into turmoil and panic. When the father, Askel suddenly dies, the family turns to an estranged Christopher who is one of two siblings in the family. The death of Askel left the company without a leader to a company that is deeply in debt. In comes Christopher who runs his own successful Swedish restaurant, pleaded by his mother to come and run the business. He thought he escaped his family’s irrational ways when he ensconced to Stockholm, but was sucked right back in. At this moment, you can feel that this plan wasn’t going to work for Christopher or the business. Christopher lacked experience in the steel industry and wasn’t truly a suitable successor for the business. He was forced to make uncharacteristic choices for the business, which was firing many employees, including his sister’s husband Ulrick. I wondered why Ulrick wasn’t chosen to run the business. Maybe because Annelise felt he was disloyal? The fact that Christopher left the family business because of stress should have been an indicator that he wasn’t suitable to take over, especially after the business has worsened. The firing of Ulrick didn’t sit well with Christopher’s sister, thus adding more insult to injury. The family is torn apart after this move and ultimately exiles herself from the family.

I felt all the chaos in the family was due to Annelise’s controlling and domineering ways. She slowly destructs Christopher’s marriage and makes him weaker than he’s ever been.  Annelise is basically controlling the business and using Christopher as her own puppet to get what she wants. Even though it wasn’t her intentions on ruining his marriage, she did dislike Maria from the start and made him chose the company over her. In the end she did get what she wanted. Christopher did rescue the company by completing a merger with a French steelmaker. However, what did Christopher gain out of this? He loses all of his humanity after Maria leaves him, which drives him to drown his sorrows with alcohol. He sacrificed everything he had for the business and gained nothing. There was no cohesiveness within the family, which is an important characteristic a family must attain to avoid conflict.

Above all, there was a complete lack of family support and management from the get go. In order for a family business to be successful, there needs to be ordinance and a system set in place, especially when the business is in debt. It should have been Askel’s duty to make sure such a system was already set in stone. In addition, the family unity was torn apart when Christopher fired Ulrick, a decision he had to make, consequently making his sister, who is a part owner, leave the family. As I said before, the problem really started when Anneliese pleaded with Christopher to save the company. This is typically not the way a family business should bring in a successor. An unconventional approach to say the least, it turned out to be a good decision for the business, but not for Christopher in the long run.

The movie only gets into some real “action” when the unexpected death of Aksel occurs; he leaves the whole family in a real chaos, but most importantly a company with 900 employees is left without a leader. Christopher, one of the two siblings, decides to move back home in Denmark and take full control of the situation, yet against the hope and expectations of Ulrik, husband of Christopher’s sister Benedikte. On the other hand Aksel’s wife is the one pushing for Christopher to take over; she firmly believes he is the only one capable and with the necessary skills for such a big call.

Mari, Christopher’ wife, is certainly not supportive and does not play a role of cohesion and glue between the family and the business, yet she believes this decision will ruin hers and Christopher’s life. Later during the movie she is even caught cheating on his husband and that contributes to Christopher’s difficulties and embarrassment.

No succession planning is in place and that is one of the main reasons why the company, and the family, is caught in a very delicate and difficult situation; no formal family meeting or council are in place either, except for some random Sunday dinner’s reunion where talking about business seemed to be completely absent.

From the very beginning of the movie it is clear how the business is not in a good condition, the company is very close to failure and owners and top management are hoping to merge with one of the major steel manufacture from France; this is the only salvation plan that will bring some radical changes into the company.

Nils, a non-family member manager plays a very important role, and appears to be the right hand of Aksel first and later of Christopher; however at the end of the movie, once the merge is completed, Nils is sadly forced to leave the company he has loyally served for over 35 years. I see that as a big mistake Christopher has made, as well as a big lack of integrity: I would at least tried much harder to keep him in the new company, considering the effort and dedication Nils had invested for almost all his life. On the other hand Christopher does hire back Ulrik, previously fired because of some bad rumors he had spread, only to please and make his sister Benedikte happy, and yet to better reunite the whole family that is completely tired apart.

The movie ends leaving an image of the business apparently in good condition; the family is somehow reunited yet Christopher seems very sad, unhappy and badly impacted by his broken marriage, due mostly because of his family business.