The Company and Your Inner-Family Business: Norm Smallwood interviews Adam Hatcher
The script flips. After two episodes of Adam interviewing Norm Smallwood — co-founder of The RBL Group and Adam's collaborator in restructuring his own family's company — Norm turns the tables and interviews Adam. They cover why Adam started Twenty One Clear, the inner family business hiding inside every family company, why succession is nothing like a baton handoff, and the two words Adam gives every family that works together: Do Not Drift. The episode closes with an impromptu case study from Norm's own consulting work, where an HR leadership succession project took a sudden inner family business turn.
21C links
- Twenty One Clear website: https://www.21clear.com?utm_source=twenty-one-clear&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=ep-14-the-company-and-your-inner-family-business&utm_content=show-notes
- Adam Hatcher on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamhatcher?utm_source=twenty-one-clear&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=ep-14-the-company-and-your-inner-family-business&utm_content=show-notes
- Subscribe to the Twenty One Clear newsletter: https://21clear.substack.com/?utm_source=twenty-one-clear&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ep-14-the-company-and-your-inner-family-business&utm_content=show-notes
- The RBL Group (Norm Smallwood): https://www.rbl.net/?utm_source=twenty-one-clear&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=ep-14-the-company-and-your-inner-family-business&utm_content=show-notes
- Episode 12, Four Stages of Leadership, Part 1: https://21clear.transistor.fm/episodes/four-stages-of-leadership-part-1-stages-1-3?utm_source=twenty-one-clear&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=ep-14-the-company-and-your-inner-family-business&utm_content=show-notes
- Episode 13, Four Stages of Leadership, Part 2: https://21clear.transistor.fm/episodes/four-stages-of-leadership-part-2-stage-4-and-the-stages-importance?utm_source=twenty-one-clear&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=ep-14-the-company-and-your-inner-family-business&utm_content=show-notes
Bumper music: "Still Hot" by Nic D, Connor Price © Lossless, 2023
Episode produced by: https://snapmarket.co
Episode produced by: https://snapmarket.co
Chapters
[00:00] Welcome and Setup — Adam flips the script: after two episodes interviewing Norm Smallwood, Norm interviews him
[02:29] What Makes a Great Family Company — Full valuation for your size and industry, plus real impact, at any scale
[03:47] Why "Twenty One Clear" — A 70-year-old family company, and mixing the unconditional with the conditional
[07:59] The Question Behind the Firm — Why some family companies seem chaos proof and others lose value and relationships
[09:30] Inside "Chaos Proof Your Business" — Who the book is for and the question it wrestles with
[11:59] The Inner Family Business — One box inside another, and what the Chick-fil-A thought experiment reveals
[13:51] The Hardest Management Job on Earth — Why a family exit is fundamentally different from any other departure
[15:15] Norm's Case Study — A chairman's succession plan for a son who never wanted the job
[17:38] Succession Is Not a Baton Handoff — Two archers, 50 yards apart, and why the arrows must meet mid-air
[18:49] Do Not Drift — The one concept Adam gives every family company
[19:33] The Family Is a System — How one raise reaches every family member, inside the company and out
[21:41] The Headlines Exercise — Surfacing unsaid expectations before they walk into the boardroom
[23:24] Twenty One Clear in Five Years — The roadmap families need and the chaos proof framework
[26:31] Why a Template Is Not a Facilitator — What AI can draft and what it can never do in a family meeting
[28:53] Final Advice — Do Not Drift, and open the lens as wide as you can
[30:54] The Third Word — What Adam's sister and the family council gave back to the company
[33:24] Closing — Continue to write your story
Creators and Guests
