Dr Randel S. Carlock
Professor Randel Carlock is a business professor, coach, family therapist, entrepreneur, and former CEO and Chairman of a NASDAQ listed company. Randel’s passion for teaching and real-world experience as an entrepreneur helped him enter the new field of family business. He was founding director of 2 award-winning family business centers—one in the U.S. as the first Opus Professor of Family Enterprise at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota and later, the Wendel International Centre for Family Enterprise as the first Berghmans Lhoist Chaired Professor in Entrepreneurial Leadership at INSEAD. He has now researched and taught about entrepreneurship, family business, and coaching at INSEAD's campuses in Asia (Singapore), Europe (France), and the Middle East (Abu Dhabi)—and now its facility in the U.S. (San Francisco) for 20 years.
The main theme in Randel’s work is the power of learning and personal development in creating deeper meaning in our lives. He believes that we learn 3 things when we teach. First, from the class we learn how to motivate others. Second, we learn about what we are teaching. And last, we learn about ourselves. It’s only when we learn new skills, and more importantly, about ourselves and what we value, that our trajectory towards leadership and making a difference climbs exponentially. |
He holds Master's, MBA and PhD degrees and has done postgraduate training in family and marriage therapy at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College and psychodynamic counseling at Birkbeck College, both in London. He also completed the Art and Practice of Leadership Development at Harvard University’s Kennedy School and Strategic Family Therapy Training at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto.
He is most proud of his books, written with outstanding colleagues: When Family Businesses are Best and Strategic Planning for the Family Business with John L. Ward, and Family Business on the Couch: A Psychological Perspective with Manfred Kets de Vries. These books have been translated into several languages including Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish. A Family Business on the Moon, co-authored with Keng-Fun Loh, represents a completely new style of learning and an exciting departure from his previous academic publications. Randel now lives in Singapore. When he’s not teaching, he tries to connect with his three adult daughters, who live and work in New York, Minneapolis and Muscat, Oman (respectively) at their family cottage in California. |
Business Background
He has 25 years of leadership experience, serving first as an executive with a NYSE family business – Dayton-Hudson (now Target Corporation), founder of four companies and served as Chairman and CEO of one of them, which he listed on the NASDAQ and has served as a director of two publicly listed corporations. Educator As a chaired professor at INSEAD since 1999, Professor Carlock directs a one week Family Enterprise Challenge Executive Program for business families, teaches an MBA Family Business elective course four times per year, Entrepreneurial Leadership course in the Executive MBA (EMBA) program and a full module in the Masters in Psychology Coaching and Consulting for Change Program. In 2016, he designed and led Beyond Entrepreneurship, a new five-day course for INSEAD EMBA students at the affiliated Wharton West Campus in San Francisco. With a life long passion and over 25 years as a professor, he is consistently ranked in the top 15% of professors at INSEAD and has been awarded the Dean’s commendation for outstanding teaching every year since 2010. In 2002, he was awarded a Babson College Fellowship in Entrepreneurship and subsequently taught in the fellows program twice. Since 2014, he has also been a visiting professor at Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management in Beijing, teaching EMBA Entrepreneurship courses and lecturing on Family Business, and at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing and Shanghai teaching their Next Generation Leaders program. In 2016, he was named the First Tyler Distinguished Fellow in Residence at the Middlebury International Institute in Monterey, in his home state of California. |
Researcher and Author
Professor Carlock is author or co-author of five books and is currently completing his latest book for family businesses, A Family Business on the Moon: 24 activities to plan your family and business future, with co-author Keng-Fun Loh, to be published in 2018.He created the Parallel Planning Process for family businesses with his co-author Professor John L. Ward. The concept and application is found in their books including When Family Businesses are Best: The Parallel Planning Process for Family Harmony and Business Success (translated in to Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Spanish), one of the most read family business books in print, and Strategic Planning for the Family Business. Additionally, he has written Family Business on the Couch: A Psychological Perspective with Manfred Kets de Vries, and Organization Development in Successful Entrepreneurial Firms. Carlock has also authored chapters in “Leadership Coaching in Family Businesses (2016)” and “Failure in Family Business Coaching (2010).” He has written over 120 business cases, videos and articles and was awarded the 2006 Family Business Network Research Award for the best-published family business research article titled “Fair Process: Striving for Justice in Family Firms” (with L. Van der Heyden and C. Blondel) in Family Business Review, March 2005. The HP-Compaq Merger: A Battle for the Heart and Soul of a Company” (with Liz Florent) was awarded the 2005 IMD-European Foundation for Management Education Family Business Case Writing Award. In 2008, the Family Firm Institute awarded Carlock with its International Achievement Award for “outstanding achievement in furthering the understanding of family business issues internationally.” It acknowledged that Carlock, ’in addition to his many contributions at INSEAD, has furthered the international development of FFI through outstanding presentations at annual conferences, cutting-edge research published in the Family Business Review, and as an extremely popular Body of Knowledge faculty member for the FFI certificate program’. |
Advising
He currently works with business families and corporations on strategy, leadership, family relationships and governance, specializing in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He is regularly invited by leading corporations and learning institutions to conduct keynote speeches and workshops on entrepreneurship and family business leadership, governance and psychology. Some of their feedback: Andrew Wates, Chair of Wates Family Holdings: "Randel is right at the top of his class… The focus on family values and vision helped us develop an amazingly strong management team." Curtis L. Carlson of Founder Carlson Companies: "Being an entrepreneur first and professor second gives you a strong insight to what makes people like me think: Our work was stimulating and important." J.R. Cargill, largest shareholder, former director and senior executive of Cargill: "Our family differences have settled down, thanks for helping straighten out my wonderful kids." Educational Background Carlock earned his PhD from the University of Minnesota, and where he also completed an Executive MBA in strategic management (1983) and an MA in education and training (1976). His doctoral dissertation explored the role of organization development in managing high growth entrepreneurial firms. His training in family therapy started with a post graduate certification in family and marriage therapy at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, University of London (1998) and a certificate in psychodynamic counseling at Birkbeck College, University of London (1999). He took The Art and Practice of Leadership Development at Harvard University Kennedy School of Government in 2011 and in 2015, completed Strategic Family Therapy Training at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto. He was awarded a Certificate in Family Business Advising with Fellow Status (2001) by the Family Firm Institute, Boston, MA (USA). |
|
|
Personality
Randel is an entertaining and charismatic personality, who brings energy, practicality and sophisticated fun to the complex and often challenging arena of running large family businesses.
He has the ability to bring together intellectual thought leadership with the real world and has a deep understanding of the emotional complexities that often exist, in particular across generations. |
His extensive training in psychotherapy provides him with the all-important skills to facilitate, with all personalities involved, towards a workable strategic plan.
Randel’s expertise allows him to clearly interpret the issues that so often create tensions in family businesses. He has the ability to quickly identify and demystify the challenges and to find and apply innovative and practical strategic solutions with his unbiased external advice and expertise. |