The fundamental premise underlying The High Performance Family Company is competence – family employees possess the ability and the desire to do what needs to be done – that is, the necessary talents and motivations for productive effort. They bring this basic human competence with them every day and will use it in their work to the extent that the organizational conditions permit its expression. The right organizational environment, therefore, is critical to individual and collective potential being expressed in a productive way. Competence will only become the norm in the family owned entrepreneurial business if conditions that encourage collaboration, commitment and creativity are allowed to flourish.