I received an email this week --actually I have received dozens of the same email over the years-- that said the following:

I read an article online about healthy conflict of yours and wondered if you could offer any low cost suggestions on some training we could provide at our company about healthy conflict? We have introduced Open Book Management about 6 months ago and we have encountered some problems where some folks get offended by employees raising questions and others get out of hand with fingerpointing and blame. We want to encourage healthy conflict and feel we need to train and foster a culture that invites it. Any ideas on how to provide this training at a low cost?

To read the article that my correspondent read, click here.

First, allow me to translate the crux of this request: "I want free advice..."

Second, let me tell you why the Latin phrase "caveat emptor" is part of our everyday vernacular: It's unassailably spot-on.

Nothing we get for free is valuable --from T-shirts to advice. We only value what we work for or sacrifice to obtain. Sigmund Freud said as much in a paper he wrote roughly 100 years ago, titled "Why the fee?" His answer: To ensure that patients (of his) would be invested in the work of psychoanalysis, not take it for granted, and not sleepwalk through the process.

I often adjust fees for clients who cannot afford my "standard" rate. What I do not do, however, is give free advice. It won't help.

If something is important, be willing to work for it. This principle, by the way, is why both the U.S. Military and college fraternities have initiations: So newbies will value the organization they say they want to be a part of. If their commitment is authentic, they'll endure the hazing. If you want my advice, be willing to pay the price.

EgoDoc

... the following is a transcript of an interview with Dr. Berglas done for CNN by Casey Wian.

(CNN Announcer) Retired General Electric boss, Jack Welch, is widely regarded as the best CEO of his generation, but his recent affair with a reporter had many people wondering what's up with that executive decision. Such foolish behavior is almost predictable, according to some experts. CNN's Casey Wian has that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jack Welch reached the pinnacle of American business and that may be exactly what led the retired chairman of General Electric to risk his marriage and reputation by having an affair with a prominent journalist. According to psychologist, Steven Berglas, who's studied and written about executive behavior for 25 years, there were even warning signs during Welch's last days at GE.

STEVEN BERGLAS, "RECLAIMED THE FIRE": When I saw him go after Honeywell and try to acquire it and defer his retirement, predicating on the belief that he was best suited to, you know, complete that deal, it struck me that this is a man who viewed retirement as a form of death. And he would need something much more stimulating than hocking his book on college campuses to keep him alive.

... from Marshall Goldsmith's Ask the Coach RSS Feed - How Entrepreneurs Should Handle Succession

This is second of two columns in which I address, in collaboration with my good friend and colleague, Dr. Steven Berglas, the unique challenges that entrepreneurial family businesses builders face in leadership succession. The first post describes how entrepreneurial founders can unwittingly sabotage the succession process.

Entrepreneurs who create and build businesses from scratch are nothing if not street smart. They know business, as well as the trends that impact businesses. I am not certain that all successful family business founders know this statistic: most (60-70%) of all family businesses that lose a founder to retirement or death are sold or liquidated — i.e. not passed on to the founder's heirs.