How is your Family Business?
You can choose your friends but not your family. Unfortunately you're in business with your family and not your friends.
Do you sometimes feel when you're working in your family business that you're feeling like you did when your children were young and fighting in the backseat of the car the whole way to a vacation destination? Or, you feel just like when you were a child and your siblings drove you crazy by touching your stuff or just generally annoying you?
On the one hand, you should be proud to be a family business owner in that many of the most respected, highest performing companies in the world are family owned and operated.
On the other hand, despite their inherent strengths and significance, family owned companies often face unique vulnerabilities. Discord among family members can loom around every corner and creep into areas of general transitions, investment decisions, profit sharing, leadership and position appointments and even things as trivial as comparative sizes of offices!
After all, why should families in business together be any less quarrelsome than any other group of relatives? The problem is that family disputes in a family business can have more serious and far reaching effects on family members personal relationships, and the economics and impact on family wealth and even the financial well being of employees.
For a family business to be successful with a family that also maintains personal relationships with each other, families need to manage the inherent conflict between family and business on a consistent basis.
There is an art to family business management and it is usually unique to each family.
For over 30 years, I have worked with family businesses and their owners and employees in a variety of capacities and roles. I like to joke that my career was not in lawyering and consulting but rather one as a psychologist. The point is not totally a joke, you do have to have strong instincts and be capable of understanding people and their behaviors to be a successful advisor to family businesses.
I enjoy the sharing the challenges that every family faces and the unique circumstances of each family. I assist families, owners, managers in navigating the challenges of leadership, succession, and governance across generations of families and their businesses.
My goals for all of my services is to help family business owners to make better people decisions for critical roles and managing that process, systematically increase family members assuming new leadership roles to take on bigger challenges, build a sustainable talent pipeline for both family and non-family members in the business and ensuring that whatever other issues that are troublesome or distract the business from sustaining it’s competitive advantage are solved to protect the business against threats.
There is no charge or obligation for us to have a conversation 248-752-6480
So, it’s my goal when asked to deliver the above goals to my client. Let me help you replace that frustration I described in the opening paragraph with your family members with the peace that your business surviving and thriving can provide to you.
