Is Your Family Business Disrupted by Internal Battles, Anxiety, and Overwhelm?
If the answer’s yes, both your family and your business are suffering.
Let’s fix it.
Your family business is unique to any other business because the emotional ties are deeper and more complicated. You can fire an employee. You can rarely eliminate a key family stakeholder from the business without serious long-term effects.
The family, ownership, and the business are interwoven. The thread that binds these three domains together is rooted in relational bonds that either work for or against the business.
and Sustainability of a Family Business
1
Family Conflict
The family patterns that are disrupting the business.
2
Ownership Pressures
The stress of balancing conflicting family wants with business demands.
3
Business Fragmentation
Broken systems and processes that result in loss of revenue.
You have all the expert advisors in place, but even the best haven’t been able to help you solve the family challenges you’re up against each day.
The problem with having too many voices in the mix is that advisors, talented as they are, view your problems from their own expertise–one that rarely understands the complexity of family dynamics.
The truth is, a siloed approach can only result in an endless cycle of tension and escalated conflict that will negatively impact your business.
Family business alignment means you’ll be equipped to protect the family wealth and maximize your impact across multiple generations.
You need each family member to feel valued and supported on this journey. You need an multidisciplinary, integrated process that addresses and resolves tensions between you, your family, and the business itself.
Survive Past the Third Generation
There are dozens of questions that surface each day as you and the team strive for seamless alignment between the wants and needs of the family and what’s important for the continued success of the business.
When the family is out of alignment with the business, both the business and the family suffer. Those with a vested interest in the business want to have a voice, but without clear boundaries, they often fail to contribute in appropriate ways.
Second-and-third generation family members who enter the business have a different burden. They must prove to the workforce that they have earned their “way” or they risk the curse of nepotism. They must also carry the vision of the founder forward even as they bring forth new ideas that will catapult the business into the future.
The stress and conflict of family misalignment multiplies with each generation and is often the reason for business failure. If the conflict becomes too burdensome, people simply walk away.
You’re devoted to the business and you love your family. The dark side of success is that you’re often pulled between the two.
Succession planning, sibling rivalry, and the pressure of family shareholders is weighing you down. There are cracks in the family business relationships, and even though you’ve got all the right experts in the mix, the cracks are widening.
You’re not sure whom to trust.
Misalignment is exhausting; it’s pulling you in too many directions.
As the founder or primary owner, you face a different set of challenges because you carry the weight of the family as well as the business. You’ve built the business from the ground up. You know how hard it is to change directions.
Maybe you’re longing for someone in the family to step up and take over, but you’re equally terrified of what might happen when you step away so you hang on. Other family members/owners become less secure about their role in the future. Diverse opinions escalate.
It’s a common scenario: when founders and owners are blinded by their love of the business and their love for the family, they fail to see what’s best for both. The result is chaos between owners, family members, and the business itself.
The pace of your business has escalated. You’re dealing with external issues like fluctuations in the market and social and economic crisis. You know what the business needs to thrive.
You also want to honor the voices of family members committed to the business. The problem is, some of those voices have unfounded opinions about what’s actually needed.
You consistently seek advice from business experts, but they don’t seem to understand the underlying family stressors.
Unwarranted family voices can influence the business in negative ways. Without clear boundaries between the family, ownership, and the business, family conflicts escalate.
If this level of disruption continues for too long, 2nd and 3rd generation players will eventually move on to more fertile ground.
The stress and confusion also results in mixed messages to your employees.
The costs are high: wasted time, duplication of effort, demoralized employees, internal family members vying for position and control–all of which equate to lower profits and reduced customer satisfaction.
A Family-Business Disconnect Increases Failure with Each Passing Year