Succession Planning – Building Value

October 6, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

I’ve posted before about sibling partnerships. I thought it might be helpful to see that what I write about is not simply theory, but reality. So, I’m opening up the vault of actual correspondence with clients who are in sibling partnerships.

“Dear Brothers,

I’ve been taking a hard look at myself, our relationships, and the state of the businesses. I’m nearly 56 years old. I am in reasonable health now, but I am overweight, I don’t eat right, and I smoke too many cigars. I could be struck by some dread disease, become seriously ill, or suffer a worse fate. I want to enjoy the fruits of my labor before I am unable to do so. So, I need to devise an exit strategy.”

Effective sibling partnerships will not happen by default and, as I’ve shared before, one of the components of an effective partnership is having an...Read More

September 12, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Most family businesses are out of balance in one direction or the other. Achieving balance is a matter of understanding the contradictory environments and dealing with family baggage. Another key element to achieving balance is developing and maintaining respect for the sanctity of the family.

Respect the Sanctity of the Family

Great families don’t just happen. The development of great families requires intentional repeated effort, and usually takes us significantly out of our comfort zones. Most business leaders do not spend adequate time considering and working on the family issues that hinder them from greatness for various reasons such as:

• Believing in the misconception that a successful family business and a great family business are synonymous. They believe in the axiom, “

September 10, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Most family businesses are out of balance in one direction or the other. Achieving balance is a key component to being able to achieve ongoing success of the business. Another key factor is for all family members involved in the business to individually and collectively evaluate and understand the baggage that has been packed for the journey.

Unpack Your Bags

When family relationship issues rear their ugly heads in the business, accountability of family and non-family employees often becomes dramatically complicated. Individuals, who come into business together, naturally bring their relational baggage with them. And they bring it into an environment that is naturally contradictory to itself, which will put the “fun” in dysfunctional. Understand your individual baggage and take personal responsibility for deal...Read More

September 8, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Note that the word "family" comes before "business" in the term "family business." It's a trite observation with enormous significance. Family dynamics that complicate our personal lives are even more intense when family members come together in a business environment.

Mix these family dynamics up into a family business and you get one of several results:

• A heck of a formidable family business team
• A completely dysfunctional mess of family relationships where individuals couldn’t interact with one another in a healthy way if their very lives depended on it
• Something in the middle that is mediocre, unfulfilling, smells something like monkeys at the zoo, and cre

August 15, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

In my last several posts, I’ve been discussing indicators that communication is going down the wrong path. These red flags tend to pop up, like a check engine light on a car, when conflict arises around difficult issues in relationships. The sad fact is that most relationship splits occur over a failure to communicate effectively. My experience is that not very many people have ever been afforded the opportunity to learn the skills of effective communication. I’ll leave this series of posts with some basic ground rules for dealing with difficult issues and their application in the family business arena.

First, the parties to a conflict must agree to control the difficult issues together and refuse to allow the difficult issues to control them. A tendency for families to allow the issues to control leads to getting a little dysfunctional. This is where functio...Read More