Arbitration Services – Businesslike Efficiency and Effectiveness

Arbitration:  Parties to a dispute agree to appoint an independent person (ideally an expert in the subject matter of the dispute) to gather information (using documents and/or in person), to make legally binding decisions about any issues in dispute. Ideally, Arbitration Services are specified in a contract, as part of an agreed dispute resolution process.  […]

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Arbitration – Great Process … but use only as intended

The arbitration process has been in use around the world for hundreds of years.  In essence, parties to a dispute agree to appoint an independent person (ideally an expert in the subject matter of the dispute) to gather information from all relevant sources in order to make a legally binding decision on the referred issues, […]

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Family Business Plans – The Plan for the Business

“When you don’t know where you’re going, any path will take you there”.      Lewis Carroll (ish) Family Plans, and Family Business Plans, are short, medium and long range plans for: (a) the family (10 to 100 years) and (b) the family business (1 to 10 years).  They should be developed independently – to emphasise and […]

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Family Plan – The Plan for the Family

“When you fail to plan you are planning to fail”                Benjamin Franklin. Plan: a set of decisions about things to be done in the future to achieve an identified goal. Family Plan: what the family wants to achieve for its members, and for the family as a whole, over at least the next 25 years.  […]

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Family Office – Agile Family Offices Build Family Success

Family Offices play an important role in both the daily operations, and in the future sustainability plans, of many individuals and business families. Traditional Family Office For hundreds of years traditional Family Offices have been used by ultra-wealthy family dynasties ($100M+) to help build, manage and preserve their wealth, and to protect the family’s reputation.  […]

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Family Meetings – A Critical Lubricant and Glue for Family Sustainability

Families that thrive over multiple generations almost invariably ascribe a large part of their success to their ability to have friendly and constructive family meetings.  They frequently contrast the work they’ve put into being able to do this with efforts expended by other families that haven’t fared so well. Rather surprisingly, many business families don’t […]

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Family Mediation – Constructive Dispute Resolution for Business Families

Family Mediation is the “go to” process for families when Family Law is used to facilitate matrimonial separation.  The process can be anything from a highly formalised, institutional process to flexible private proceedings, tailored to the needs and styles of the parties themselves. In contrast, in the family business world family, mediation is much less […]

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Family Governance – The Family’s System of Rules for Good Behaviour

Business families, and families with wealth, eventually need to develop and apply some rules by which to operate, so everybody can get a fix and a reality check on their personal and collective expectations and obligations, as core guidelines to help avoid conflict. Governance is a system of processes that combine philosophy, practical intent, ethics, […]

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Family Disputes – Shout Out for a Different Style of Dispute Resolution

Families have been embroiled in disputes since the first cavemen’s sons “borrowed” their flints, and their daughters refused to wear hand-me-down skins.  There’s nobody quite like a sibling for knowing how to press your buttons, and as for inter-generational tensions …… Family disputes have myriad causes.  When limited to family members and family issues, family […]

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Family Councils – Sophisticated Leadership for Family Groups

Every sentient organism needs some sort of control centre to direct and manage its functions and to help ensure its survival.  The more complex the organism, the more capable (intelligent) the control centre needs to be.  A business family is a complex sentient system, which makes it a very complicated organism.  As such, it needs […]

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