Family Business General Interest Articles Archives

Why Business Families, and Family Businesses, need Boards

Background Family Businesses are the engine room of the Australian economy. They employ over 50% of the Australian workforce and generate over 50% of GDP. Family Business is not small business, although many Family Businesses are small. They also comprise approximately 100 of the 500 largest companies in Australia. Many are large corporations. However, and […]

“More, or “Meaningful”?

by Jon Kenfield MBO (Note: this is my personal, unauthorised take on what somebody else said). James E Hughes Jr. is a US attorney and the author of several highly influential books about preserving and enhancing family wealth. Hughes postulates that while financial capital provides practical support for multi-generational families, their true wealth lies in […]

Meeting Facilitation – An Expert Skill to make Meetings More Productive

A Facilitator is a person who makes something easier for others to understand or do. Facilitators also help to make things happen on behalf of others, in circumstances where they have no interest in the outcome. Facilitators should therefore be apolitical, with no personal interest in the outcomes of the meeting. Meeting facilitation requires the […]

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. […]

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, […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

Family Constitutions – Family Rules of Engagement

Family Constitutions support the workings of Family Councils and regulate relationships and interactions between individuals, the family and the business. They capture and define the values, beliefs and objectives of the family, as a family, and contain rules for the conduct of family members in relation to their dealings with the Family Business. A Family […]

Family Boards – Strategic Leadership, Governance, Supervision and Risk Management

A Company Board is a legally constituted Board of Directors under the Corporations Act 2001. Its role may be anything from: (a) being there because, at law, you have to have one in a company (compliance requirement), to: (b) being there to support and supervise business operations (governance). A Family Board is a term used […]

Arbitrator – Like having Solomon on Steroids for Commercial Disputes

Arbitration is an excellent private dispute resolution option for individuals and businesses in dispute. The parties agree to appoint an independent person – the Arbitrator (who should be an expert in the subject matter of the dispute) to make a binding decision on the issues in dispute. The Arbitrator gathers information, using documents and/or in […]

Alternative Dispute Resolution – The ADR Story

Alternative Dispute Resolution (“ADR”) describes any process used to settle or resolve disputes that is not court-based litigation (ie: it’s an “alternative”). Alternative Dispute Resolution has a long history however, ADR was not widely adopted in Australia until the early 1990s – when politicians and judges acknowledged that our court systems had become so slow, […]

Best Practice in Family Business

“Best practice is a technique or methodology proven by experience and research to lead reliably to an optimal result”. So, if we implement and support Best Practice in our family business we should enjoy success – whatever that means for our business family and for our family’s business. In an “ordinary” business the key measures […]

Parenting Styles and Family Business

“As ye sow, so shall ye reap” Recent conversations with other family business advisers confirm increasing exposure to business families with serious “fossilisation” issues. Naming no names, the problem seems most prevalent in families with seriously aged founder/owners (70 and 80-year-olds) from traditional European backgrounds. However, they don’t own all of this space – it’s […]

Saltwater Crocodile

Family Conflicts: The Apex Factor The challenges presented by dominant parents/entrepreneurs The Australian saltwater crocodile is an apex predator – it sits at the top of its food chain. An adult croc faces few natural threats, other than man, and ferociously uses its considerable bulk to assert dominion over its chosen territory. Many family businesses […]

Risk Management for Business Families

A key characteristic of all enduring business families is their willingness to do whatever is necessary to adequately and appropriately manage all significant risks and threats to their continuity, as a family group. This applies however the group re-invents itself, from generation to generation. Conversely, the most common cause of business family failure is the […]

Criteria for choosing trustworthy advisers for families in business

General Concept Professional advisers should be an investment in peace of mind. Basic compliance work excepted, their value should comfortably exceed the cost of their fees, in respect of their contributions to some or all of: Family success – financial, social and reputational. Family harmony – facilitating communication, problem solving and conflict management processes. Family […]

Brainstorming Process

Brainstorming is the best-known and most widely used technique for stimulating creative group thinking and for generating a broad range of options in response to just about any issue or challenge. The process was developed and the name initially coined by Alex Osborne, an American, in 1939. He defined brainstorming to mean: ‘A listing […]

Bob Jane’s Family Feud

“For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26-28) Bob Jane was an Australian icon – a revered racing driver, entrepreneur businessman and multi-millionaire – a classic self-made success story. But where is he now? After 5 years of litigation he’s […]

Australian Sea Lions

A Family Business is like: an Australian Sea Lion because … … they often fail to define the family’s ground rules. Australian Sea Lion (Neophoca cinerea) facts: Kingdom: Animalia; Phylum: Chordata; Class: Mammalia; Order: Carnivora; Suborder: Pinnipedia; Family: Otariidae; Subfamily: Otariinae; Genus: Neophoca; Species: Phew! Sea Lions have external ears; Seals have internal […]

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