Family Business Best Practices & Insights

Cause #12 Broken Wing Syndrome #2 (Parents & Family)

Observations Article #11: “Broken Wing Syndrome #1 (Individuals)”, posited that Emotional Resilience is the personal ability to cope with, and adapt to, challenging situations. Hence resilient individuals, both consciously and unconsciously, tend to minimise their anxiety to remain personally, socially and vocationally effective. Broken Wing Syndrome (“BWS”) refers to non-resilient individuals, and specifically to those […]

Cause #11 Broken Wing Syndrome #1 (Individuals)

Observations Excessive protection, and inappropriate amounts of support provided by parents to offspring working in a family business, are common causes of conflict within business families. Emotional Resilience is the personal ability to cope with, and adapt to, challenging situations. Resilient people, consciously and unconsciously, minimise their anxiety levels to remain personally, socially and vocationally […]

Cause #7 For want of a Family Plan …

“For want of a nail the shoe was lost, For want of a shoe the horse was lost, For want of a horse the rider was lost, For want of a rider the message was lost, For want of a message the battle was lost, For defeat in battle the kingdom was lost, And all […]

Cause #7 Equal ain’t Equitable

One of the most common causes of family business conflict arises from (innocently) confusing equality (providing equal benefits), with equity (providing fair treatment). On careful analysis, this almost always indicates avoidance of responsibility to exercise discretion towards family members in widely different circumstances, even where most outsiders, and most family members, would think it perfectly […]

Cause #6 In-Laws, Outlaws & Blended Families

All forms of matrimonial relationship can create conflicts for business families – with increasingly complicated family structures resulting in a bewildering variety of happy, working, blended, extended, dysfunctional and broken family units forming parts of larger family groups. Higher general and business education levels; social pressures demanding greater equality, inclusiveness, and communication transparency; broadening perceptions […]

Strategy Plan – Aligning the Team Around Big Picture Visions for the Future

Strategy refers to big picture objectives and desired directions of travel for a family, business or organisation. “Strategy is for generals, organising an army for battle”. Contrast this with “Tactics” which are for captains, “leading troops into battle”. Strategy is cerebral (thinking), tactics are operational (doing). Strategy Plans provide the framework for the whole planning […]

Family Structures – Professionalising Business Families

Best Practice recommends creating family structures that are appropriate to the style, needs and resources of each individual family. The bodies that make up the family structure provide leadership and strategic decision-making on issues that affect the family, as a family. We use separate structures in the family and in the business to raise a […]

Family Systems – A Systems Approach to Understanding How Families Work

A “system” describes any collection of component parts that inter-connect and inter-act. The traditional 3 Circle Model of Family Business describes family business systems, and locates each participant’s place in it, in a formal, legal sense. This neat way of classifying things, which works well for lawyers and accountants, is subject to the following observations: […]

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. […]

Family Business Best Practice and the Best Practice Process Model

One of the primary goals of any business family is to achieve long term peace and prosperity – for the family and the business. This requires excellence, or the application of “best practice”, in both the family and the business. But, there’s a problem: almost everything that makes a family successful conflicts with business success […]