I have been sharing posts on various social media on the tragic outcomes resulting from conflict in some of the world’s most famous family businesses. What about the flip side? What do successful families do to minimize conflicts?
While those stories are nowhere near as entertaining to read, we can learn from some of their strategies.
Here are a few for your consideration:
- Establish the family rules. These successful families build and agree on a set of rules which address key ownership issues.
- Decouple family issues from business issues. Families that separate the ownership issues from management issues and balance their relationship as family members and their contractual relationship as business owners have a more viable family business.
- Establish a family council. The family council becomes a forum that allows family owners to be actively engaged in the debate surrounding ownership and family issues – the emphasis here is that all family members can participate, regardless of whether they are actively involved in the management of the business.
Most families are facing conflict with no mechanism for dealing with disputes between family members.
I should be part of your process part of your conflict resolution framework. Ready to start addressing conflict in your family business?
Reach out to me; I can help.
