If you own the family business and your children work for you OR you work in the family business and your parents are still involved, you need to read this tale to get the benefit of this son’s trials and tribulations.
Then start looking at your own family operation.
The best thing a family business can do is to bring in a skilled facilitator to get these questions on the table in this order:
- What does the business need going forward so that it can stabilize and then grow?
- What roles are not being filled that the company needs?
- What strengths do each of the family managers have?
- Are they each working to their best strengths?
- Is each family manager in the right role for the business and their own strengths?
- Is each family manager committed to stabilizing and growing the business?
- If they were required to invest to build this business is the company they would bet on?
The best family businesses separate what the company needs in priority over what family managers want. As with any business, the owner should sell the company to those buyers committed to growing the company. Use the bank to finance an MBO. Let the owners gift the earn out through their Will. (Read Tom Deans’ “Every Family’s Business”)
Those who invest in the business tend to run it for success.
