Look Out for These Commonplace Problems and Conflicts in a Family Enterprise

Family Businesses can have their unique set of issues and conflicts. Having policies and systems in place to handle these typical hurdles can make running a family business a lot more adept and profitable.

Common Family Business Issues and Its Solutions

  1. A family member skips protocol and goes to a top position or head family position without consideration of the company’s structure.
  2. Having personality clashes and emotionally supercharged family members in a business can make it very hard to recruit quality talent and run an efficient operation.
  3. Lines of authority and adherence to an organizational structure, with responsibilities intelligibly defined, should be firmly installed and separate from the family’s personal authority lines. 
  4. Due to the nature of a family business, the number of competent family members from whom to choose managers can be limited.  Therefore, it is important for the family business to ensure family members obtain the necessary experience and skills to assume management or find suitable outside-the–family managers.  This issue speaks to the next section in this article, Next Generation Preparations, so we will expand on it subsequent.
  5. Family businesses must fight the common phenomenon of maintaining the status quo.  Just like any healthy, growing business, company leadership and management should keep up with the times and not be complacent with past successes.  Planning, Market Trending, Training, RE-Training and Continuing Education are incredibly important for a family enterprise, as complacency is a common challenge as the Company matures.
  6. Family Management Gaps can be a touchy issue as family companies are often run and managed by family members.  However, if a qualified family member is not available for a post, it is important to fill the management position with someone outside the family who has ample experience and history with the Company and the family members.  Bringing in outside Professional Managers can be a mistake as they can alienate suitable non-family employees and lack an established relationship with the family members in the business.  Only hire outside management if no qualified alternatives exist inside the Company.

Family Business Conflicts and How to Deal with Them

Family businesses are naturally pre-disposed to conflict so it is very important to establish firm ground rules and roles:

  1. Clearly define accountability and key responsibilities.
  2. Job assignments and company positions should be assigned based on training, skills, experience, interests and capabilities.
  3. If jobs and positions aren’t clearly defined and respected, you often have siblings performing similar jobs or have over-lapping responsibilities, causing unhealthy competition and a constant vying for attention toward parents and authority positioned family members.  Additionally, clicks can form within a family company which is counter-productive, causing unnecessary strife and conflict.
  4. Family Businesses should work with Business Turnaround Consultant to develop, design and implement a fair and firm organizational structure which promotes professionalism and shuns clicks and in-fighting.
  5. Keep emotions out of the decision making processes in a family business.  Be sure you are fighting the issues, not the emotions or personality conflicts.  Discussing and agreeing to plans prior to major Company changes and events take place fosters a professional environment of respect and cooperation.  Keep the personal family business where it belongs, at home.  Again, an experienced Business Consultant can be very useful in this area to assist in developing business rules, regulations and protocols, along with, decision making structures and processes.  Additionally, it is important to develop structures, policies and rules to guide non-family employees and interactions between family and non-family employees.  Non-family employees often feel alienated and unimportant if these accountability, responsibility and organizational systems, processes and structures aren’t clearly defined and effectively implemented and adopted throughout the Company.

Form a Family Council

A Family Council needs to be entirely composed of the family members that are significant to the future of the family company and hold significant interest in the company. There needs to be clear and open communications with in the council and outside the council to the business management. Family members should really feel comfortable in sharing their ideas, thoughts and concerns. It is important to foster a trust and understanding among the family, providing a valuable structure and forum to address and fix issues which can develop as the business grows and matures.  It is the vehicle to develop and put in motion Company plans; particularly the business’s Long-Term Strategic Plan.

The council should provide the Company Strong Strategic Direction, Objectives, Goals, Milestones and Performance Standards to carry out its Business Plan.  The Council can be headed by the Company’s Chairman (if a family member) so the board of Directors has a true understanding of the Company’s long term direction and growth goals.  While the Council takes in consideration all Key family members’ inputs and opinions, it is not’s necessary to have 100% family participation on its Board.  The Family Enterprise’s Board of Directors should contain the top family executives (Chairman and President/ CEO, etc.); however, it should also consist of non-family members to ensure objectivity, different viewpoints and experience levels.  The Council is for family discussions and providing strategic direction to the Board, which in turn, contains a mix of family and non-family alike. The family council can be a great resource for a family company’s  Business Plans.

About The Article Writer 

Frank Goley is a business consultant, business turnaround consultant, business plan expert, business coach, small business consultant, business planner, marketing consultant, online marketing seo consultant, and business plan consultant for ABC Business Consulting. Frank is considered an expert in writing, developing and implementing business plans, business turnaround plans, funding business plans, marketing plans, strategic plans and web marketing plans. Frank offers comprehensive business consulting, business coaching, business turnaround consulting, along with web seo, web development and web marketing consulting, to small and medium size companies. Frank is the author of a business plan book, The Comprehensive Business Plan Workbook – A Step by Step Guide to Effective Business Planning, and he has over 140 published articles and e-books on business success strategies. He also writes the Business Success Strategies Blog. Frank has also written articles on  How to Write a Loan Package.

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