Tag Archives: family business advisors

09/21/19

SWOT Analysis And Family Business

A SWOT Analysis is a valuable strategic-management tool for helping businesses of all types identify strengths and uncover weaknesses. It pinpoints places where improvements are needed and spotlights pitfalls to be avoided. It’s also useful for identifying opportunities and threats. Entrepreneurs and their advisors use it to discover circumstances that stand in the way of goals. These can be marketing issues, management deficiencies, threats from competition and many other serious business challenges.

Family businesses differ from non-family businesses in that they function through the interplay of three subsystems. These are: the family, the business and the ownership, a/k/a equity shareholders. SWOT analysis of each of these subsystems provides insight into this interplay.

We at The Family Business Leader recently performed a SWOT analysis with a third-generation family business. In the ensuing conversation we discovered several strengths within the family. One is that the members enjoy strong and supportive relationships. Another is finding that a rising-generation family member had useful industry experience gained working outside of the family business.

The analysis also uncovered some weaknesses in the areas of management, leadership and entrepreneurship. Threats were identified, coming from changes in the industry. Opportunities were found for expanding sales.

Now in possession of a larger picture of their business and the environment in which it operates, family members—both those active and not active in the business—became encouraged to come together and act as an advisory group. Together they discussed the SWOT findings, acknowledged their strengths and developed plans for addressing their weaknesses. Their strong family relationships supported all members in the discussions.

As a direct result of their talks, the family member with outside experience was offered a position in the family business. This addition made it possible to take advantage of the opportunities to expand.

The SWOT analysis was also useful in shining a light on ownership issues reverberating within the family. The Ownership subsystem is the source of some of the thorniest issues in family businesses. Enabled by the experience of having productive conversations, the shareholders are now ready to plan open conversations about transferring ownership to the next generation.

These benefits and many more can be gained through SWOT analysis. Consider applying this invaluable technique to your own family business.

03/23/19

Toward Entering The Family Business

I recently did a presentation on the principles of family-business-best-management practices to an industry group of 2nd and 3rd -generation leaders. One participant commented that she loves the family business and that it would be unfathomable for her not to be part of it.

Her statement reflects some of the important qualities of next-generation leadership in successful family businesses. Those of us who work as advisors to family businesses recognize several characteristic attitudes held by next-generation leaders:

  • I know and love the business
  • Working in the family business is considered my best option
  • I have no other option
  • I am expected to work the family business

Each of these attitudes has consequences for the individual, the current head of the family, and the future of the family business. Knowing and loving the business promotes multi-generational sustainability more than the others.

02/8/19

Hiring Professional Expertise For Your Family Business

I’ve always been careful about using my blog and newsletter to support the engagement of family-business advisors, because, while in the many situations the outside expert will provide tremendous benefit, I’ve been concerned that doing so would be perceived as self-promotion rather than honest advice.

Putting that aside, in my experience most successful family businesses, large or small, work with family-business advisors to align goals for the family, the shareholders and the business and future-proof the business against challenges that will be faced by emerging generations.

In looking for professional advisors for your family business it’s important to recognize that family businesses are complex and the expertise needed for a well-run family business is multi-disciplinary. Each area of expertise addresses one of the business’ three primary subsystems: ownership, management and the family itself.

As humans we have a tendency to seek advice from those we know and trust. But as I wouldn’t have my CPA do a root canal for me, I should not ask my business attorney to draw-up my will, or ‘have a talk’ with my children who are playing out their rivalries in the office. Equally, I would be wary of the advisor who does not recognize the multiple disciplines that make up a family enterprise or see a need for expertise beyond their own.

Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon to encounter resistance within a family against hiring outside expertise. In her January 29, 2019, Next Avenue article, Hiring an Outside Expert for Your Family Business*, entrepreneurship and personal finance expert Kerry Hannon brings up the psychological or ego issues around hiring professional expertise for a family business. She suggests that when a family believes they are smarter than an outside person or that they don’t need outside perspective, it’s a sign that they do need to bring in outside people.

There’s a reason 125-year-old family businesses are 125 years old. These families have been studied, and it’s not accidental. Hiring outside professional expertise to teach and implement best practices is vital to the multi-generational success of every family enterprise.

* https://www.nextavenue.org/hiring-outside-expert-for-your-family-business/?hide_newsletter=true&utm_source=Next+Avenue+Email+Newsletter&utm_campaign=1ca7a1cd48-02.05.2019_Tuesday_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_056a405b5a-1ca7a1cd48-164957277&mc_cid=1ca7a1cd48&mc_eid=6bb3a49c82

 

09/30/17

Father/Son Conflict—An Obstacle To Change In Family Business

Often I hear a son in a family business speaking harshly about how his father rejects the initiatives he proposes for changes in the business. Frustrated by rejection, the son may interpret his father’s attitude to mean that he cannot accept opposition to his authority.

Alternatively, the father’s view of the situation may be that his son means to push him aside, eager to take over control. The father, threatened, fears a feeling of diminishment and loss of identity.

The above—although simply put—is a recognized dynamic in family businesses. The details vary as the families and their businesses vary; no two being the same. But behind the simplicity lurks a world of emotional complexity on each side.

What does the business mean to the father? What sacrifices did he make to build it? What were his beginnings? What obstacles did he overcome to establish a viable enterprise? In what way does his business reflect his values, and stand as a source of pride in his life’s hard work? What will happen to him should he one day have nothing to do?

What motivates the son? Ambitious, energetic; educated; enthusiastic; he wants to prove himself and his new ideas. Underneath this though, a range of emotions dwells. For example, he may feel that his abilities will not measure up to his father’s; that he cannot fill his father’s shoes. He may not be able to comfortably articulate his thoughts and vision. And he may be genuinely overconfident—overestimating the value of his modernizing ideas, born as they might be from an education at the best of contemporary business schools.

The two are, in a very real sense, unknowns to each other. And, to avoid potential business disaster, it is critical that they be introduced and reconciled.

This is the delicate work of family-business advisors, who, through disclosing relationship patterns; applying techniques such as psychological assessment tools and behavior modification; teaching skills in diplomacy and negotiation; prepare a ground for mutual understanding and respect.

It seems inevitable that there will be contention between fathers and grown sons in a family business. But by learning each other’s abilities, desires and ideas a ground can be prepared where each generation learns from the other, and a constructive forward motion established.[1]

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[1] This article reflects ideas in Moveed Fazail, 2013. Fighting for the Crown: The father/son relationship in first generation family enterprises. Family Form Practitioner, July 16, 2013

02/25/17

Benchmarks for Family Enterprise Survival

In September, 2012, Dennis T. Jaffe, Ph.D., of Saybrook University and Jane Flanagan, of Family Office Exchange published Best Practices of Successful, Global, Multi-Generational Family Enterprises. Responding to the lack of solid research into strategies that support long-established family enterprises, they undertook an academic-level study with the goal of benchmarking best practices for multi-generational longevity.

Their research confirmed what has long been known among family-business advisors about best practices of family-enterprise governance, family relationships and development of next generation members:

Nurture the Family
Steward the Family Enterprises
Cultivate Human Capital for the Next Generation

Jaffe and Flanagan found that successful family enterprises strive for a balance among the three. If problems arise in any of these areas, the family does not see itself as successful.

In upcoming blog articles I will expand on each of these best practices areas, and finally discuss the importance of balance among them.

04/23/16

The Word From D.C.–It Takes a Team

I am writing this blog piece while attending the annual conference of Attorneys for Family Held Enterprises (AFHE) in Washington D.C. Each year’s conference brings together a multidisciplinary group of family business advisors, financial planners, psychologists and attorneys–representatives of AFHE’s wide membership base.

One of the organization’s underlying missions is to promote the well being and sustainability of business families. AFHE understands that family businesses are complex because families are complex; that seeing their challenges as business issues alone and addressing them from the perspective of any single professional discipline will fall egregiously short of achieving this aim. The best success comes from the collaborative efforts of experts.