Governance is extremely important to all businesses. Family businesses tend to ignore it because they see themselves as non-corporate. The issue is they have to think about frameworks, have to think about governance to make sure that the family and the business continues to effectively work together.
Governance is extremely useful when there are major events in the family’s history or the business’s history. That might be succession, retirement, divorce or a new marriage. The governance framework allows the family to be able to sit down together and talk about what they want to be able to happen next.
The absence of conflict is an ideal time to be able to address family governance. By building that roadmap now when no conflict exists, families can get around the table with a cool head and think, how do we want to be able to address difficult issues in the future, should they arise.
Family First addresses the issues of employees within the business, the families themselves and the next generation succeeding to the business. The governance framework that we approach this with allows the family to think maybe, three, five years down the road, and thinking about what might happen within those different communities and helps resolve the discussions around what might happen, how to preserve wealth in the future and how to make sure the business continues to be really successful.
Running a family business is a juggling act. The needs of the business to grow and prosper have to be balanced against the needs and expectations of family members.
Gary Deans explains why governance is so important to family businesses.
