I recently had the pleasure of spending time with several couples who were all at the stage of their lives where planning an intergenerational transition of their family business was one of their biggest challenges.
It was all part of the Triomphe program at the École d’Entrepreneurship de Beauce, where I had been invited to talk about my experiences and my book, Shift your Family Business.
In the late afternoon, I introduced myself to the group, and then my task was to answer some of their questions. Not having had the chance to answer all their questions, I decided to make them the subject of a few blogs.
This week, it’s the question from a mother who was worried about the relationship between her son and her daughter, but not for today. I’ll let you read the text of her question:
“How can we make sure that the relationship between the two successors, brother and sister, will continue in harmony, over time, through difficulty, once we’re no longer here?”
Wow, what a question; luckily I still have several paragraphs left to attempt an answer! But she’s certainly not the only parent with this worry either.
And it’s lucky too that I didn’t try to answer on the spot, since it’s a question that required a lot of reflection to give a complete answer, and I would surely have missed at least part of what follows.
In fact, my best answer has three parts:
- Conversations, 2. A schedule, 3. A neutral party.
Conversations
We all have worries about our children, and too often we keep them inside. I strongly recommend taking the time and making the effort to talk about them together, as a family.
If it’s easier to raise the subject one-on-one, do it that way, but talk about it. It’s almost always the things left unsaid that cause the biggest problems.
And don’t wait for a fight before acting; it’s always better to talk together and share our thoughts when everything is going well.
By discussing together, you have the chance to accomplish two things. First, you’ll relieve yourself by having raised the subject so that it can be talked about openly together.
And second, the words your children speak in front of you will be very hard for them to forget once you’re no longer here.
It’s worth it, and it’s good for the whole family.
Schedule
Other experts would go instead with a word like “governance”, but I don’t like that word because each person attaches a different definition to it, and the word often scares people.
The schedule, and above all what you’ll do with it, will accomplish the beginnings of governance for the family business.
While Mom and Dad are still involved, I strongly recommend taking the annual calendar and scheduling at least 2, or maybe even 4, family meetings, where you’ll discuss only the following subject:
We own a family business, but even more, we are a business family, and it’s the family that has to come out on top.
These are the beginnings of your “family council”. You’ll develop your own agenda, you’ll take minutes, you’ll schedule your next meeting, etc. But you’ll be formalizing a process for discussing the important subjects that don’t get talked about every day.
Neutral Party
I talk about it often, but over the long term, it’s essential to have an outside person, with a different last name, whom the family has access to and whom they all trust, to discuss interpersonal subjects.
It could be a senior employee, an outside professional (lawyer, accountant), a friend or neighbour, or perhaps someone from another family you know who has already faced these issues.
The important thing is to start inviting this person to your family council meetings at least once a year, so they can follow the thread of the important subjects.
It Takes All Three
I know full well that the vast majority of families won’t follow the advice above, but I also know that for each family that decides to try to follow it, the chances of making a success of their intergenerational transition will be greatly improved.
[If you have a question about family businesses that you’d like to send my way as the subject of a blog, go ahead. Thank you!]
