Business is business. But family business is both business AND family. Adding the family aspect already makes things more complicated, but when you throw in ownership too, things can get tough to decipher.
Thankfully, there is a Three Circle Model that helps to explain things. This simple, yet powerful, tool has done more to help business families and their advisors understand all of the relationships than anything else in history.
Once you understand the Three-Circle Model, you can begin to see just how and why Family Businesses are different.
There are only Three Circles, but because of the overlaps, there are actually 7 different sectors. People from different sectors will naturally see things differently, from their own perspective.
Sectors 1, 3, and 5 are relatively simple to deal with. But in Sectors 7, 6, 2, and 4, the overlaps between Business, Family, and Ownership, make things trickier.
When you look at how the people from the 6 other sectors see things, and how all the people from the various sectors relate to each other, you can start to try to improve the communications between the sectors.
The key to moving forward together is to understand each other. The key to understanding each other lies in the communications.
About Steve Legler
Some people work their butt off for their whole life trying to build a business for their family. They often dream about how great it will be for the family to work together with a common purpose. But the dream doesn’t always work out the way they imagined, because it is a LOT more complex than they ever imagined.
It isn’t usually the business part that trips them up, more often it is the family part. The roadblocks usually show up when it comes time to truly transition the business to the next generation, and this is where Steve comes in. He specializes in helping families turn their dream into a workable plan, using a step-by-step method to get everyone on the same page.
Once the family has completed his Business Family Continuity BluePrint, all family members will see the family’s goals, and they will understand their roles. Steve then helps them all figure out how they can move forward, working together.
Steve is a proud FEA Designate (IFEA) and holds ACBFA and ACFWA certifications (FFI), in addition to having an MBA (UWO-Ivey) He is also a CFA charterholder (CFA Institute), and the author of Shift your Family Business (Friesen Press, 2014)
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