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Getting to the Heart of Business Families Presenter: David Irvine Description:
Sitting across the room from her mother, Kelly looked to her father as she contemplated her future. She had been away from the family business for much of the past six years, completing her MBA, and was weighing the possibility of returning to her father’s enterprise. Her thoughts then turned to her brother and sister, who had remained in the business, and wondered how her re-entry would affect them. “What will it be like for everyone – Mom, Dad, and my siblings - to make room for me? Where do I fit? Can I maintain my own voice in the midst of this established business? How will it be for me?” These were some of her thoughts and emotions upon returning to the family firm. Growing up in a family business, and after more than two decades of consulting, counseling, and leading retreats with family businesses, I have come to appreciate both the perilous and potentially gratifying journey of embarking on a business venture with the people that matter most to you. It is a challenge to build a business, and it is a challenge to raise a family. Combining the two can lead to either disastrous failure or deep fulfillment. As the “leader’s navigator,” I offer business families a wide range of dynamic and interactive seminars, retreats, and keynote addresses on succession planning, relationship building, communication, authentic leadership, and business family governance. I promise to bring a practical, down-to-earth and personal approach to building successful and lasting business families. My energy will inspire you to take a closer look at your beliefs and guide you to find deeper connections in your most important relationships. I will show you how to use your business as a tool to build what matters most in your family and personal lives. You will leave with a renewed sense of perspective for your business and your life, and practical tools for building a sustainable business family. All members of your family both in and out of the business are invited to attend these compelling, thought-provoking, and powerful programs. You will leave with awareness and practical tools for dealing with the tough issues that too often get ignored. There are seven key areas vital for building a cohesive, sustaining, respectful, and fulfilling business family. Each of these keys can be a used as a “stand-alone” workshop or presentation, or can be combined for a uniquely customized event.
KEY #1 Governance Governance, in its simplest form, is a clear process for communicating, planning, and making decisions. Governance is about understanding the three subsystems of a business family: the family, the business, and the ownership, and how they relate to each other. Setting up optimal governance structures and processes helps answer the many questions that are raised in family-owned businesses such as:
Come prepared to leave this seminar with practical insights and tools to:
KEY #2 Holistic Leadership Obviously, clearly aligned goals – both between and among generations – is critical to a sustained family enterprise. Yet before you know where the business is going, it is critical to know what each family member values, and how the business can be used as a tool to create what matters most to each member of the family – inside and outside the business. Holistic leadership means viewing your business as a means to a much more important end. It is a tool for creating what is most important in your life. Too often managing a business means producing and marketing a product and then trying to recover a resemblance of quality of life. Far too often quality gets squeezed out of life. Before we know it, our business is running our life, rather than our life running our business. A holistic approach to leadership, on the other hand, offers an alternative to this traditional approach. It challenges you to define a quality of life, and then decide how much production - wealth generation - will be needed to support that quality of life. Having a clear commitment to a quality of life gives you a framework for decision-making. It enables you to ask the hard questions:
Come prepared to leave this seminar with a new view of leadership and a practical, useable process to:
KEY #3 Respect and Meaningful Connections The movie, “8 Seconds,” is based on the true story of Lane Frost, and illustrates one challenge faced by successors in a business family: a son’s lifelong struggle to win the acceptance and approval of his father. Lane devoted his life to his passion – bull riding – yet no matter what his accomplishment, his father would criticize him. When Lane became world champion he was sure that finally his dad would give him the affirmation he had sought his entire life. Instead, the only way Lane’s father knew how to respond was, “Well, we’ll see how much of a man you are. How long can you stay on top?” Shortly thereafter, Lane was killed in a bull ride. One of the last scenes in the movie shows Lane’s father, a tough, macho cowboy, sitting alone in the living room, with tears dripping on the floor below him, wondering, “Did I ever tell him I loved him?” While a solid governance process provides structure and boundaries for effectively building the business, as well as for communicating and managing conflict, it is the deep respect and connections within that structure that make it all meaningful. A significant part of working together as a family is learning to be present and vulnerable and expressing our deepest desires and values with each other:
Come prepared to equip your business family with practical, useable tools to:
KEY #4 Authentic Alignment Every day, you see family and employees walk in the door. They bring their bodies, but do they bring all their talent, resources and creativity? In an authentically aligned business family, everyone arrives at work energized and ready to operate at full potential. They have a personal commitment to the company. This personal commitment begins with internal alignment – finding your voice, helping others to find theirs, and then aligning the organization with people’s unique talents. Working on the business and on the relationships within the business begins with working on ourselves. This emphasis on self-awareness is the foundation of leadership development and a sustainable business into the generations to come. Although the process of authentic alignment is valuable at any stage of the business cycle, it is particularly relevant in the passing of the torch to successors.
Come prepared to equip your business family to:
KEY #5 Accountability A group of talented people is simply unstoppable when their goals are clear, when they are aligned and focused, and when they know others will support their contribution and deliver on promises. Using a practical and proven process from the best selling book, Accountability: Getting a Grip on Results, author David Irvine shows business families how to use Accountability Agreements?to build trust and focused commitments – both individually and collectively in the family and the business - and get a grip on the results that matter most. The Accountability process ensures that every member of the business family is clear on the results they promise. This aligns the energy of the entire organization as everyone shares the same strategic focus.
Come prepared to equip your family with a proven and practical philosophy and tool to:
KEY #6 Clear Succession Plan "An inheritance is more than money. More importantly, it’s about leaving a legacy of values, character, and wisdom." Succession planning in a family business is more than a financial and legal transfer of the estate – it goes beyond tax planning and corporate structuring. Ultimately, succession planning is about leaving a legacy – built on values, character, and commitment to results. The foundation of successful succession is an effective governance structure and process for building trust, respect, goodwill, open communication, clear goals and accountabilities, and a commitment to work for the betterment of everyone. Once this foundation is built, working with legal and financial advisors will run much more smoothly. Come prepared to learn the foundational principles and practices for effective succession planning in your business family.
Come prepared to equip your business family to:
KEY #7 Strong Character What would you rather leave your children: a rich financial inheritance with no character or values, or character and values with no money? With character and values we can create wealth and much more. To move from success to significance and sustainability, we must have our children grow wiser and more capable than we are. Otherwise, there’s no hope for a better world. Building people – with strong character - is the key to leadership and to sustained business families. Ninety percent of all leadership failures are character failures. Building a successful and sustaining business family is ultimately about stewardship - realizing that each family member is responsible to pass on the business better than they come to it, and that they possess gifts and talents to discover and contribute fully to the business Character is rooted in the behaviour of people. It is not, as some think, an inherent trait or something embedded in an organization. Character is determined by how you act. Real character requires you to do three things consistently: (a) Carry through to completion the responsibilities entrusted to you, (b) Stand up for your actions, and (c) Stand behind the results of your actions.
Come prepared, in this session, to equip yourself and your family with strategies to:
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