Owning a Family Enterprise Has Many Facets This week we’re going to look at a topic that affects every family business, even if it doesn’t get discussed very often. I write a lot about the overlap of the family and the business circles, but less often about who owns the company. See Ownership: The Forgotten Circle in Family Business That’s partly because the people who work in and own most family enterprises don’t talk about this subject very often either. Of course that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t, or that these conversations aren’t important, far from it. It can get pretty complex at ti ..read more

Two Key Elements Working Together As someone who shares my thoughts weekly on a variety of subjects relating to intergenerational wealth transitions, I need to have an eclectic array of inspirations. Since the Covid pandemic has largely receded into the rear view mirror, I’ve noticed how in person meetings can develop into deeper discussions that more easily trigger ideas for these posts. Such was the case when I recently had breakfast with a colleague who happened to be in town on other business. This man has experience as a lawyer and a family office executive, and he is enamored with the id ..read more

Sometimes Less Really Is More This week we’re looking at a topic that’s actually pretty common with family enterprises, but that most people don’t like to discuss. We’ll get into some tricky areas where family members all work together, and even though that can be great when it works well, when it causes problems, those problems get bigger in a hurry. The expression “addition by subtraction” is pretty self-explanatory, but just in case it has eluded you, I’m talking about making an improvement in something (the business) by actually removing something (or someone). In that specific context, I ..read more

There Are Lots of Ways to Get Started Over the years since I had my calling to do this work with families, I’ve sought out and even created peer groups where colleagues come together to discuss particular cases they’re involved with professionally. The way that one family handles the work of transitioning their business or wealth to the next generation will differ markedly from the way another handles the process, for lots of good reasons. As someone who advises families and helps guide the process, I can tell you that this is not something you can learn from a book. When there’s a good deal o ..read more

The Family Office Navigator Let’s Talk Family Enterprise Podcast Episode #57 Host: Steve Legler Guest: Peter Vogel In this episode, host Steve Legler speaks with Professor Peter Vogel of IMD Business School to discuss Vogel’s recent book, Family Office Navigator. Together, they highlight the critical role advisors should play when business families consider setting up a family office or want to take a fresh look at what they currently have in place. The post The Family Office Navigator appeared first on Shift your Family Business | Family Business and ..read more

A Look Behind the Scenes The work I do with enterprising families who are transitioning their wealth to the next generation revolves almost exclusively on guiding the process that they’re following. Such families also need to work with a number of content specialists, of course, who provide them with important parts of the overall solution they’re looking for. There’s a big contrast between providing content and guiding a process, and one of the keys is simply recognizing which one you’re doing at any given time. But this week, we’re going to deviate quite a bit from the world of family trans ..read more

Irrational Fear Gets in the Way of Progress More often than not, families try to avoid conflict at all cost. For reasons that most of us can easily relate to, it makes sense to try to keep the peace with our relatives. Unfortunately, especially in cases where we either work with family members or own things together, the fear of any conflict actually ends up making things worse instead of better. I’m not advocating that you look for trouble and find things to fight about, far from it.  But, in many families, finding ways to get the positives out of differing viewpoints and priorities woul ..read more

Letting Go Suddenly Can Be Difficult As I was preparing for an upcoming meeting with a couple who have long been leading their family business, I imagined what subjects might arise during our time together. At the very top of my list, based on some previous discussions I’d had with a some of their offspring a couple of years back, was the idea that at least one of them seemed very resistant to the prospect of “letting go” of their responsibilities in the company. So I added the idea of switching one’s mindset from letting go to instead think about loosening one’s grip to my blog ideas folder ..read more

Does My Title Leave You Disgruntled? This week we’re looking at an important subject that relates to how we go about looking for and evaluating potential resources to work with. OK, it’s actually all about people, and how we get to know them and decide if we want to work with them. Long time readers know about my penchant for creating acronyms or mnemonics to remember things, and this one, “kilter” is a bit of a stretch, I’ll admit. The fact that we typically talk about its opposite, i.e. “off kilter” or “out of kilter” reminded me of another common word whose opposite doesn’t really sound rig ..read more

What Can a Leader Bring to a Meeting? This week we’re going to be looking at meetings involving members of the same family, and the importance of leadership in the room. This blog idea has its genesis in an online training session I was part of a few weeks ago, where the idea of “weather” was brought back into my memory. Then, more recently, while taking part in an in-person session with a different group, my deck of cards idea received an enthusiastic reaction, which makes me want to share it here. As luck would have it, in my imagination, there’s a way to bring both these ideas together, and ..read more