20 Tips To Winning Family Business
Family businesses seem to bring out the best and the worst in us. So what winning ways set apart the successful family businesses from the dysfunctional?
Successful family businesses are perceptive and understand their strengths and weaknesses. They set up processes and use techniques to protect themselves and their family members from struggling and falling out. They surround themselves with intelligent and trusted non-family members both working internally and externally of the business.
Use Of External Advisers In Family Business
64.4% of family business owners report the use of outside advisors on a regular basis.
Family Business Management Planning
The descriptive breakdowns in Table 12.1 below suggest that management planning is not a priority for a significant percentage of Australian businesses.
Family Business Governance: Management
Management by generation of ownership.
Family Business Governance: Board Of Directors
Board composition in family businesses.
Family Business Sources Of Capital
Sources of funding are governed by pecking order principles as indicated in Table 9.1 below.
Family Business Growth
Close to one third of owners state that they are NOT satisfied either with the rates of growth, or the current size, of their businesses.
Employees In Family Business
The median number of equivalent full-time employees in family businesses is 15 (17 for non-family businesses) employees.
Profile Of Family Business
A profile of Australian family businesses.
Definition Of Family Business
For most people, family business tends to be regarded as small business. In fact, examination of some of Australia's ASX listed companies indicates high levels of family control.
How To Create Effective Governance In A Family Controlled Enterprise - Advisory Council Meetings
Now that you have chosen your advisory council members, this article details how to prepare and run the meetings.
Why A Family Controlled Enterprise Should Have Effective Corporate Governance
The primary usefulness of governance to a family controlled enterprise, is as an enduring place and process for owner managers (insiders) to meet and work with non-management owners (outsiders), non-owner managers (professional management) and voices of loyalty, reason and commitment to the enterprise's long term success (directors independent of management).
How To Create Effective Governance In A Family Controlled Enterprise - Council Of Advisors
This article suggests that one fundamental tool available to family firms is effective corporate governance and, in particular, offers specific advice about how to create a non-fiduciary council of advisors for a family controlled enterprise (FCE).
Tax Traps For Family Business
A number of tax traps arise in family businesses. They are not only the concerns of the owners, to ensure their remuneration is tax effective. Tax traps also arise when there there is pressure to restructure to meet changing expectations of family members, or demands for greater distribution of the business’s wealth.
Managing The Family Business
Owning and managing your own family business can be a lonely job. So many things to do, so many great opportunities, so little time, such limited resources, so many people, so many problems. Where is it all leading? How can I get perspective? How long do I keep going? How do I get out of here? Can I afford to retire? These 12 factors are tools to manage some or all of the problems regularly encountered in family business.
The Participative Culture In Family Firms
The third cultural pattern that is sometimes discernible in family businesses is the participative culture. This cultural pattern is relatively rare in family firms and is based on assumptions that vary dramatically from the paternalistic and laissez-faire patterns.
The Laissez-Faire Culture In Family Firms
In the article, The Paternalistic Culture in Family Firms, the paternalistic pattern, which is probably the most common culture pattern in family firms, was discussed. In this pattern relationships are arranged hierarchically and leaders retain all power, authority, and make all the key decisions. This article identifies another common cultural pattern among family businesses, the laissez-faire culture.
The Paternalistic Culture In Family Firms
In the article, Culture and Continuity in Family Firms, culture was defined as a cumulative set of assumptions that a group holds, and the core of any culture is a pattern of interlocking assumptions that creates a unique belief system. Leaders of family firms use very different assumptions in operating their businesses.
The Professional Culture In Family Firms
The term professional culture is not intended to mean that this type of organization is more professional than the other three but that its cultural pattern is generally found in firms where the owning family decides to turn management of the business over to nonfamily, professional managers.
Professional Management And Family Firms
While there is considerable debate regarding what constitutes the role of the professional manager, it is generally agreed that professional managers typically have received formal training in a business school setting in areas such as finance, production, accounting, and human resources/personnel.
Family Foundations
Foundations are a remarkable human invention because they provide private persons a freewheeling opportunity to be publicly influential. Without having to meet the tests either of the market or the ballot box, private persons can independently determine what the needs of society are and how best to go about meeting them.
Alternatives For Integrating Professional Management Into The Family Firm
This article turns to some alternatives available to family firms to mitigate conflicts and problems attached with the professionalization process.
Problems Of Professionalizing A Family Firm
It is argued that considerable problems that accompany the transition to professional management in a family firm can be traced to differences between the training and values of the family and those of the professional managers. This article discusses the problems of professionalizing the family firm.
Family Business And Management Failure - Part 1
One of the most pervasive assumptions permeating the body of knowledge about family business is that the decline of family owned companies is somehow inevitable. So what is the basis for this misconception about the inevitability of decline?
Family Business And Management Failure - Part 2
This article discusses operational characteristics that indicate management failure.
Achieving Liquidity In The Family Business
There are several reasons why family businesses are worth saving. Apart from the sociological aspects of a more intimate employee atmosphere under family ownership, as opposed to a public company with professional management, one primary reason for maintaining family firms is that they are probably the best earning asset that a family will ever have.
Family Business Tools & Processes: A Three-Circle Map & Developmental Models Of Family Business
The theory informs the practice; and practical experience shapes the theory.
Boards Of Privately Held Companies
Entrepreneurs and owners of family businesses traditionally resist bringing in outside directors because they do not want anyone telling them what to do or because they do not want to reveal company secrets. The owners of private companies, as stockholders, elect and fire directors. For that reason, they should not feel threatened by outside directors.
Executive Compensation Programs
How do family businesses retain key non-family executives?
Managers Who Are Not Family Members
Any company with a development strategy needs qualified managers to maintain and increase its competitive edge. This is a need which gives rise to several kinds of problems: how to attract and keep these managers, how to develop their individual abilities, and how to motivate them to get the most from their commitment.
Generating Liquidity From The Family Business
Preserving hard-earned assets is an important consideration for business owners who successfully build an operating business. The decision to take assets out of the business seems risky to many business owners who are accustomed to being in direct control of their assets.
Strategic Planning: Keeping The Planning Process Simple
Many family business owners express the view that they don’t have the time to plan for the next couple of months, much less for the next two or three years.
Benefits Of Balanced Scorecards For Family Businesses
Increasingly it is recognised that gaining competitive advantage requires a strategic approach to managing an organization.
Outsourcing Of Activities By Family Businesses
The last decade has revealed an emerging trend among medium-sized and some smaller family businesses towards outsourcing business activities, particularly functions such as information technology, human resource management, accounting, and internal audit.
The Advantage Of Dominance In Family Businesses
Family owned enterprises are more often subject to dominant individuals who play a significant role in the power transference process than non-family owned firms. Indeed, without the existence of dominant individuals influencing the dynamics of the family business, the chances of some family firms surviving are significantly diminished.
Good Governance And Boards Of Directors
For the family-owned enterprise, good governance makes a significant difference to the way they operate.
Questions That Clarify A Family Business's Success Rating
What are your answers to these questions?
Family Business Success Checklist
Family business critical success factors - developing a checklist for success.
Benefits Of Strategic Planning In The Family Business
Because of the well known ambivalence to succession planning in the family business it may, at times, be preferable to approach the exercise as part of an overall strategic business planning or business continuity planning process in which owner-mangers can see some immediate benefits.
Few Things Are More Exciting Than Working In One's Family Company
In his book entitled “Painfully Rich – J. Paul Getty and his heirs.” Author John Pearson interviews Mark Getty, the son of J. Paul Getty II. Mark provides a fascinating description of what a family business can be when the right conditions prevail. The following are some excerpts which provide an eloquent and insightful perspective on the advantages of family businesses.
Family Business Owners' Financing Decisions
This article explores some of the issues and explains some of the funding options taken by family business owners.
Goals And Objectives Of Australian Family Farm Owners
It is frequently assumed that business owners primarily operate on the assumption of profit maximisation. In fact, business owners as well as farm owners possess numerous goals, and some of these are non-pecuniary.
Family Advisory Boards and Boards of Directors
How can Advisory Boards and Boards of Directors assist family business?
Shareholders or Beneficiaries (Buy-Sell) Agreements
A buy-sell agreement is an arrangement or contract between family business shareholders or beneficiaries that specifies certain ownership rights among owners of family business shares or partnership interests.
Family Business Tools & Processes
Using systems, genograms, eco-maps, family photographs and story telling to understand the family business.
A Guiding Hand For Family Businesses
There are many advantages and disadvantages of running a private family business compared with a listed company, and an adviser like your accountant may just be the person to help you avoid the pitfalls.
What Is A Family Business?
Defining family business is a challenging task.
Structuring Your Family Business
Successful family businesses involve a delicate balance of sound business practices and family relationships.
Family Businesses - How Do You Avoid Those Costly Pitfalls?
Family businesses come in many sizes, and research shows that they have clearly defined business problems, which frequently are repetitive and avoidable.
Family Businesses - The Ten Commandments
Thou shalt...
Keeping The Family Business Together
The average life expectancy of a family business is around 25 years, the tenure of one generation.
Capitalizing On The Strengths Of Family Owned Businesses
Family-owned businesses (FOBs) constitute the oldest and most common form of commercial activity around the world. Unlike public companies (many of which are also family dominated) where ownership, management, and control are relatively distributed between company management, the board of directors, and shareholders, the FOBs situation is reversed.
Creating A Philanthropic Strategy For Your Family Business
Philanthropy can be a prickly issue for family businesses.
Improving Family Business Performance
Some family owned businesses (FOBs) have a long-term history of consistent profitability. Others, however, have a similarly long-term history of weak performance. The obvious question is why.