Family Values: Setting a Stable Course for the Business

Listen to John A. Davis discuss the challenges in decision making when combining family and business. In order to effectively discuss long-term decisions for the business, including business values, compensation methods and succession planning, is it important that management, ownership and the family are aligned. Cooperation and agreement between these three groups will help create clarity in the future of the business.

You know, every kind of organization has its own challenges. But when you mix a family with a business and it has ownership control of the company the typical challenges that come up are you know, what values are really going to drive this fam – this business. You know, is it going to the family’s values, or the businesses values, or a combination of them? And to what extent are we going to emphasize merit and performance versus family relationships in how we run this thing? And that affects all kinds of issues like succession, who gets jobs, who gets promoted, the compensation of key execs, even the strategy of the company. And even if it doesn’t come from a family member or a key family member, can we use the idea in driving our business? What path we’re going to take is a matter not just of strong business leadership, but getting the buy-in of the key family owners and indeed the family. And you need to have the cooperation and the contribution of management, ownership and family to really set a stable course for this business because if those three factors are unaligned you have tensions and probably distractedness and also you know a sense of un-clarity of where we’re going.