Working on Improving Family Business Meetings

Watch the Woodmans, a third generation business family in the food industry operating Woodman's of Essex based in Massachusetts, USA, with employees in the 5th generation, explain how they are learning to gradually become more efficient at running family business meetings. It may take time before being able to reach an effective family business meeting, however, as the meetings become increasingly productive, so do business operations. Family meetings are an effective way to unite the family, as well as resolve business issues.

Stephen Woodman: We brought in an outside advisor and we had him for quite a while we would meet with him. And he would get the family together, get business people together, to come up with our ideas, our morals, what our goals were, and get us communicating, get us talking together, to see where we wanted to go and how to bring this business forward. My father’s death was sudden, it was thrown onto us really quick, we really were not planning for this to happen right away so having that advisor to bring us through the leadership process of how to go the next step was great. The way that we communicate as a family and as a business, we have weekly meetings that we get together and go over what has happened that week and plan for the future. That meeting is a corporate meeting, is a business meeting, but it is also a family meeting and not all family members you know, come to that. Maureen Woodman: So we go to the corporate office, which is at our function hall, and it is our only quiet place, where we are safe. We shut the phones off, we go to the agenda, we try to hold the meetings to an hour and a half, and we try to deal with growth, but a lot of times we get stuck with minutia, crisis, problem in front of us. Stephen Woodman: In order to run a family business, you have to get along. So work ethic helps you get along because if you are not working, you are not going to get along, but also making getting along and working together a priority with your siblings, and with your nieces, and your nephews, and I think that has been key for us.