Common Causes of Family Business Conflict & What to Do About Them.
Family Business Mediator Video No 30: Implementing Change in the Business / in the Family
By Jon Kenfield. Solutionist.
• Family businesses are often quite isolated in their own bubble of family, business and industry.
• They can be very good at what they do at a point in time. But, if they fail to fully engage with the outside world, and markets, they get left behind.
• Avoidance of objective performance measurement criteria, due to:
o Failure to self-reflect on personal performance or
o Not being held to account by other family owners for results.
encourages lazy business practices.
• Challenges to current / established business practices can be taken personally (as accusations of failure) and get blocked – causing quality employees, and family members, to lose faith in leaders.
• Change causes fear. Humans prefer current pain to prospective change (lack of certainty).
• Young people are less set in their ways and have more capacity to recover from disasters. It’s easier for them to venture into the unknown and take risks.
• Speed of change creates friction between fast:slow. Typically older = slow, younger = fast.
• Personality differences and personal values also play a big part: goal focus vs process focus / people vs profits etc.
• Motivation is not the same as Activation or Implementation (execution).
• Beware the person who sees (and describes?) themselves as “Road Blocks”!!!
• Solution: negotiate acceptance of change by building consensus through a careful information gathering and planning process to generate organic demand, and manage pent up demand.
• Move blockers into non-operational sponsoring and governance roles where they’re informed and respected, but cannot block implementation.
