Posted on

Family Business Mediator Video No 24: Confusing Roles: Owners, Leaders, Managers & Employees.

Common Causes of Family Business Conflict & What to Do About Them.

Family Business Mediator Video No 24: Confusing Roles: Owners, Leaders, Managers & Employees. The Dotted Line!

By Jon kenfield. Solutionist.

• Conflict flows from confusion and attacks.

• A fundamental source of confusion is lack of role clarity.

• Another revolves around unjustified change. That’s not
the same as unwarranted change – unjustified means “not explained, therefore not accepted or supported”.

• According to business best practice, leaders, managers and employees all have clearly definable roles in a business. Clarity provides Certainty & Confidence.

• Owners should be placed off to the side in any Org Chart. They have no definable role in the business, and their interests can clash with business imperatives.

• Owner interventions also confuse everybody in the chain of command.

Solution:

Create an Org Chart with a dotted line separating strategic & governance roles from operational responsibilities.

Solution: Create an Org Chart with a dotted line separating strategic & governance roles from operational responsibilities.

• Leaders (directors) should stay and operate above the dotted line (governance).

• Everybody else operates below the line (doing the doing).

• Leaders can go below if they have a specific operational roles.

• Develop detailed job descriptions and appropriate KPIs so everybody knows what’s expected of them and how their performance will be measured.

• Establish discipline in the business structure – above and below the dotted line. And have an isolation box for owners to stay inside!

• All business employees need to perform. When owners try to re-write that rule (perhaps in support of a non-performing family member) business systems and discipline suffer.

 

Written by Jon Kenfield

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *