Family Business is Complicated

“What doesn’t get talked out, gets acted out negatively.”

Services for Family Enterprises

We are intimately acquainted with family business; the conflict, disappointment, hurt, despair, excitement, joy, and love. We know from our hearts how hard it is for families to work through business challenges when personal family hurts are festering. As a family business, we have lived this and worked through it. With training in business and the positive psychology of Transactional Analysis, we are both family psychologists and business consultants rolled into one.

We facilitate family meetings, team retreats

The family business has the complexity of organizations, with the added complexity of a family system. What happens within the family, will naturally impact what happens within the business. When adult children get involved in the business, sibling rivalry doesn’t go away – although wanting to be grown-up about things means the rivalry might be covered in civility but festers until it affects mental and physical wellbeing, or it affects the business success.

Many family systems are shiny on the outside, but underneath the facade family members can feel oppressed, competitive, devalued, and unappreciated. Families are complex and members may not be aware of how worried they feel about messing up, disappointing the family or afraid to share their feelings for fear of being perceived as unsuitable. Successful families often value a competitive mindset which may work well with external competitiveness but is not productive when the competition is between family members. This impacts the family’s capacity to care for each other, think clearly about options and decide timely. Our Family Business Services can be facilitating meetings, leading retreats, working with family groupings to help them heal from historical hurts and lead the business forward for the sake of the family and of the economy.

The Change Institute provides facilitation for family meetings, often as a result of doing strategic planning but now they need to engage in the sometimes difficult conversations inherent in executing the strategy and working through the natural conflict that emerges in healthy teams and healthy families. We also provide leadership training for current and potential leaders within the organization.

Examples:

• To facilitate a business transition
• To develop a high performing leadership team
• To develop a high performing sibling team
• To facilitate family conversations – difficult and otherwise.

TEC Canada Peer Advisory Groups

Leaders of family businesses benefit from advisory support from their peers. At The Change Institute, we also run a TEC Canada CEO/President Peer Advisory Group. This is an opportunity for leaders to have a community of peers to engage in problem-solving and get support with strategic and personal decision-making. TEC Members also benefit from executive coaching once a month as part of the process.