Enterprise Family Building Blocks

No family stays together as an enterprise without a conscious commitment to a common purpose and a willingness to work together to accomplish specific goals.

We focus on the following building blocks when working with families:

  • Develop a family culture based on shared values
  • Respect the family’s history and guiding principles
  • Create a family timeline for transitions and succession events
  • Make a commitment to shared family learning program
  • Develop an enterprise framework based on shared ownership
  • Simplify the complexity of the enterprise where possible
  • Conduct an opportunity and risk assessment to set priorities
  • Build strategic relationships to enhance enterprise thinking
  • Identify driving forces (opportunities) and key uncertainties (risks)
  • Recognize and address disruptions that will impact future vision
  • Develop current and future scenarios to explore alternatives
  • Create a shared vision for the future of the enterprise family
  • Develop key goals and strategies that owners will support
  • Establish a risk process to mitigate and  manage enterprise risks
  • Conduct periodic scenario planning and revisit to refine on an ongoing basis
  • Measure family satisfaction with the strategies and outcome
  • Establish a governance structure to support enterprise goals
  • Identify a suitable decision-making approach that the family supports
  • Develop clear levels of authority and accountability for each board & committee
  • Monitor progress with performance metrics
  • Cultivate every family member as a leader across the branches
  • Conduct skills inventories and identify missing skills to be developed
  • Formalize an objective leadership selection process
  • Implement an honest feedback process for family leaders