Confirm Family Commitment and Degrees of Togetherness

What makes your family unique? Where is the energy in the family? What are the synergies in working together? All of these questions are important to consider as you contemplate the challenges and benefits for the long-term. Sharing ownership means sharing control, and sharing control means sharing risk. Having frank conversations about the benefits of staying together, and the work involved in doing so, is critical to securing the collective family’s commitment to the family enterprise and a future together. It helps to begin with an understanding of the past as a prologue to the future.

Content to be Covered:

• Discuss family views on togetherness
• Recognize generational patterns in families
• Analyze the family’s prior history
• Understand values and guiding principles
• Identify patterns and polarities that define families
• Analyze timeline and trigger events

Develop Family Enterprise Thinking

Families with an enterprise mindset recognize the complexity of all that they own together and understand the importance of managing its business, financial, human, and social capital in a thoughtful and intentional way for the good of all owners. In this session, FOX will show you how to develop a Family Enterprise Framework that supports the vision. This process will help you organize your thinking and your resources to build a framework for the future.

Content to be Covered:

• Develop a clear profile of the enterprise
• Understand how the enterprise supports the vision
• Recognize family opportunities and risks
• Set guiding principles for the enterprise
• Design essential structures to support the enterprise
• Build strategic relations with key advisors

Form a Clearn Vision for the Family's Future

“Every generation is a first generation.” With each transition of leadership, it is important to review the purpose of the enterprise and the vision for where you are going together. Understanding the world’s driving forces and mapping the family’s collective views on risks and opportunities are ways to engage the family in productive dialogue about the future. Scenario planning provides a safe means for considering alternate paths for the future and gaining consensus around the best way forward. Crafting the desired future vision from many possible future scenarios will give the family confidence and clarity about their future direction.

Content to be Covered:

• Identify driving forces and key uncertainties
• 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
• Define key strategies and action steps to implement the vision

Develop Enterprise Goals and Strategies

Just as you engage in strategic planning for the family business, so must you engage in planning for the family enterprise. Developing a family enterprise strategy means considering the goals of the business, the goals for family unity and engagement, and the family’s commitments to community and philanthropy. Looking at the financial assets in an integrated manner with the input of the family, the family office (if one exists), and the trusted advisor team is an important part of the process. The family must articulate the enterprise goals in a substantive manner, and work together to define how success will be measured.

Content to be Covered:

• Three phases of enterprise planning
• Consolidate family goals into an enterprise view
• Develop integrated strategies that matters to owners
• Enterprise measure of success
• Do periodic scenario planning to revisit and refine the enterprise strategy

Understand the Importance of Governance

Effective governance involves the development of a system (principles, policies, practices) that fosters trust, balances power, and helps family members work together to further their collective goals in a productive manner. Each layer of governance (e.g., Family Assembly, Family Enterprise Board, Family Committee) has unique roles, responsibilities and criteria for involvement. Good governance provides a means to navigate the inevitable transitions every family enterprise encounters.

Content to be Covered:

• Understand the benefits of a formal governance system
• Develop a decision-making process that is trusted
• Design governance structures to grow with the family
• Develop clear levels of authority and accountability for boards
• Develop performance metrics to monitor progress

Foster Family Learning and Leadership

Most families want their wealth to be a source of satisfaction for their children and grandchildren. Developing a culture of learning and investing in a systematic approach to delivering age-appropriate financial education and leadership training is the best way to prepare family members to be responsible owners of wealth and life-long contributors to the family enterprise.

Content to be Covered:

• Engage the family in defining learning priorities for each generation
• Understand personal leadership skills and interests
• Develop an owner education program for all ages
• Identify family leadership roles and responsibilities
• Identify a leadership selection process using independent advisors
• Structure a process to ensure a smooth transition

Developing Key Action Steps for your Enterprise

Using worksheets, we will help you develop a plan for moving your enterprise to the next level from wherever you are today. We will discuss roadblocks and action steps that can help move the family forward and how to gain family commitment for the process.