FAMILY OWNED BUSINESSES

"Family business leadership succession is the single greatest and final act of wisdom for a founder." James Olan Hutcheson

Leadership in a family owned business has its own unique challenges. Balancing the needs of the business with the emotional, financial, and interpersonal needs of family members is a difficult task and one we are not necessarily trained to do. While dealing effectively with differences of opinion is crucial, avoiding difficult decisions may feel better than dealing with potentially explosive family members.

Succession Planning:

• Change is inevitable! Every business group and ownership will change. Some owners never plan and some wait until the very last moment. And still others leave it to the next generation to fight over. Those that wait inject confusion and chaos into the process and force poorly conceived outcomes to be arrived at. At Great Pines Consulting, our organizational psychologists are experts at identifying and breaking through emotional issues and dysfunctional patterns that interfere with effective succession planning and family harmony.

Conflict Resolution:

• Conflicts and disagreements occur! They can destroy relationships and destroy the harmony that can make working together as a family satisfying. Learning to deal effectively with differences of opinion in a family business is crucial. For many family businesses, learning how to disagree, debate, even argue in a respectful way that results in win-win agreements is a new family phenomenon. At Great Pines Consulting, we are highly skilled at improving communication by opening up, moving through, and successfully resolving, difficult interpersonal conflicts.

Before launching any change effort, it is important to assess and understand the family's culture and traditions. In family businesses, there is a "history" of how we do business and how we relate. External opinions are valuable because people on the inside see the culture as it has always been and don't believe it will ever change. This can lead to feelings of hopelessness, and skepticism about devoting time and energy to new initiatives.

With Great Pines Consulting, you will benefit from our knowledge of family systems, family business dynamics, and the psychology of human beings in the work force. We offer a unique set of skills to help transform your family business and revitalize your family dynamics so that long term success and fun and profit are the deliverables of the day.