Some may say it is getting good advice, or taking advantage of planning strategies, or figuring out what others are doing successfully, or slipping through some clever business management succession loophole. Or maybe it's having a conflict free atmosphere at the plant or developing better relationships at work.
Well, you'd be wrong.
The key to success during the family business management succession process is enlightened self-interest. In other words being able to set aside whatever petty feelings you have about the incompetence of your brother, dad, or uncle because you are savvy enough to realize that they aren't going anyplace, they are not going to change, and if you want to succeed you will need their help to do so.
Not only that, they need your help and all of you must share one thing and one thing only, a commitment to right action. A commitment to investing the time to uncover what's important to each of you, to the business, and to any other stakeholders - then making a commitment to work toward the goals you share.
It does not mean you will ever be buddies, coach one another's kids, or go on vacations together - you can if you want but it is not required to be successful today or tomorrow.
Everything that happens in your business takes you closer to or farther away from your goals.
Internal problems, often personality problems or feelings of entitlement, can reduce the effectiveness of decisions you or one of the others make until you are all willing to set aside what's wrong with the ideas of 'others' and look at what's right with them.
You and I know that most of the conflict that undermines well considered decisions is not based on facts - it is the result of people wanting their way because they want their own way.
Lots of experts talk about how to build better relationships at work, saying that it's important to success. There are books on the subject as if that makes it true.
But if your brother is a jerk and your sister is a spoiled brat (in your opinion) there is very little likelihood that any of the lessons in getting along are going to have any long term effect - for any of you.
Let's take a look at the situation from a different perspective.
What if you and your siblings could work together effectively, make more money (so you could all take longer vacations away from each other) without sitting around the campfire singing "We are the world" and holding hands?
Your family business doesn't have to look like a Norman Rockwell painting to be successful. It has to identify what's important, create strategies that will move you toward that end and execute those strategies relentlessly.
There are lots of people out there who would tell you, in confidence of course, that making more money, being an industry leader, and having the respect of your peers outside the business goes a long way to make up for the fact that their brother and sister and them do not like each other very much.
Let's say that each one of you aligns yourself with a group of successful peers, people you know, like, trust, and respect - where your ideas will be heard by others with an open mind. The members of your group will offer you continual, unbiased knowledge and feedback because they have no axe to grind, no advice to protect, and they are not likely to feel diminished by your success - rather that's what they are there for.
They are not your employees, your managers, your board or your family - so they will consider your ideas and offer insights that will help you test your assumptions in private, with additional decades of experience to validate them.
The result - fully developed, well considered, actionable ideas and tactics that you can take to your family members and company managers as clearly though out solutions to pressing problems and exciting opportunities.
Instead of spending your time sniping at one another you and your family members can create a management succession plan that combines the best thoughts from many experts in your industry. Each of you will have peers and mentors rooting for the success of these combined strategies.
Instead of being one of the vast majority of successful companies that fail to successfully emerge from the business management succession process, yours will be one that is a model for the industry.
The only thing you'll have to agree on, if the stage is small, is which one of you will accept your industry's company of the year award!
Wayne_Messick
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