Family Business Succession Planning, Make A Record of Every Family Discussion
Family business succession and planning for the long run future is unquestionably a never-ending process that what was said in your initial conversation with your spouse or an additional relative could take place days perhaps months before you decide to share what was discussed with your lawyer.
If you do not record precisely what is said, in an order which makes precise recall possible, your communications will likely be just like those defined by Lewis Carroll, “I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant” in Alice in Wonderland.
Recording what people mention when they say it is imperative, because ultimately what you are endeavoring to achieve and create is a sort of “relationship agreement” which details how you and they all see the future together.
Maybe what comes out of these family business succession planning interactions is really a number of relationship agreements on simple issues together with your mutual thoughts for the big ones.
Anytime two or more folks are involved in a long term interdependent relationship there’s likely to be different agendas.
In a family business these disagreements are often much more acute because they are never merely regarding business – they’re always tinged with something personal, everyone has a history and a future that gets folded into whatever infraction of the code is observed by the others.
Succession and planning for the business’s future is the perfect time to uncover these sore spots and create agreements on how they should be taken care of in the future. This is the time when everybody will have their chance to set the record straight and present their insight into how things ought to be down the road.
Writing the whole thing down is important. Each party to the process, which really should be everyone, will come away sensing that their perspective has been noticed. Nothing causes us to feel better than having our say and knowing that it has been noted for serious consideration!
Your advisors will be the people who develop the legal documents and agreements, that is not your job and absolutely nothing any of you write down should be considered “binding” on anyone.
The answers to the questions do however offer a framework of understanding around which your advisers will create the correct documents. Furthermore these notes will “ping” your advisers with regards to things they would not have come up with independently.
To make certain that anything important is mentioned and therefore written down you will need the actual questions. Non-judgmental, fact and feeling seeking questions intended to get everybody talking about the same important things openly and truthfully. Questions for everybody that explore “What’s important?”, “What’s the situation today?”, “What do you/I/we want it to be?”, and “What’s possible for us to achieve?”
The answers to these kinds of questions, probably asked by the planning coordinator (an insider whose role is to keep the process moving) will be written down and shared with your business’s advisory group of professionals.
Generally, in line with the experiences of Lewis Carroll above, the planning coordinator will return to ask, “How did you mean that exactly?” for the clarification your advisors want in order to do their job better.
Whenever you write down the agreements, incrementally step by step by step, as you undertake the process of family business succession you are not only adding bricks to the wall which will help make your family’s future relationships better and much more productive – you are providing the actual information imaginative advisers are able to use to help make your picture of the future a reality.
As you can see, family business succession planning is really a process, one that doesn’t need to be complicated unless you make it so.
The fact is that you and only you have enough power to make the succession and planning decisions necessary, you alone have the authority to make the choices required and you alone are responsible for the outcome of your family business succession and planning process, whether they are the result of thoughts, conversations, and negotiations or by luck or misfortune.
Family business succession planning requires that you make the best decisions possible, to insure the most productive outcome. Effective leaders know that their best decisions are those made in collaboration with people whose success they respect and whose opinions they trust. Why not harness the power of your peers, to help you consider possibilities and alternatives about your family business succession strategy? Click here to find out how this is possible!
