Developing a functional partnership

Just because you and your family members are related by blood doesn’t mean you will be successful business partners, co-fiduciaries, shareholders or coworkers. There are things that multigenerational business families have done to develop business partners into a functional team. Creating a successful partnership involves both the development of individual leadership skills and team building.

• Create shared leadership and team development training sessions for shareholders.
• Offer individual professional assessment or executive coaching resources when called for.
• Give the shareholder group meaningful projects to complete.
• Help define boundaries among different subgroups of the family and business (e.g., shareholder group, board of directors, management team, family council) with delineated norms, responsibilities, meeting times, etc.
• Develop group-vetted documents, such as a shareholder agreement, bylaws and a mission statement.