Family Business Relationship Challenges: Managing Boundaries

In this episode, Keith Michaelson and Don Opatrny of The Lovins Group introduce and discuss the first of six key challenges that couples face when they are part of a family business: managing boundaries.

Don and Keith walk us through why boundaries can be challenging for couples in the context of family business, the kinds of boundary conflicts that can occur—what they look like, how they can feel—and then offer some ideas and tools that can help couples begin to manage their boundary challenges.

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Enterprise Capital as a Competitive Advantage: An Interview with David Worth

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In this episode, David Worth sat down with Engaged Ownership associate, Nathaniel Squires, to discuss how his family’s enterprise, Worth Industries, has turned a simple strategic concept into a robust form of Enterprise Capital.

5 Steps to Enterprise Capital

What is Your Most Important Capital?

Human Capital is essential to a family business. But Human Capital can also be fragile.

How do you ensure that the essential know-how that makes your business uniquely successful gets carried on? How do you scale your competitive advantage? How do you protect your most important capital?

You make it into Enterprise Capital.

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Human Capital and Collaboration: An Interview with Jane Sommers-Kelly

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Trust | Listen | Respect

In this episode, Executive Leadership Coach Jane Sommers-Kelly speaks on her three-element approach to improving collaboration and tapping into Human Capital in teams and businesses: Trust, Listen, and Respect. You and your team can use this deceptively simple concept to tackle big questions, leverage untapped Human Capital, foster collaboration, and find solutions when solutions are hard to come by. Listen in to learn more.

The Conflict Equation: An Interview with Blair Trippe

Where does conflict come from? How can it be managed? Listen in as Amelia and Blair Trippe discuss Blair and Doug Baumoel’s exceptional book, Deconstructing Conflict: Understanding Family Business, Shared Wealth and Power. Based around “The Conflict Equation,” Deconstructing Conflict gets to the heart of conflict in family enterprises and how it can be identified and managed.

Family Business Intention: An Interview with Ken McCracken

Ken McCracken joins More at Stake: The Family Business Podcast to discuss the concept of Intention in family business ownership. Intention shapes the way a family interacts with its enterprise and has significant impact on how the family business system operates as a whole. Listen in to learn about this fascinating—and often overlooked—aspect of family enterprises.

Engaged Ownership: A Guide for Owners of Family Businesses | Part IV

Part IV of Engaged Ownership discusses three common situations that can challenge owners' efforts at developing engagement: when the ownership group includes managing and non-managing owners, when an owner is a trustee, and bringing in outside investors.

Each of these situations increases the complexity of ownership decision-making and governance and requires conscious effort by the owners to develop alignment, in order to overcome the challenges.

Engaged Ownership: A Guide for Owners of Family Businesses | Part III

Part III of Engaged Ownership lays out the practice of engaged ownership, and how owners do the work of developing and maintaining engagement. It discusses the purposes and benefits for creating forums for decision making—board of directors, owners council, family assembly—and why each is important for identifying and carrying out the unique goals and responsibilities of owners, board, family, and management. Part III lays out a process for allocating decision-making power among owners, board, and management, and how the nuances of decision-making—agenda setting, the right to be informed, the right to be consulted, veto power, etc—play alongside the power to make the decision.

Governing the Family Enterprise: An Interview with Dennis Jaffe

Dennis Jaffe joins More at Stake: The Family Business Podcast to discuss his latest publication, Governing the Family Enterprise: The Evolution of Family Councils, Assemblies and Constitutions.

Governing the Family Enterprise takes a look at what Dennis calls “generative families,” and how these extraordinary families are able to meet the challenges of the coming generations as they grow and become more complex.

Engaged Ownership: A Guide for Owners of Family Businesses | Part II

Part II of Engaged Ownership provides a foundation for family business owners seeking to increase engagement. You will learn about the complex relationships among owners, board of directors, management, and family, and how those wearing multiple “hats” can better navigate their responsibilities. You will also learn how family history, legacy, and natural governance affect the culture and environment within the family business system. Perhaps most importantly, Part II teaches the importance of a family’s Core Capital—human capital and enterprise capital, in addition to financial capital—and how it can be put to use both inside and outside the business. With an understanding of Core Capital, listeners will learn how to develop a Shared Purpose, Vision & Mission for their enterprise. Shared Purpose is the glue that binds stakeholders together, and Vision and Mission become the animating drivers for decision making and long-range planning.

Engaged Ownership: A Guide for Owners of Family Businesses | Part I

Part I of Amelia Renkert-Thomas’s critically acclaimed debut, Engaged Ownership: A Guide for Owners of Family Businesses, introduces the concept of engaged ownership—a different paradigm for family business owners and advisors. Engaged family business owners bring a deep understanding of their core capital and vision for the future. Advisors who understand the concepts and process of engaged ownership are better equipped to work effectively with their family business clients.

FAMILY - BUSINESS - ENGAGED