Eastside Business Journal recently featured an article by The Alternative Board founder Allen Fishman discussing ways to reduce the stress of family business members:
- Don’t hire if you can’t fire. Create a written policy for hiring, reviewing and terminating family member employees. Responsibilities and standards need to be upheld…even if the expectations are different than a non-family employee.
- Be open and honest about financials, including compensation. This is the most emotionally charged issue family businesses face. Attempting to keep the peace with equal pay for unequal contributions actually provides fuel for future conflicts. Avoid family tension regarding compensation by sticking to agreed policies.
- Plan to pass the business on someday. Be proactive with succession planning. Choose a successor and create a succession plan. Then, communicate! Be sure key family members, including the successor, are on board with the plan.
2 comments:
These are good points. In addition, I advise my clients to develop a bare bones survival budget to focuse on at least 12 months of bad times. Also, remember cash is king so make your banker a partner and squeeze as much as possible from your working capital.
That's a great tip. Any guidelines or lessons learned for creating a bare bones survival budget you can share with all blog readers?
Post a Comment