Jeff FaulknerAll Articles
High Expectations are Confirmation of Your Family Standing
I have the unique opportunity to work with a lot of fathers who are also very successful business owners. Many of these men are regarded by their children as control freaks. I have written before about how to effectively deal with and manage these strong personalities, and it essentially all boils down to learning to set effective personal and professional boundaries and risk the relationship by challenging dad. Today, I want to offer a different perspective that entails getting into the mindset of your control freak dad. Often, I hear, “Dad’s expectations are simply impossible. I can never measure up [...]
Business Growth – Why Determining the Underlying Motivation is Critical to Success
I was interviewing the 4th generation son of a business owner recently and asked about his vision for the company. He described a very aggressive vision for growth through acquisitions and diversification into other locations and channels. This kid has been in the family business all of two years! The business has afforded him a very lucrative and flexible job during difficult economic conditions. Having never even been responsible for running a department within the business, I found this vision astounding. This kid hasn't had substantial experience struggling with operating losses, employee theft, or inept management and exhibited no understanding [...]
Evaluating Successors – Have You Clearly Communicated Reasonable Expecations
For up-and-coming successor candidates in family businesses, oftentimes their evaluation is not altogether objective or even reasonable. Family member employees live in a fishbowl where nothing they do is seemingly ever good enough. The good stuff they do is seen simply as par for the course. And frankly, that's often because no one in the organization gets a lot of affirmation for their hard work, so why should the "heir apparent." Yet, the errors of successor candidates often become mountains rather than the molehills they are. This reality is not fair. A major reason we end up facing significant challenges [...]
When Sybil Shows Up At Meetings – How to Deal With Emotions that Impact the Succession Planning Process
In some of my recent client meetings, I’ve felt as though some of my clients that have shown up were completely different people compared to my previous interactions while working through their succession planning issues. When I called one of my clients out on this “difference” recently, it was her remark that “Sybil had shown up,” calling to mind the movie depicting a character suffering from a multiple personality disorder. Not meaning to make light of a true multiple personality issue, I’ve been using the analogy ever since, applying it to the dynamic process that I’ve learned succession planning can [...]
Keys for Resolving Conflict in the Family Business
Recently one of my partners and I were facilitating a meeting between a father and his daughter to work through some mismatched expectations between them in the family business. We had already had several prep meetings laying the ground-work for aligning their expectations, which were all positive and headed in the right direction. They were both excited that we were going to be able to help them get some things out on the table as they typically would avoid one another and leave issues unresolved. However, once the meeting started, the dad took the opportunity to unleash on his daughter [...]
How Emotions Can Triumph Over Reason
Whoa! I was totally not prepared for the meeting I just had with my client. I thought I was. In fact, I was very prepared based upon our last meeting and all the decisions that had been made. However, life, and clients, have a way of throwing you curve balls. Sybil showed up again! The bottom line is that I came into this meeting ready to facilitate the client making some substantial asset transfers to his youngest son – it was supposed to be a slam dunk. The transfer was going to be of B-Member units in a real estate [...]
