Unity and harmony are the attributes that will underpin the continuing growth of a family across generations. A growth that will support purpose and contribution, and allow each person to participate in the family business in a manner appropriate for them. Allowing the family business to endure and become the glue that unites families.

Active Knowledge Question:

Do you have a clear sense of how the family business can and will provide the glue that binds the family across generations?

A Season For Conversations:

Starting with Thanksgiving on 28 November 2019, moving through Christmas on 25 December 2019 and then into Chinese New Year commencing on 25 January 2020, this is a season in which many families reconnect around these celebrations and many other celebrations that occur at this time of the year. It is a time for strengthening relationships, and in this six-part series, we will revisit how conversations build great families and their businesses.

Part 5 – The Glue That Binds The Family

As families grow across generations, the anchor, the glue, that hold families together can weaken as each individual takes up their own life. As parents pass away the bond that held children together can quickly diminish unless there is a cause that can keep the connections renewed. The cultural upbringing in some families underpin unity and connection and provide the glue through tradition, but even that weakens over time without renewal.

Technology allows us today to stay more readily connected, but a purpose must still exist, and society seems to be trending more towards individualism than family. But the continuing strength of a family business across generations requires a strong family bond. Without that bond, the family business will be quickly sold off and the wealth divided across individual family members.

A growing and profitable family business can provide the glue to connect and unite families, and their individual members, across generations. And I believe there is a strength, a worth, in family unity that cannot be replaced. Of course, families do come in all shapes and sizes, but the language of family defines the connections which exist.

A family business provides a shared space and purpose around which families can unite to support each other and to journey forward with shared goals. A family business provides a reason for connecting and an association that can be carried forward across generations.

In your family, as you sit around and speak about your business, openly discuss its goals and aspirations to engage younger family members. Share the challenges, successes and rewards. Allow them to experience the richness that family business can bring to the life of a family. And always appoint worthy leaders who will uphold the purpose that a family business can bring to the enduring life of a family.

An entirely new level of performance.

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All the best in the success of your business,

Richard Shrapnel