Successful businesses are founded in meeting the needs of others in a way not presently met. As you begin to look to growth in your family business and engage family members in this conversation and their roles in the business, tap into their creativity and talents. Support them to discover that intersection where their talents, passion and the need of others meet. At this intersection is the seed for growth and new business.
Active Knowledge Questions:
Does all growth in your business come from you, or do you leverage the talents of other family members and allow them to set a path for the business?
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 3 – In Need Lies Opportunity
A strength in family relationships and the future success of the family business often lie in allowing others to explore, fail and try again – while knowing they have your complete and unconditional support.
Family members entering an established business often only see, and hear about, the successes and never see the missteps and failed endeavours which were the precursors to the successes. This can set an impossible benchmark where they believe only success, first-time and every-time, is acceptable because that is what has gone before them.
Such a benchmark can either stop someone from trying or cause them to take unnecessary risks as they seek to prove themselves. Honesty in coaching family members in entrepreneurship so that can appreciate success and failure and how the two, work hand-in-hand are vital in seeding growth in your family business.
In speaking to the history of your business and its endeavours, speak openly about all the things that didn’t work out. There is a strength in humility where you can laugh about your ‘stuff-ups’. And through such, set realistic expectations for the next generation and also allow them to learn from all of your experiences.
Do not expect them to follow a path that seeks to map all of your successes and carries them forward but rather encourage them to find their own way. It can be a way that builds upon and leverages your legacies but allow them to discover where their passions and talents lie. And from that foundation to see where a need exists and how that intersection may seed a great new business.
In all your conversations, be humble, authentic and honest. And this foundation will allow the new generation of family members to really look inside themselves and discover the strengths that will make them a great businessperson. A person who can continue to build the family wealth and your legacy into and beyond that next generation. A person who can make a difference.
An entirely new level of performance.
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All the best in the success of your business,
Richard Shrapnel
