The family business has very specific characteristics with very clear advantages and disadvantages. Although the analysis is complex, in this article we are going to focus on the organizational part of the Family Business Transformation without going deeply into elements such as strategy, internationalization, protocol, succession, innovation, tax and legal issues, etc.
The advantages of the family business are clearly identified. They can be summarized schematically in the advantages in cohesion, long-term orientation and a clearly identified leadership that transmits security both internally and externally. But this is a competitive element in the first generation and as long as other elements are not lost along the way to achieve them, such as the strategy and competitiveness of the company or the qualification of the people who make it up.
In addition, the indicated advantages associated with the family business are more important when the size of the company is small (and basically in the first generation) since when growing or when generations begin to pass, elements such as cohesion or leadership based on familiar elements are beginning to be lost.
"If it is already difficult to find good managers, who are also from your family is statistically almost impossible"
At an organizational level, I think that all the problems of the Family Business can be summed up in what a family entrepreneur summed up very well the other day… »If it is already difficult to find good managers, who are also from your family, it is statistically almost impossible».
In addition, organizationally it is also very common to find organization charts designed with the people of the family in mind instead of the needs and processes of the Family Business. It is common to find a Department that the only real use it has is to give work to a relative.
Given these elements, many family businesses consider radical changes in Family Businesses and within these changes, the professionalization of the company, although this professionalization is never easy.
At this time the following questions always appear on the table:
- How are we going to evaluate which family members may or may not be managers of the company? In what positions will each of them be? Can any of them be CEO? Until now we made the decisions of the company as a family. Are we going to change? Are we going to hire a General Manager from outside the family? How are we going to form the Board of Directors, Steering Committee, etc.? How do we make the transition?
If you are asking yourself these questions… You are not alone… Most people who are in family businesses ask the same questions.
The other day in a family business they told me, “We are creating departments and functions that should not exist but we created them to place all the family members. My cousin is the manager, I run the production, my wife is in accounting, my nephew and my son, they studied Engineering and Economics respectively, for that reason they are dealing with Quality and Financial issues. My other children are finishing their careers and my nephews too… I think we are starting to have a Serious Problem and we need a solution… »
The solution is a project that we usually call the Transformation of the Family Business that incorporates elements such as the Strategic Definition and the Reorganization of the Family Business.
In this situation, the solution is a project that we usually call the Transformation of the Family Business that incorporates elements such as the Strategic Definition and the Reorganization of the Family Business that end up being embodied in a Family Protocol. In this way, we have managed to prepare many family businesses to face the future and also to improve the present, achieving:
- How are we going to evaluate which family members may or may not be managers of the company? What positions will each of them be in? Can any of them be CEO? Until now we made the decisions of the company as a family… are we going to change ? Are we going to hire a General Manager external to the family? How are we going to form the Board of Directors, Management Committee, etc.? How do we make the transition?
Como conclusión, las empresas familiares que decidan transformarse y profesionalizar su gestión, deben analizar fríamente todo lo comentado en el presente artículo, cómo hacerlo y tomar las mejores decisiones para la competitividad de la empresa.
