“Emotion eats Logic for breakfast; it laughs at Commercial Commonsense … and makes fools of Business Families”.
Family Conflict in Family Business
Family conflict in a Family creates tension; family conflict in a Business Family creates disputes.
Business Family disputes get particularly nasty, and hard to resolve, when they escalate past logic to corrupt the family’s normal problem-solving and decision-making processes. The results can quickly grow from unpleasant to catastrophic – for the family and the business.
It may seem hard to get the family to start a dispute resolution process, but it’s far better than doing nothing. Like cancer, family disputes don’t heal themselves, instead they grow (over time and often invisibly) into bigger and deeper problems – eventually worsening beyond any possibility of successful resolution.
Families are supposed to be environments of love, respect, loyalty, nurture, and trust, but combine a family with a business and you have a whole new relationship dynamic, underwritten by a more complicated equation – particularly when parents and peacemakers go missing in action through choice, age, infirmity, financial or spousal pressures, exhaustion, or other causes.
Feelings of disappointment and betrayal create resentment and suspicion that can lead to dysfunction, and worse.
Family conflict in Family Business mashes family systems against business systems, and: Nurture fights Nature – the family’s desire to protect the weak competes with the business’s need to be competitive, efficient, and profitable.
Solutions need to be family-sensitive AND commercially responsible, which is not-so-easy to do. You need to cross and re-cross a lot of lines – taking an empathic, non-destructive approach that addresses Individual + Family + Business needs and interests, while trying to avoid sacrificing anyone, or anything, in the process.
Three decades spent working with families to resolve their conflicts demonstrated the need to build a better mousetrap. The result:
SODR (Solution-Oriented Dispute Resolution), for Families
SODR Is a complete system for resolving most types of conflict. It’s especially effective in business family environments.
Key Features
- Re-establishes discipline and authority in the family.
- Resolves conflicts; repairs and may strengthen relationships.
- Private, pragmatic, flexible, and very family-sensitive.
- Extremely quick, time-efficient, and cost-effective.
- Guaranteed results. Once started, nobody can stop the process, unless all parties agree to do so.
- Infinitely better than doing nothing, in almost all cases.
- Far less costly and damaging than litigation.
- Provides closure for individuals, families, and businesses.
- Enables family peacemakers to avoid being burnt trying to resolve family conflicts.
SODR, for Families – Process Contract
At Commencement: family members agree the terms of a formal, written Process Contract, including:
- Options to suit their family.
- Participation ground rules and procedures.
- Personal responsibilities and accountabilities.
- Consensus building.
- Implementing agreed actions.
- Consequences, effects and enforcement of outcomes.
SODR Process
3 Phases: (1) Facilitation (2) Determination (3) Independent Decision
Phase (1) Facilitation (resolves most disputes and conflicts)
Activity: Facilitated family conversations. Individual support, as required.
Outcome: Voluntary Agreement, binding as a contract.
Phase (2) Determination (resolves most of what’s left)
Activity: Facilitator makes a Determination, based on known information.
Outcome: Written Determination, binding under contract.
Options: (A) Advisory, or (B) Enforceable under Family Rules, or (C) Enforceable at Law, as a contract.
Phase (3) Independent Decision (rarely required – final solution)
Activity: Issues referred to a neutral, Independent Decision Maker (“IDM”) for a Decision.
Outcome: Written Decision, binding under contract.
Options: (A) Advisory, or (B) Enforceable under Family Rules, or (C) Enforceable at Law, as a contract.