The family, including all spouses, should have discussed the succession strategy and vision for the business’s future.

The patriarch should have prepared a list of all their responsibilities. It’s often surprising to realize the depth and breadth of the founder’s role, ranging from keeping the peace among family members to managing strategic relationships to making distribution decisions.

The family should have discussed and identified who was most interested in and willing to step into the listed roles if the patriarch fell ill or died. This might mean learning more about the role and defining and gaining the skills needed to assume it. If needed, the family could identify outside talent to bring on board.  The family should have held regular meetings to ensure the objectives are met as the responsibilities are handed over.

The daughter, who wasn’t involved the business, still wanted a say in the decision making and feared that her children wouldn’t have the same opportunities as she did due to her brothers’ mismanagement of the business and their tension-filled relationship.  The family could have considered creating a decision tree to identify who has a say in which decisions. The tree could include the daughter in the most vital decisions. The tree will identify the decisions central to the business’s well-being so that the business is at risk if the wrong decision is made. For example, making capital investments over a certain amount.  The daughter may want to have a say in those central decisions but not the next-level decisions, such as a marketing strategy or rebranding of property.

The family members should have been more open with one another about their needs. One of our coaches, Blaine Bartlett, likes to say, “Authenticity is what I’m left with when I stop trying to manage your perceptions of me.”  So families often avoid challenging conversations for fear of causing discord. We would rather live with our false perspective than risk being seen unfavorably.  For example, the next generation fears speaking truth to power, and they don’t pursue their interests outside the family business for fear of ridicule.  One of my clients, a 65-year-old partner in a law firm who was divorced twice and an alcoholic, finally approached his family and declared he never wanted to be a lawyer. He admitted he followed the family line of attorneys for fear of not being taken seriously and a desire to belong. He found the courage to declare his own path, and today, he's a highly successful art collector who’s leading a healthy and fulfilling life. During radical change, a family can reinvent itself and find a balance between the individual and the collective family concerns with open, honest, and sincere communication skills.