Breakthrough for Owners of Family Businesses
The owners of family businesses or SME’s come to us because they face a unique set of challenges.
Firstly, someone who starts off as an employee, becomes self-employed and who then goes on to grow their business, passes through several identity shifts that change the way they see the world. The need for each of these shifts can represent an unconscious barrier which makes attaining the higher level more difficult.
When you start a business, your strength is the strength of the business. As your business grows, your strength becomes the weakness of the business. The problem is that you are the last person to see it. If your business has plateaued, you have probably reached the limit of your personal span of control.
Some of these mindset blocks are well known, others less so. The breakthrough process is brilliant for helping you to shift these blocks and for allowing you to attain a higher perspective.
Secondly, it’s about the family. Too often owners employ family members for all the wrong reasons: availability, cheapness, trustworthiness, obligation, hope, none of which are about the suitability of the person to do the job!
Sons and daughters are often under pressure to take over the family business, but then ‘Dad’ will never let go of the reins because no-one can do it like him. (If you keep hold of the reins, Dad, no-one will!) Then of course there are the other siblings. They aren’t the MD, they don’t actually do any work in the business, except when they feel like it, but they have a sense of entitlement which becomes a real burden to the business.
Getting past the third generation is really difficult. The best families, in terms of business competence, recognise they will never attract top talent if the best positions are filled by family members. Send the kids to business school before they take over as shareholders, not executives.
The dynamics of navigating the inter-generational family business are an emotional minefield. Too often, emotion dominates debate when reason should prevail. The very wealth you worked so hard for gets squandered and diluted by people who seem not to care less – and they’re your family!
It’s not only CEOs who feel lonely! Owners often feel alone, misunderstood and unappreciated. The emotional burden does little to alleviate the stresses and strains of running a business.
Breakthrough for Owners of Family Businesses allows owners to recast all their key relationships, both at home and in the business. Most often, the owner feels the difference in themselves and everyone around them notices too! Some of the stories clients relate back to us are quite funny!
Lastly, Owners are human too! Sometimes they know what it is that’s bothering them, they just can’t talk about it. Sometimes, they simply have no idea, they just have a feeling in their gut that something is not quite right. If they could only figure it out, life would get a lot easier.