Managing Conflicts In A Family Business

For most people, conflict is uncomfortable. That can be especially true in families who’ve watched family conflict tear successful businesses to pieces:.What’s less often recognized is that too little conflict in a family business can have an equally destructive impact. The impact of both too much and too little conflict on both the family and their enterprise are almost identical. In both cases, the business can suffer from limited growth, poor decision-making, a loss of competitive advantage, and, in severe cases, the sale or split of the company. Similarly, families tend to break up into factions and suffer poor relationships. The mechanisms are different, but the results are the same.

Conflict is a “Goldilocks problem.”In the sense the earth is in what astronomers refer to as a Goldilocks Zone.Much closer to the sun and it would be too hot to sustain life, much further and it would be too cold to sustain life. Though the reasons differ, both extremes make life uninhabitable. Both ends of the spectrum are ultimately unsustainable–so the best place is in the middle. Read more of this post