Developing Family Ownership

Listen to Christine Blondel explain the importance of fairness when developing family ownership. In a family business, it is important to encourage all members to contribute to decisions by voicing their opinions. As family members feel they are valuable to the business, they will be more motivated to work toward its success.

So the main – we did a research, actually, we interviewed next generation members in large family firms, and we found out that they were asking for more clarity: what are the rules of the game? For more consistency, of applying the rules across people and in time, but also that the rules of the past, it had to be possible to reconsider them, so the changeability of fair process. And another one of course is sincerity, the culture of fairness. So if I initiate a process, when I try to engage family members, I mean it – I’m not doing that just for the sake of having a meeting, but if people have a voice and have a say, I’m going to hear them even if the decision doesn’t necessarily please everyone. It’s worse to start it and not to finish it than not starting it.