Managing the Family Business: Intergenerational Family Enterprise Gathering

We recently facilitated a workshop with parents and adult children of family enterprises.  The goal of the one day workshop was to assist parents and their adult children in communicating more effectively to address the issues of evolving family dynamics.  The day consisted of several discussions as a group as well as breakouts by generation with the goal of fostering engagement and bringing challenges to the forefront.

Below are some of the expectations that members of the senior and younger generation had for the day:

  • Build better communication skills
  • Engage in open dialogue
  • Understand the challenges of parents and adult children
  • Gain wisdom in working with my children

In the generational breakouts, the following are some of the themes of the challenges that were surfaced by each generation:

Adult Children

  • Understanding what my parents expect of me
  • Managing the expectations of my parents
  • Talking around issues and problems
  • How to be listened to by my parents
  • How vs. what is said
  • Defining clear boundaries between parents and adult children
  • Honoring those boundaries
  • Opposing value systems

Parents

  • The importance of ongoing education for our children
  • How we say things to our children – sounding judgmental
  • Having our children develop their own passion
  • How to have an honest conversation that may be hurtful
  • Challenging to talk about money with our children
  • When do we include or not include sons and daughters in-law
  • The need to let our children make mistakes
  • Fair vs. equal among children

The challenges were surfaced as group after the breakouts which prompted some very lively and interactive discussions among the attendees.  Towards the end of the day, each family group got together and created an action plan to address some of these challenges as well as others that were directly affecting their family.  The key here – take home value and doing something about it.

We invite you to comment on the challenges above or add some additional ones. Are you experiencing similar challenges? Do these seem off base from what your challenges are? Share your thoughts in the comments today.

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