Issues And Challenges

The most critical issues/challenges confronting family businesses are: communication between family members, 39.7% and letting go of leadership/ownership control, 39.7%.

Interestingly, 40.9% of family business owner-managers believe that family-based issues are more critical than business-based issues, and 45.5% believe that when family-based issues are resolved, business issues can also be resolved. Nearly two thirds agree that the ultimate challenge in family businesses is dealing with the addition of work/business-based relationships on top of pre-existing family-based relationships. Nevertheless, 86% have NOT set rules to strengthen interpersonal relationships and manage the expectations of family members; 82.1% have NOT established policies to deal with predictable family-in-business issues before the need arises; and 72.1% do NOT hold regular family meetings to share information, build trust, avoid politics, and achieve consensus.