Family Business Governance: Maximizing Family and Business Potential

Families in business together have an especially powerful motivation to govern themselves well-- vast and profound shared interests that often include large capital investment, future family employment prospects and the image of a family business in its community. Yet many business-owning families drift unconsciously into haphazard or destructive patterns of decisionmaking and communication that can threaten and even destroy the family and the business. Effective governance can counter those destructive patterns. It can empower leaders of the business and the family to make the most of the unique strength of family business: The synergy between a strong, unified owning family and a well-run family enterprise. In Family Business Governance you'll learn: * how effective governance can have a positive impact on your family and your business; * how to set up productive governance structures; * how to overcome objections to establishing governance processes; * how to determine primary responsibilities of the board, the family, and management; * how to recruit and use your board; * how outside directors can help strengthen your business and ensure its continuity; * how the family and the board interact; * how to set family policies and procedures that govern key areas of family concern; * how to earn "voice" in the family and in the business; * how to manage overlapping concerns; * how to use specific techniques to smooth communication between the family and the board; and much more... While every family business is unique, embracing systematic governance processes can help any family business achieve goals shared by virtually all: orderly decision-making, peaceful continuity, and the freedom to make decisions based on the highest and best purposes of both the business and the family.

CRAIG E. ARONOFF Co-founder, Principal, and Chairman of the Board of The Family Business Consulting Group, Inc., the founder of the Cox Family Enterprise Center and current Professor Emeritus at Kennesaw State University, USA. He invented and implemented the membership-based, professional-service-provider sponsored Family Business Forum, which has served as a model of family business education for universities world-wide.

JOHN L. WARD Co-founder of the Family Business Consulting Group Inc. He is Clinical Professor at the Kellogg School of Management, USA, and teaches strategic management, business leadership and family enterprise continuity.