Family patterns don’t stop at the office door.
Sometimes succession isn’t only a business transition.
A founder may also be Dad or Mum.
A successor may also be the child who spent decades seeking their approval.
Two executives may also be siblings who learnt their roles around the dinner table long before they entered the boardroom.
Family businesses contain two systems simultaneously:
a family system and a business system.
When generations transition, those systems don’t always move neatly together. This can create friction, emotional pain and challenges that aren’t always recognised as being rooted in family dynamics.
The questions underneath succession
- Who is expected to take over?
- Who gets trusted?
- Who is allowed to disagree?
- What does loyalty mean?
- Where does family responsibility end and organisational responsibility begin?
- And can somebody challenge the founder’s decision when the founder is also the person whose approval they have sought their entire life?
The MindFull Parent approaches generational transition through the human and relational patterns surrounding it.
This is not succession planning, corporate restructuring or organisational diagnosis.
It is work around the people inside that transition.