Tom Horne in The Full Picture, work with Family Business owners on many areas of their businesses. In this edition, we will look at how The Full Picture can support effective Family interactions during very stressful periods like the current economic recessionary environment. High risk and change can have a negative impact on Family Business dynamics. We will also look at how to maximize Trust (a previous edition) and Compassion as success elements in these difficult times.

In a previous edition, we discussed how the current dynamics in the Family Business impact trust and values, especially those values and beliefs that are either misunderstood or hidden from view.

Next, we discussed how ordinary market and family change happens on top of weak communication and unclear values, and the negative impact that has on trust within the family team.

Today, severe change is happening in the world’s financial markets and that is impacting the ability of businesses to borrow, write business supply agreements, and even causing the demise of their customers in a wide range of markets. There are thousands of Family Businesses struggling to keep their companies operating successfully, fueled by cash from profits with heavy support from debt borrowed at the bank and that is getting tight to non-existent.

What is the impact of this potentially overwhelming challenge on family business relationships? Just imagine the frayed nerves and fights caused by money problems on personal lives of families. Now, multiply that by a thousand times and it becomes clear that family relationships and the family business dynamic will be under huge pressure. Trust breaks down; frayed nerves cause compassion and communication to be tossed out the window. What was possible to sustain in good economic times becomes impossible currently. Carrying marginal family members, paying better than average even to producers, carrying out expansion plans, is now impossible as companies face the hard facts: supply of cash is drying up and the business is facing survival.

The talk now is: ‘it’s time to let Joe and Janet go because they are just not contributing’; downsizing or failure is imminent. Under these circumstances, family relationships breakdown and effective leadership of the business is dangerously exposed.

The Full Picture works inside of these challenges. We work with the family in the context of their relationships where the above dynamics exist. Family members unwittingly erect barriers to success during high stress times that result in destructive behaviors and actions and interactions among each other and even with customers and employees.

We help the Family Members identify the Business and Personal Issues that prevent organizational goals from being met even during times of economic turbulence. We create a safe space where the family can talk openly and become clear about the real issues that are hidden from their view. We help them maintain effective communication that results in relationships that work now.

A safe space is created that allows family members the opportunity to effectively deal with the business changes brought on by financial and economic turmoil . We allow them to talk about things that now come up and stop them from being effective…things that they were afraid of dealing with and not ready to address at an earlier time. What we facilitate is the Family Members learning to support each other and confront and communicate with each other in healthier ways. We help them to work on old family dynamics that need to be restructured NOW in order to create trust within the family and assure business success and even survival.

Want to know how Tom and The Full Picture can help your Clients deal with the negative effects of this challenging economic cycle on the business and family?

Please call us for an engaging and confidential conversation:
tom@thefullpicture.biz T: 312.343.3408