Every Professional Starts Somewhere: Choosing Your Practice Bedrock

I attribute my 50+ years of success to my choice of a remarkable foundation. Look thoughtfully and carefully for the bedrock of your practice. That choice can serve you well for your own half-century in the business.

Let’s Skip Family Drama And Just Get Back To Work

I am so happy to see the world starting to right itself after all these long months of societal upset and loss and sadness. As the pace of life picks up, I say that for the businesses I consult—let’s skip any family drama and just get back to work. I recently discussed some key tools to prevent in-house conflicts with Andrea Obston.

Collaboration: Agreement On Methods And On What “Privacy“ Means

After 20 years of being friends and being familiar with each other’s work, Dr. Jaffe and I were able to use our particular strengths to help solve some thorny issues, without stepping on each other’s toes or working at cross purposes. We shared information and we innovated together because we had agreed on our methods and we understood the enormity of the need for absolute confidentiality.

Boundaries: Who Does What?

There has been a lot in the news lately about “invading personal space,“ and I really get why that is so important. Boundaries are a defining concept for every successful family business I’ve ever worked with, and it’s the second of my supporting pillars in my online course, Re-Imaging Relationships For Families In Business.  American poet Robert Frost noted that “good fences make good neighbors,“ and I would add that good boundaries make good working relationships between family members.

In the nuclear family, usually parents and their children, or perhaps at some point just the siblings, there are relationships that have been developing since birth. Opinions about strengths and weaknesses have been forming for decades, and there are no secrets (usually) about escapades from anyone’s younger days. Normally by the time family members are working together as adults in a legacy business, they have already interacted with each other for decades within the intimacy of the family unit.

The family business must not become a metaphor for family.

Protocols must be different for work talk and family talk. The same is true for behaviors. If a bossy older sister has spent her life picking up projects abandoned by her younger brother, then she will continue to do this in the family business. This will result in the same resentment levels experienced by both siblings as this dynamic has occurred over the years. The family leader must know how to set the boundaries between sibling responsibilities,  and preferably with minimum risk to overall business progress. The leader must also know how to arbitrate when boundaries are disregarded. Perhaps that’s easier when a parent is running things, but when a sibling takes over as leader, he/she better be strong enough to insist on a) hands off someone else’s job and b) maybe job boundaries […]

A First Step To Resolving Issues In The Family Business

I have worked 50+ years consulting in family business matters, and I recognize the clues when family members begin the process of working on “the issues.“ “The issues“ vary, of course, but there can turning points when a family business needs an outside opinion, maybe some suggestions, to resolve painful or contentious situations. For those family leaders who would like to do some groundwork, I’ve created an online course called Re-Imagining Relationships For Families In Business. This is a distillation of what I have seen and worked with over the length of my career. I know for sure that the relationships within the family business dynamic (or any business dynamic, for that matter) are the key to sustaining the legacy of success.

These Four Pillars Support A Successful Platform

The lessons around each of the 4 Pillars include exercises and supplemental resources to help family leaders, or the upcoming family leaders, understand and incorporate the key takeaways from each concept. Pillar 1 is all about Alignment. Right off the bat there is an exercise in values clarification because a leader must begin with what he (or she) knows about himself/herself. Then his job is to learn where the rest of the family is with their values. Once all have agreed on a values statement for the business, then they can move on to Pillar 2, which is about Boundaries. Anyone who grew up with siblings already knows that personal space is an issue that begins with the very young. (Mom! Make (brother or sister) get out of my room! Or move over in the car. Or stop playing with my toys, etc.)

Boundaries should be addressed right away when sorting out how to best get the family business moving together towards success. Oldest child may feel she should be able to step […]

It’s My Life’s Work—And It’s Time To Share It

family business, consulting New online course now available

In early 2018, in the deep winter of the Rocky Mountains, I sat down to write about what I’ve done for a living for the last 50 years. Yes, 50 years. For the last 5 decades I have worked to help families in business grow, prosper, stay together, keep the love, and pass the torch when the time comes. When I started, there were not many people who could be called in to help a family that was both in business together and in crisis. Now there are college courses in family business management being taught in major universities and there are family business consulting firms all over the world.

I have traveled extensively in this profession, and I treasure the friends I have made and the colleagues I continue to work with in all the various countries. Over the last few years, I observed how the world has changed and how people can now learn about whatever topics they find interesting and/or necessary by just booting up their computers. I acknowledged it was time for me to take what I have learned over my years in family business consulting and make it available in an online course.

On Thursday, September 13, I made a presentation to the Tulane University Family Business Center, and I announced that my new online course is now available. Re-Imagining Relationships For Families In Business takes the learner through what I know to be the Concepts, Methods, and Techniques That Can Work Miracles.

Successful families make a commitment to build and maintain healthy and functional family relationships that further the goals of the family business. Such a platform for success is anchored on these 4 Pillars: Alignment, Boundaries, Communications, and Competency. […]

Family Business Employment Policy — General Conditions

There are several general conditions that a family business must consider before employing a family member. Come inside and see the criteria for growing your family business with members of your family.

David Bork Writes Forward for MAPS for Men Book, a Must-Have Resource for any Family Business

David Bork Writes Forward for MAPS for Men BookDavid Bork is proud to have contributed the forward for the book, MAPS for Men: A Guide for Fathers and Sons and Family Businesses.

New York Times best-selling author and nationally syndicated radio show host Dave Ramsey calls this important book “a must-have resource for any and every family business.”

In his forward for MAPS for Men, David Bork, founder and CEO of Family Business Matters, writes: “These concepts help fathers and sons reframe their relationship into something that is more meaningful and helpful in meeting their goals, rather than repeating generational patterns.“

David recommends this book to fathers and sons seeking to better understand their personal and professional relationship.

Full text of MAPS for Men Forward by David Bork

In the interest of full disclosure, Edgell Franklin Pyles has been a good friend for more than twenty-five years, and we share a large community of interests. In the early 90s, we explored together the works of Robert Moore, James Millman, Robert Bly, and others. I met both Robert Moore and Robert Bly at a retreat in Aspen, Colorado, organized and sponsored by Edgell.

This was called the men’s movement, and we were excited about it because it sought to further define what it meant to be a man at the end of the twentieth century. It was grounded in Jungian psychology, and while well researched and articulated, it could be theoretical and esoteric. Our explorations of this work produced a practical approach and we have been on parallel, but different, paths.

We were interested in understanding the dynamics that take place between fathers and sons at both the personal and professional level. Our first step was to comprehend and appreciate the relationship we had with our […]