Family Business & the Next Generation
The old way worked well enough to build everything you are standing on
A successor often sees the missing software, the paper registers, the cash dealings and the pricing done from memory, and wants to fix them all at once. A founder sees a way of working that carried the family through difficult years. This session is about changing a business without turning the change into a verdict on the person who built it.
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Most changes fail on the people side, not the technology side.
Billing software, a GST-ready accounting package, an online catalogue or a new way to track stock are not hard to buy. They are hard to introduce into a place where the person who invented the old method sits at the desk each morning and where staff have learned that the old method is safe.
A successor who treats the old way as a mistake meets resistance. A successor who treats it as the foundation, and asks what it was solving, usually finds that some parts should stay, some can be improved and a few can be dropped, and that the founder helps with the last two.
This session is even-handed. It treats the founder's caution and the successor's impatience as reasonable positions. It is not management consulting, family counselling or legal advice, and it does not recommend any product or vendor.
How change is handled
33 topics across 7 areas. Seven parts of the problem, in the order families usually meet them.
Understanding Why Things Are Done This WayBefore changing anything.5
- Asking the people who do the work to walk you through it
- Finding out what problem each old habit was solving
- Separating the habit from the reason behind it
- Noting where the old way has quiet advantages
- Writing it down so you can show you understood
A change that respects the reason behind the old way is much easier to propose.
What Is Worth ChangingChoosing with some discipline.5
A long list of things that could be better is not a plan. A short list in an order with a first item is.
- Where time or money is visibly being lost
- Where errors repeat
- Where the business depends on one person's memory
- Where customers or the law now expect something different
- Where a change is cheap, reversible and easy to explain
Bringing Your Parents With YouProposing, not announcing.5
- Starting with a problem they already feel, rather than a tool you like
- Offering a small trial with a way back
- Using the founder's own numbers, not only external examples
- Letting them find the flaw in your plan and thanking them for it
- Not going around them to staff
Taking Staff AlongThe people who will use it daily.5
Staff often fear that new systems are meant to check on them or replace them. Say plainly whether that is so, and if it is not, say that too.
- Telling people what is changing, why, and what it means for their job
- Training that fits how they actually learn
- A period where the old and new run together
- Patience with those who are slower to adopt, and a way to help them
- Listening to what staff say is going wrong
Money, Records and ComplianceThe areas where changes tend to matter most.5
- Keeping proper books and bills, in line with the law
- Separating family spending from business spending
- Moving from memory to records for stock, dues and prices
- Asking a chartered accountant what applies to your business
- Moving gradually, rather than in one reshuffle
Rules on GST, accounts and registration change and vary by business. Check with a qualified professional.
Selling and Reaching CustomersWhere outside-in change often starts.4
- Online presence, listings and messaging apps
- Keeping the customer relationships that already work
- Testing a new channel before moving the whole business onto it
- Not assuming the older customers have the same habits as you
What Should Not ChangeThe part the founder is often protecting.4
- The way customers and suppliers have been treated for years
- The commitments that built the business's name
- Practices that look old-fashioned but are the reason people return
- The dignity of long-serving staff
Frictions people describe
- A parent who agrees to a change and then does it the old way
- Staff who say yes and quietly do not use the new system
- Two relatives who want different changes
- A tool that was bought and never adopted
- A change that worked but was not credited to anyone
What participants leave with
- A short list of candidate changes, ranked
- A one-page way to propose the first change at home
- A list of what should be kept, and why
- A plan to bring staff in
- A way to judge, in three months, whether it worked
How the session runs
Two or three people from family businesses, ideally from both generations, describe a change they made or resisted, and what they would do differently. An exercise follows, in which each participant lists what they would change and what they would protect, then open questions. The session does not recommend any product, vendor or consultant, and nobody in the room is there to sell. Evenings or weekends, in person or online.
What your students leave with
- A way to separate what is working, what is merely familiar and what is actually costing money
- A first change worth making and a way to propose it
- Ways to bring a founder into a change rather than around it
- A plan for staff who will have to learn something new
- A way to measure whether a change helped, before deciding on the next
- A list of the things in the business that should not change
Scheduled sessions
Nothing scheduled yet
Sessions are arranged with a college once a date is agreed. Ask us and we will find the right person for it.
A student rather than a college? See what is coming up, or ask your placement team to host this.
Respecting the old way is how the new way gets a chance.
Tell us who your students are and what stage they are at. Sessions are free for participants.