Statistically, about 30% of Americans suffer some kind of sleep deprivation. Undoubtedly, the number is higher among families selling their businesses. The midnight adrenalin may flow from anticipatory fear or excitement. But there is no denying that relinquishing the fruits of one’s labor and ingenuity even to one’s gifted child, let alone to a total stranger, provokes understandable anxiousness. And those who acquire a family enterprise acquire for one’s own family part of another family’s history, its fears or its excitement. And so it is that the most disturbing insomnia, and one which does not disappear with closing shop, often is the consequence of family “business.” On the negative side: jealousies, suspicions, greed, rivalry, incompetence, misdirected or resented authority, clashing generational cultures, and plain old uncertainties about the road ahead. On the positive side: concern for the welfare of those who have looked to your talent, leadership, and generosity year after year as well as concern for retaining your laudable standing among your peers, employees, and social circles. At such a juncture leaving the work at the office becomes nigh impossible. If the business is to remain in the family through succession, can parent and child draw workable boundaries? Being set adrift on an ice floe or being second-guessed behind one’s back gets revisited at traditional family gatherings, such as Thanksgiving. And, how does one include or exclude children who knows practically nothing about accounts receivable or what happens on the factory floor? If the business is to pass from the family tree, how does one recognize one’s spouse and dependents, which stood by their breadwinner through thin-and-thin as you scaled the ladder of financial independence? Or, how does one relate to in-laws whose intensities of affection or mistrust may far surpass that breathed by your own flesh and blood?Under these common circumstances, your broker cannot effectively represent “you” because “you” is fragmented or distracted. Of course, you can hire a lawyer; but, when you do hire a lawyer to navigate family “business,” you can rightly expect that chairs around the conference table will be occupied by the same folks who celebrated your 70th birthday, but with their lawyers in tow, too. The talk will be about proclaiming or protecting rights much more than about preserving or healing relationships. There is an alternative – cheaper dollar-wise, time-wise, and emotion-wise. The alternative will not eliminate all causes of insomnia, but much will be dispelled in the light – in the light of candor and safety. The alternative is hiring an attentive, compassionate, and honorable neutral, one who will guide, encourage, and support all of you fairly to reassess your assumptions, to welcome compromise, to clarify your dreams and limitations, and to focus realistically on your immediate and long-term goals. Sometimes you will not really know where to start beyond the love you feel. Sometimes you will not really know how to get beyond tensions and dissention, which keep you awake at night. But with a bit of determination and trust in the process, you can count on meaningful progress and heartier celebrations when the family traditionally gathers. Remember, businesses can be bought and sold, but not families.
Scott B. Saulson, PhD, MovingParents.org is a Trusted Advisor of the BUSINESS HOUSE, inc. SM
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