Getting started with your family meeting

by Mary Beth Matteo, Founding Director of the S. Dale High Center for Family Business

Family meetings are a great way to begin to chart a family’s future.

John Ward, founder of the Family Business Consulting Group, has some of the best “sample questions” we’ve seen. Here are just a few to get you started:

Succession
• How do we assure our parents’ lifelong financial security?

• How will we pick the next president?

Participation
• How do we decide which family members can join the business?

• How do we determine titles, preparation and authority?

Compensation and Ownership
• How do we evaluate and pay family members?

• Who can own stock in the business?

Harmony
• How will we deal with conflict (generational, between siblings, with in-laws)?

• Who will lead the family activities and traditions into the next generation?

Responsibility
• How do we help family members in financial and/or career need?

• How do we cope with publicity?

• What’s our responsibility to the community?

Sum and Substance: every family has a different character and set of priorities. No matter what they are, it’s worth the effort to begin talking about them. Nothing like a written agenda, and working through each issue, one by one!

Tom Wolf Presents to CFB Membership in September

Tom Wolf, former PA Secretary of Revenue, spoke to members and guests on September 17, 2009, the first in the CFB's 2009-10 series of Educational and Benchmarking Seminars.

Wolf is chairman and CEO of The Wolf Organization, a family owned building materials business based in York, Pennsylvania, founded in 1843, with distribution through 30 branches along the Eastern Seaboard.

Wolf doesn't believe family businesses should make it easy for the next generation to assume ownership of the family business. And he should know...he bought his family firm twice, once before he served as the State Secretary of Revenue and then again in 2009! He also talked about the value of listening, really listening to employees, explaining how he empowered employees and improved morale toward better performance and decreased turnover at Wolf. He also spoke to the marked efficiencies and improved ROI the Wolf Organization achieved through an investment in SAP.

For selected slides from Tom Wolf's presentation, click here.