Client: CEO and COO
Client Type: Family Business
Executive Summary: Prior to an anticipated leadership transition, Richard Dana Associates was retained by the owners of a family-owned business with complex relationship issues. Following individual and group coaching, the principals were able to separate personal issues and codify practices through formal policies. Seeing personal issues clearly allowed the leadership group to focus on business issues without personal complications.
Clear to the Bottom Line: Father (CEO), life partner (COO) and son work with business issues in the forefront with a new level of transparency, which impacts productivity throughout the organization. The father realizes it was premature and contra-indicated for his son to take over at this time. This realization allowed the son to pursue other career options with the father’s blessing.
Services: Coaching in High Definition, Succession Planning, Organizational Systems
Assignment: Bob, founder, CEO, and owner of a 20-year-old, family-held business, hoped to groom his 30-year-old son, Jack to take over the business in the next five years. The firm was currently co-run by Betty, the COO and Operations Manager. She was a long-time employee of the firm, and also had been Bob's life partner for most of that time.
Both Jack and the firm were at a critical juncture — if Jack and the firm did not make a mutual commitment to each other in the next year or so, Jack would likely pursue alternative career options. Importantly, Jack was not privy to many of the decisions and financials underlying the company — information that would allow him to make an objective decision about his future role in the firm. Finally, no plan existed to manage the transition (e.g., stock buy-in plan).
Jack and Bob's personal relationship had grown estranged, with both prone to intense emotional responses to work and personal issues. In addition, Betty felt that Jack did not accord her appropriate respect in her role as COO, and was, therefore, concerned about her professional future as COO under Jack's leadership. She was also anxious that any transition be smooth to enable her continued personal relationship with Bob, the owner. The emotionally-charged relationships between the three key players resulted in both personal and professional command-and-control conflicts, preventing the three from working together to develop a smooth transition plan.
Furthermore, Bob's will did not reflect his stated succession plans, thereby making relationships with Betty and Jack even more complicated. Richard Dana Associates was engaged to shed light on the interpersonal conflicts, develop an action plan to bridge the communications gaps, and start building the foundation for succession planning.
Construct a Picture: Richard Dana Associates began by conducting interviews with the three players - both as individuals and in groups - to identify and air both personal and professional obstacles to a smooth transition. Each person aired their own particular concerns and articulated their specific personal goals.
Convert the Picture to High Definition:
- Facilitated meetings with Jack and Betty with clear agendas where they could vent, articulate underlying issues, identify the impact of their conflicts on the business (both psychologically and operationally), extract a workable foundation, and craft specific goals.
- Individual coaching for Bob, Jack, and Betty to help them examine and address their work issues objectively.
Execute Action Plan:
- Implementing clear and comprehensive job descriptions to clarify the roles of Bob, Jack, and Betty.
- Developing clear, formal, consistent policies and expectations and following-through on their application to the entire firm. Both Bob and Jack had historically skirted many informal firm policies, leading to conflict with Betty and poor impressions among the staff.
- Leadership training for Bob to help him to both set limits on Jack's unproductive behavior and begin training Jack for future leadership.
- Coaching Bob to be less laissez-faire and more pro-active in giving Jack a macro and micro understanding of the business (e.g., adopting job shadowing, mentoring techniques).
- Identifying specific times for Bob and Jack to repair their personal bond through everyday interactions (e.g., having coffee together to have some dedicated face-time)
- Training in basic communication skills and relationship-building including using non-confrontational language, setting clear business agendas, emailing meeting summaries and assignments, objectively clarifying any differences that arose.
- Developing effective conflict management tools
Results: Through the course of the engagement, the requisite underlying systems were put in place — job descriptions, policies and procedures, communication skills training, and relationship building. Jack was able to work at the firm productively. The three were better able to separate their business identities from their personal conflicts, and had begun working more as a team. The benefits of their improvements spread to the rest of the organization in the form of improved trust, increased productivity, a less emotional work environment and greater morale. By eliminating the personal obstacles, Bob and Betty agreed to revisit succession planning the following year.
Richard Dana Associates facilitated additional working sessions with Bob and Betty to focus on their personal and business priorities. Once personal issues were isolated from business issues, Bob was well-positioned to consider the viability of a leadership transition.
In factoring in historical financials, current economic conditions, compensation for the key players, his estate plan, a potential buy-in plan, and a tangible transition plan, Bob realized he needed more time to prepare to leave the business. Jack is fine with this, as he can now make an informed career decision.