Conflict in a family business can stoke emotions and wreak havoc that lasts longer and inflicts deeper wounds than similar disagreements that take place where there are no family ties.
Worse still is that those involved in the disputes often have no background or training for how best to sidestep actions that could cause a lifetime of hurt feelings and grudges that split a family apart.
“Learning how to deal with conflict in a family business is valuable,” said Gary Benson, who is the human resources and warehouse manager at the kitchenware and homeware company Danica Imports.
Benson’s company is going through a lot of change given that its two owners – Benson’s father, Rodney Benson, and his father’s partner, Jeremy Baude – plan to retire at the end of 2015.
Benson and his wife both work in the business, as does Baude’s son.
To ensure that conflict is avoided and the business is able to successfully transfer to the next generation, Danica has brought in a succession-planning consultant.
Benson has also taken a Canadian Association of Family Enterprise (CAFE) course for young family business members aged between 25 and 40 years.
CAFE’s Future Leaders program includes six sessions, which each have a theme. One is focused on conflict management; others cover issues such as effective communication and understanding power dynamics.
But several of the 14 graduates who took the inaugural Future Leaders course in
Vancouver earlier this year told Business in Vancouver that the program’s key take-away lesson relates to how to avoid conflicts.
“I was going through some conflicts when I took the course and it was a help to be able to discuss them in the group setting,” said Benson.
“Hearing from the facilitator and others in the class was a real benefit.”
Benson declined to elaborate on what conflicts he dealt with at Danica, but course facilitator Deena Chochinov said one common conflict that arises during family business successions revolves around the divergent wants and needs of each generation.
The generation that’s retiring often wants to have a stable business with reliable returns, she said, while the younger generation often wants to grow the business and take on risk.
Chochinov added that conflict can also arise when siblings in the next generation disagree on the pace of expansion.
“Companies should have a good conflict management process in place so no matter what happens, there is a way to get through,” she said.
A big part of that process is to have all family members agree on a set of values to ensure everyone is on the same page. Pace of growth could be one of those values.
Shannon Mann, who was also in the course and is resource manager at her family’s Osprey Marine Ltd. fish export business, praised Chochinov for involving plenty of interaction during the course.
“It wasn’t like we were given textbooks and had to spit out answers,” Mann said. “They had guest speakers who talked about how they got out of rough spots and then described what these rough spots were. The only critique of the course is that most of us want more. We need a Level 2 course that goes into more detail.”•
