Problems & Challenges
If ordinary businesses function in three dimensions: Culture, Operations and Finances , family businesses are both blessed and cursed with a fourth dimension - Emotion . Emotion can generate endless streams of passion, effort and conflict and, like nuclear fission, the way these profound energy sources are used determines whether they are immensely constructive, or catastrophically destructive.
Accordingly, family business problems and conflicts are never simple problems. Every one operates on at least 3 levels:
(1) Business
(2) Family/Relationships and
(3) Personal (not always in that order).
These problems mix generations and genders, cultures and ethics, brothers and sisters, spouses and relatives, tradition and technology and the influence of the hidden "powers behind the thrones".
