Continuity Model Generation

Governance: Governance Planning for Continuity

Cornerstone Concept: Craft the Family's Governance Philosophy.

Preamble: Governing the growing family group, the heterogeneous ownership group, and the array of operating and investment entities requires planning and oversight. Members of the continuity model generation are good governance zealots.

The governance plan, for continuity modelers, really is the keystone in the arch of the canvas. As highlighted previously, this generation sees communication, education, accountability, and transparency as vital to any chance for continuity.

Governance Planning for Continuity I: Collecting and Collating Basic information

The first step here is the same as for the other plans: undertaking an honest evaluation. For some, this will involve diligent benchmarking to establish how others govern their family, their business, and their ownership groups. What this process will reveal is that governance is best understood along a continuum anchored at one end with “informal” and the other with “formal.” The mantra that most use when journeying along this continuum typically includes anchor comments such as (i) “What works for the current generation won't work for future generations”; (ii) “Let's act with a sense of urgency not a sense of panic”; and (iii) “Beware allowing the pendulum to swing too far in the opposite direction, as that will lead to over-governing.” Or as someone interpreted, “Don't hit a nut with a sledgehammer!”

So, the ...