Engaged Ownership

Chapter 2Achieving Engaged Ownership

Engaged ownership is a group effort: it takes collaboration on the part of the owners, and communication among those playing the key roles in the business—owners, board, management, and family.

Engaged ownership is a group effort: it takes collaboration on the part of the owners, and communication among those playing the key roles in the business—owners, board, management, and family. Engagement can't happen on paper—it requires face-to-face discussion, dialog, and debate. This is because core capital is finite; there is simply not enough core capital to accomplish every goal that every participant envisions. So, it is understandable that those in each role have strongly held but conflicting perspectives and priorities about how it should be deployed. Owners, as the ultimate owners of the core capital, need to come to consensus and articulate their shared purpose and vision for the deployment of their core capital; in turn, family, board, and management need opportunities to understand the owners' vision and to offer comments and questions and raise their own perspectives on matters of concern. (And if there isn't some degree of disagreement, dialog, and debate, something is probably missing in the process.)

Owners must organize and lead the work to achieve engagement. This is not a process that the board or management can orchestrate. Once the owners decide to do the work to accomplish engagement, they will need to devote time and attention ...