Chapter 11Forums
Forums: Board, Owners Council, Family Assembly
Family business owners are familiar with the problem of business issues popping up at family dinners and family disagreements surfacing at board meetings. Family businesses are complex systems with multiple and interlocking roles and relationships. The ambiguity, intrigue, and shadow decision making that happens when decisions aren't made in the right forum can impede engaged ownership and indeed trip up decision making throughout the family-business system.
Recognizing that each of the groups—family, owners, board, and management—has its own objectives and perspective, one of the responsibilities of the owners as the ultimate owners of the core capital is to create opportunities for each group's voice to be heard. Decision making will be more effective if each group has a forum in which to come together.
The three main forums are the Owners Council, the Board of Directors, and the Family Assembly. Each has its own membership, focus, and responsibilities:
- The Owners Council is responsible for articulating the shared purpose and vision for the business and for the broader core capital. Membership includes all owners, including individual owners and trustees of family trusts that ...
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