FAMILY BUSINESS ADVISING

For more than a decade, Box Family Advisors has worked with family-based businesses across the country. By providing a generalist approach to our consultation and without any products to sell, we believe we can more objectively analyze the needs of your family’s enterprise. Sometimes hiring a specialist for a job better suited to a non-specialist creates unintended consequences. It is possible that a specialist lacking the sensitivity for family systems can do more harm than good due to ‘scope creep’. They are initially brought in to fill a well-defined need. They complete that task and are admired for it. Then they take on a broader role, which they may or may not be well suited for. If left to run amok, such an advisor can create as many problems as they solve.

Certificate in Family Business Advising, Family Firm Institute

About Box Family Advisors
Our Code of Ethics

WHAT WE DO TO HELP YOUR FAMILY BUSINESS

Family members who work together face enormous challenges. The complexity of these challenges can seem overwhelming to those who work for or run a family business. Box Family Advisors helps you find solutions to the many issues so often found in family business. As family business consultants, we provide the following services:

Assessment of family system & family dynamics
Analysis of family business system (SWOT analysis)
Communication facilitation & conflict resolution
Facilitation of family meetings & consensus building
Transition planning for ownership & management succession
Entry & exit strategies

“Doug has been a wonderful asset to our family. His guidance has helped improve our communication within our business and enhanced our father/son relationship. He was quick and skillful in helping understand our issues and getting them resolved. He was able to pinpoint things which we couldn’t see.”

Larry and Brian Hanson

Correctional. Food Services, Inc

Contact Doug

FAQ

WHAT IS A FAMILY BUSINESS CONSULTANT?

A family business consultant helps families work through issues such as succession planning, conflict resolution, and communication problems. Consultants come from a wide variety of professions such as law, psychology, management science, or financial planning. Therefore, each consultant takes on a slightly different approach in doing his or her work.

ARE THERE DIFFERENT TYPES OF CONSULTANTS?

Yes and no. Professionals and specialists in other fields with business consulting knowledge and experience can provide insight and advice for small family business owners, but it is always best to work with an advisor who specializes in working with families.

Some consultants operate as individual specialists who provide focused consultation on a presumably well-defined problem. For example, tax and estate-planning specialists would fit this category. These professionals may not even call themselves “family business consultants.” For some issues, this might be the fastest and most efficient way to resolve a specific problem, but the disadvantages are that individual specialists might make assumptions in their approach which are incorrect in the family business environment. An intervention in one subsystem might have unintended consequences in another.

Another type of consultant is the individual specialist. These professionals are more likely to call themselves “family business consultants.” They understand that family business are uniquely complex and have the training to tackle most of the problematic issues which arise in family business such as succession, conflict, and communication problems. These consultants may have been educated in management but they also might have had training in family dynamics. They could even be clinically trained, with extensive practical experience in business settings.

WE ALREADY HAVE A SET OF TRUSTED ADVISORS IN PLACE, AND WE DON’T NEED ANOTHER.

WHAT IS SYSTEMS THEORY?

“I’M TOO BUSY RUNNING THE COMPANY,” OR “IF IT AIN’T BROKE, DON’T FIX IT.”

WE ARE CLOSELY HELD AND VERY PRIVATE AND WANT TO KEEP IT THAT WAY — WE DON’T WANT SOMEONE FROM THE OUTSIDE ASKING A BUNCH OF QUESTIONS AND GETTING THINGS ALL STIRRED UP.