This should be a premise when family businesses hire external managers to run and develop the company.
Hiring externally may be necessary. But the owner family must ensure that the right candidate has both the right skills AND 100% buy-in to the values that underpin the company's existence.
Otherwise, the company risks losing its very foundation, direction and why when external management takes the helm.
Some owner families will find that they have never put their core values into words before. Perhaps the values have been unspoken - or perhaps family members have never had a shared understanding of them.
If this is the situation, the family should see hiring external management as an opportunity. An opportunity to sharpen their own understanding of the company's core values before hiring someone who will follow them without having grown up in the owner family.
Contact me if your family needs help working with your core values.
(This post presents points from a conversation between me and Elizabeth Bagger from Avanti Family Business Advisory.)
