3 Proven Ways to Professionalise your Family Council Operations

Professionalising Family Council Operations means fostering unity, making essential choices, and securing the long-term success of family businesses. Unlike regular companies, family enterprises face unique hurdles. As they expand, giving family councils modern tools and methods is crucial to handle present challenges effectively.

• Balancing formal and informal interactions blurs personal and professional boundaries due to close family ties.
• Encouraging open and honest communication while recognising not everyone needs to be part of every business detail.
• Being cautious about oversharing personal information or using overly informal language due to deep family connections.

Remember, the strength of family businesses lies in their close-knit relationships and the capacity for open, candid dialogues. While leveraging technology, it’s vital to preserve these connections. Technology should enhance, not replace, this unique dynamic. It can play a pivotal role in introducing accountability and professionalism, ensuring that communications and interactions remain consistent and fitting across the entire business.

The Trusted Family platform is specifically designed for family businesses of different sizes and levels of complexity. It offers various design aspects, functions, and features to enhance and organize the operations of their family councils without making any compromises.

The three key ways in which it achieves this are:

• Accountability mechanisms
• Family-specific knowledge and sharing
• In-built communications and interactions

ACCOUNTABILITY MECHANISMS

The platform provides a degree of accountability, without cumbersome overhead, through the way it manages meetings. Its sophisticated meeting management includes:

• Organisation and scheduling of events
• Online approval and signing of meeting minutes
• Voting on resolutions through surveys
• Attendance tracking
• Management of follow-up actions

Moreover, we ensure that all past records are stored and readily accessible, facilitating family members’ engagement and awareness.

The structured approach allowing comprehensive recording fosters heightened participation and accountability throughout the family business. The user-friendly design ensures a seamless experience, integrating these practices as standard rather than imposing strict and formal oversight.

Elevated participation and organised meeting structures, coupled with accessible documentation, significantly enhance the family business’s overall professionalism.

FAMILY-SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE AND SHARING

The platform includes support for family-specific information, events and interactions, including:

• Inclusion of interactive family trees and relevant personal information, to foster relationships and communication
• Recording family history and achievements, from minor to major, to encourage sharing and relationship building
• Support for news and updates shared amongst the family, so that no matter how geographically dispersed the family is, everyone is kept up to date
• Sharing of family profiles and aspirations in an informal manner, and connecting the right family members together to support ongoing interaction and development

These features recognize that family businesses blur the line between personal and professional, unlike traditional businesses. Sharing and celebrating individual accomplishments within the business is not only acceptable but also beneficial. It enhances cohesion without diminishing professionalism, contributing to the family business’s overall performance.

IN-BUILT COMMUNICATIONS AND INTERACTIONS

The platform offers built-in communication for family members, providing key benefits.

Firstly, it ensures secure communication, avoiding less secure channels.

Secondly, it allows specific discussions, including references to relevant documents and events.

Thirdly, it sets a behavioral standard without excessive formality. Communications on the private family business platform naturally encourage more professional language, fostering openness and honesty.

Some features include:

• One-on-one and small group chats via Direct Chat
• Integration with third-party platforms like video conferencing and calendars
• Event Channels for conversations among event attendees
• Topic-focused discussions using Space Channels
• Easy survey creation for quick opinion gathering

Greater communication organisation, without being overly complex, enhances family involvement and business professionalism.

WAY FORWARD

In family businesses, professionalism needn’t be excessively formal or ‘corporate.’ A well-designed governance technology accommodates the complexity of managing a family business.

The Trusted Family platform not only fosters open and honest sharing but also embraces the fusion of personal and professional aspects. This celebration of uniqueness contributes to the success of family businesses in serving customers and clients, embodying the essence of “professionalism.”