If your family wants to avoid friction and conflict resulting from disagreements over investment choices, it may be well-served by a family investment policy.

Families often pressure advisors to rush to provide a technical fix to their perceived money problems - but when families fight about money, it’s typically about something else.

Your "owners' strategy" should consider that in the future, the family firm will likely have many more owners. That’s why you might want to take a broader focus when you develop it.

Once established, family governance mechanisms are rarely revisited or evaluated. The result is that family governance gets stuck focusing on the past and present - instead of supporting your family on its journey to where it wants to be.

Should you select family members for governance roles based on family branch or generation, their qualifications, or based on how well-respected they are within the family? Every choice comes with benefits and disadvantages.

Can you quantify your board’s contribution to the performance of your family business? What about its effect on the family, in terms of settling disputes, creating policies, and providing transparency, just to name a few?

Families often struggle with developing family (governance) policies that not only work for the long term, but that also adequately reflect and reinforce the family’s values and objectives. Shareholder agreements are a case in point.