Family Enterprise Insights
Family enterprises face unique challenges as family relationships, ownership structures, and operating businesses evolve across generations. This collection of articles reflects Generation6’s research and advisory experience, exploring the frameworks and decisions that shape alignment, leadership, and continuity over time.
Explore Thought Leadership by Topic
FAMILY DEVELOPMENT & DYNAMICS
Family relationships shape how effectively governance and ownership systems function over time. These articles examine communication, cohesion, and generational transitions that influence alignment and continuity.
FAMILY & BUSINESS GOVERNANCE
Family enterprise governance defines how decisions are made, roles are clarified, and accountability is sustained across generations. These articles explore governance structures, boards, and frameworks that support alignment and long-term continuity.
FAMILY OFFICE & ENTERPRISE STRUCTURES
Family offices and enterprise structures sit at the intersection of family, ownership, and shared assets. These articles explore how structures are designed and evolve to support coordination, clarity, and long-term performance.
STEWARDSHIP & OWNERSHIP
Ownership in a family enterprise carries responsibilities that extend beyond financial interests. These articles explore ownership roles, decision-making, and the development of capable stewards across generations.
STRATEGY & DECISION-MAKING
Family enterprises face complex strategic and financial decisions shaped by both business realities and family priorities. These articles explore how families approach growth, investment, risk, and long-term decision-making.
ADVISORY APPROACH
Effective advisory in family enterprise requires both structural clarity and relational understanding. These articles reflect how Generation6 works with families, including our philosophy, partnership model, and perspectives on long-term continuity.
Our Recent Articles
Family Firms Must Address Mental Health Challenges
Anxiety, depression, and other conditions disrupt family business operations and strain family relationships. Ignoring them won’t make them go away.
Include the Extended Family in Your Ownership Strategy
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.
Involve Next-Gens in Developing Your Social Media Policy
Family businesses should consider a social media policy as a relatively “low-hanging fruit” to introduce the next generation to governance work.
Money education in the business family: A perspective article
Financial education is critical for business families with a generational vision - yet, it is often undervalued and not prioritized, despite its profound implications for family cohesion and business sustainability.
White Space: A Wellspring of Wisdom
Consider how much white space you have in your leadership practice. What do you do to make yourself available to these other sources of wisdom: your heart, your gut, and your soul?
Punishment, Reward, Control: How Money Shows Up in the Business Family
Money is hardly ever ‘just money’: When business families discuss distributions or family member compensation, capital structure or investment strategy, these conversations are often driven by the individual family members’ emotions and orientations towards money and wealth.
Do You Treat In-Laws Like the Family Business Outlaws?
Families differ in their willingness to integrate outsiders into their family circle. These actions influence the included or excluded individuals in different ways, creating a ripple effect throughout the family that can last generations.
Case Study: Transforming the Single Family Office and Family Alike
This fictitious case study illustrates what happens when a family outgrows its family office, and offers suggestions for a way forward.
Let’s Continue the Conversation
Many of the topics explored in our articles arise directly from conversations with multigenerational families navigating complex transitions.
If your family is considering governance development, leadership transition, or strengthening alignment across generations, we welcome the opportunity to connect.