Notes from the Family Innovations Summit

值得记录的家族创新峰会

Thanks to @Daniel Van Der Vliet and Cornell’s Smith Family Business Initiative for a stellar event earlier this week. This was a day of private discussions between family-owned businesses of all types and sizes – from some of the largest in the world with 20-50 family members to some small and with only two or three family members.

感谢Daniel Van Der Vliet和康奈尔大学“Smith家族商业精神”的邀请，这是本周早期的一个明星事件。这是所有类型和规模的家族企业之间的私人交流活动，这些家族企业涵盖了世界上具有20-50个家族成员的最大家族企业到一些小型的仅有两到三个家族成员的小家族企业。

Across all the sessions, I heard one overriding message: communicate with your family about your business and understand your family’s views and needs – now. Do it openly and as soon as possible, as the business starts and grows, and even if the business is large or it appears to be too late to start such communications. And do this whether you think your family (and the business) needs it or not.

在所有的活动环节中，我听到了一个最重要的信息:从现在起与你的家人沟通你的生意并了解你的家族的观点和需求。公开和尽快地进行，无论业务刚开始，或者在增长，甚至业务规模很大，或者看起来已经太晚了不能开始这样的沟通。无论你是否认为你的家族(和企业)需要它，都要这样做。

Another message seen clearly: many families with successful businesses have visible and not-so-visible dysfunction, and that dysfunction can create nearly-insurmountable hurdles for continued success or a leadership transition to the next generation. And yet, dysfunction CAN be overcome as we heard several times.

另一个清晰可见的信息是:许多成功企业的家族都有明显的、不那么明显的功能障碍，而这种功能障碍会为持续的成功或领导向下一代的过渡造成几乎无法逾越的障碍。然而，功能障碍可以被克服，正如我们多次听到的那样。

In one case (all will remain anonymous given the incredible amount of openness, and even raw emotional pain, expressed by some of the participants) we heard of several older generations of the leaders in a family-business who appeared to want to limit the continuing success of the company – the next-gen leader overcame this across ten or twenty years through perseverance, many creative ideas, standing ground when faced with strong family pressure, and even by walking away to force the family's approval of the desired business-change. The result? A household-name business expanding in new directions and generating new levels of success, to the benefit of the whole family.

在一个案例中(所有的一切都是匿名的，保持可靠的开放度以及某些参与者表露出来的某些原始痛苦情绪)，我们听说一个家族企业几个老一辈领导,他们希望限制公司的持续成功,下一代领导人通过毅力经过十年或二十年战胜了这种挑战。许多创意：面对面站着迎接强大的家族压力,甚至通过离开来迫使家人对自己想要从事的业务表示赞同。结果呢?一个家族的生意在新的方向发展并产生新的成功的水平，实现了整个家族的利益。

In another case, we learned of a family faced with discord amongst the older leaders at the top of a large and prominent global company. The discord was clearly hurting the business, so the next-gen came together as a whole to drive leadership changes and new family-control-mechanisms which proved to be the right steps for all generations and for the business itself.

在另一个案例中，我们了解到，在一家大型知名跨国公司的高层领导中，老一辈的家族成员之间不和睦。这种不和谐显然损害了企业的利益，因此，下一代人作为一个整体来共同推动领导层的变革和新的家族控制机制，这些机制被证明是多代家族成员和企业自身的正确步骤。

We learned of family-communication done well, too. There were several examples of 20-something and 30-something children who were given leadership roles in their family businesses, and who then rose to the challenges of evolving markets and changing technologies – with appropriate guidance from their parents to the youngers, and from the youngers to their parents.

我们也学会了家庭沟通。有一些20多岁或30岁多左右的年轻人在家族企业中担任领导角色的例子，然后他们面对不断变化的市场和不断变化的技术的挑战——以合适的方式：从其父母到年轻人或者从年轻人到他们的父母。

And we heard an illuminating example of a very prominent family where the elder-generation cousins who lead the business meet regularly to have their business arguments and ‘family squabbles’ behind closed doors, rather than in the public view.

我们听到了一个很有启发意义的例子，一个非常显赫的家族，他们的表兄弟姐妹会定期进行商业会面，他们关于商业的争吵和“家庭争吵”都是在私下里进行的，而不是在公众的视野里。

Tactical advice was given by two family-leaders regarding how to strengthen multi-gen families and their businesses, and how to head-off or repair the dysfunction that can arise: engage external family-business advisors/consultants/therapists early, whether or not you think you need to do so today. I was pleased to hear this said several times, confirming the value such external and independent advisors can have – partly that value arises because such advisors have no ‘horse in the race’ (and be sure to look closely for that - sometimes there are hidden agendas and unclear profit-opportunities for external advisors), and partly it arises because the better advisors have seen and learned from many situations.

两名家族领导人就如何加强多代家族成员及其业务之间的合作和了解以及如何消除或修复可能出现的功能障碍提出了建设性建议:尽早与外部家庭商业顾问/咨询师/治疗师接触，无论你目前是否认为你需要这样做。我很高兴听到这个观点被多次提到,确认这类外部和独立的顾问的价值——部分原因是顾问可以做到“旁观者清”(一定要仔细观察,对于外部顾问而言有时存在潜在议程和不清楚能够获利的机会)并且部分因为好的顾问可以从多种情况中理解和学习到更多有用知识。

Contact Daniel if you are a family business who might like to participate in future events like this week’s. And even if you don’t want to participate, I am sure Daniel will welcome calls (as do I :-) from family-business owners (whether you are the older generation or a younger generation) to talk confidentially about successes and challenges and failures – lessons can be identified and shared, and paths-forward found, just by talking it through with a suitable outsider.

如果你是家族企业，未来想要参加类似本周这样的活动，请联系丹尼尔。即使你不想参与,我相信丹尼尔会欢迎来自家族企业家电话沟通(比如我) (无论你是老一辈和年轻一代)。因为通过与合适的家族之外的人进行私密沟通能够识别并分享成功、挑战和失败。