The following is an excerpt from my recently published article: “Strategic Planning in the Family Business.”

Have you thought about the Envisioned Future of your family and your business?  Have you written them down?  This is incredibly important.  Both the family and the business should have a clearly worded vivid description of the future.  Will a family member always be running the business?  If not, how will you structure the leadership while maintaining ownership?  How will the authoritative roles of the family and business leadership work together?  Who in the family will be involved, and how will you determine this?  What if future family members don’t want to be involved?  How will you approach a sale?  What will happen to the profits?  An exit strategy is perhaps the most important component of any strategic plan.

These plans are not set in stone; you should revisit them annually and revise them based on current events and understandings.  But write them down.  It will help you focus your activities on both the family and business side, and it will eliminate surprises and misunderstandings down the road that hurt feelings and threaten to tear your family and business apart.