Continuity Family Business Consulting
Why Your Family Meetings Aren’t Working
Why Your Family Meetings Aren’t Working (And How to Fix Them) By: Dr. Shay Harris-Pierre, LPC, CFT Estimated read time: 7-8 mins Download Audio Most enterprising families know they should be holding family meetings. They gather to discuss dividends, transitions, strategy, and the future of the enterprise. The hope is always that these meetings will bring clarity and alignment. Yet many families walk away from them frustrated. The same arguments resurface, tensions remain unresolved, and progress feels elusive. Why does this happen? Because family business conflict is rarely about a single issue. It sits at the intersection [...]
Dispute Mediation vs. Conflict Management: What’s the Difference?
Dispute Mediation vs. Conflict Management What's the difference? By: Continuity Advisors Estimated read time: 5-6 mins Download Audio Conflict is inevitable in any family enterprise. But when tensions arise, the way families approach conflict can make the difference between destructive outcomes and transformational growth. Too often, families and their advisors assume that dispute resolution approaches, such as mediation, are the natural path forward. But in our work with enterprising families, however, we’ve found that mediating simple disputes and managing the kind of conflict that happens in family enterprise are two very different things. Understanding the distinction is [...]
Recognizing Passive Conflict in Enterprising Families
Recognizing Passive Conflict in Enterprising Families 7 Ways Passive Conflict Threatens Family Cohesion Download Audio By Dr. Shay Harris-Pierre Estimated read time: 3 mins In family systems where wealth, legacy, and decision-making are intertwined, tension doesn’t always speak loudly. It often has an insidious quality, showing up in patterns that are easy to overlook or explain away, but its seeming negligibility makes it that much more of a threat to family dynamics. Just because something is difficult to name doesn’t mean it isn’t shaping the room. We call this “Passive Conflict”. Families can operate for years with unresolved [...]
How Family Governance Supports Family Harmony
Structure Builds Strength in Enterprising Families How Family Governance Supports Family Harmony Download Audio By Dr. Shay Harris-Pierre Estimated read time: 4 mins Sometimes, “harmony” can be a loaded word for families in business, full of challenges related to its definition and its overall achievability. It’s often confused with avoiding conflict or staying superficially pleasant, but true family harmony isn’t about uniformity or silence. Contrarily, it’s about resilience, relational trust, and a shared willingness to stay in connection, even through disagreement. At Continuity, we see harmony not as the absence of conflict, but as the capacity to address [...]
Separate Coaches, Shared Vision: Why Parallel Coaching Beats Group Coaching for Family‑Led Enterprises
Separate Coaches, Shared Vision Why Parallel Coaching Beats Group Coaching for Family‑Led Enterprises Download Audio By Perry Gladstone and Doug Baumoel Estimated read time: 3 mins Family enterprises that share ownership and leadership have diverse talent and a minefield of invisible emotional, relational, and systemic dynamics. Too often, legacy patterns of communication, power, and conflict are masked by formal titles or business performance. And too often, traditional one-coach-fixes-the-team approaches fall short. There's a better way: Parallel Coaching, where each owner-leader works privately with their own coach, while those coaches collaborate behind the scenes. This model, grounded in contemporary [...]
Resolving Extreme Conflict in Family Enterprises
Resolving Extreme Conflict in Family Enterprises A New Model for Understanding and Addressing Conflict in Family Business Download Audio By Doug Baumoel and Blair Trippe Estimated read time: Approx. 12 mins Conflict is inevitable in family enterprises, where personal, professional and ownership interests interact. While healthy disagreements can lead to innovation and growth, conflicts that spiral into negativity and hostility pose serious risks to both the business and family harmony. For decades, the Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TK Model) has been a cornerstone for understanding and managing conflicts. However, it falls short in addressing the more extreme, emotionally-charged [...]
Casting Your Vote: 8 Decision-Making Techniques to Minimize Conflict
Discover 8 decision-making techniques to foster fairness, reduce conflict, and help family businesses make choices that everyone can accept.
Departing in Style: How to Successfully Exit Family Business Leadership
Learn what an owners council is, its key benefits, how it operates, reasons to form one, and how it differs from a family council.
How an Owners Council Can Benefit a Family Business
Learn what an owners council is, its key benefits, how it operates, reasons to form one, and how it differs from a family council.
Marital Mediation May Just Save the Marriage━and the Family Enterprise
Marital Mediation May Just Save the Marriage━and the Family Enterprise A guide to what marital mediation is, isn’t, and how it can be effective Download Audio By Doug Baumoel, Samantha Denning, and Arline Kardasis Estimated read time: 6 to 7 minutes One of the biggest threats to a family enterprise, especially in its first and second generations, is divorce. With the value of a business concentrated among a few stakeholders, the liquidity demanded in a separation of marital assets can cripple a company and compromise succession. With so much at stake for a family enterprise, unhappily married couples [...]