THE ELEPHANT IN THE FAMILY ROOM

Sonneveld, a business coach, provides strategies for managing the messy emotional complications of bequeathing a family business.

The author shrewdly identifies the dual purpose of legacies in what he calls an “enterprise family”: On the one hand, he asserts, they help guide a family, and its business, into the future, but on the other, they act as an “an anchor grounding the family in shared values and identity.” It is precisely because of their great importance that they can cause unresolved rivalry, insecurity, and egocentric pride. This “potent emotional minefield,” if set off, can destroy a family, he writes. The author discusses ways in which tensions can manifest themselves, offers psychological strategies to transparently address them, and provides ways in which a family and its business can be structured to minimize disputes. The strongest part of the book, though, is the final one, which offers sensible, concrete counsel. Sonneveld encourages professionalization, as well as the establishment of a formal, familial “governance structure,” as ways to manage the “emotional dynamics of family systems.” Moreover, he places a great emphasis on succession planning and extols the benefits of external advisors and mediators, and these are both astute recommendations. However, the author’s advice is often overshadowed by management clichés; it often accomplishes little, for instance, to encourage people to develop “emotional intelligence” or self-awareness, as if this were as easy to effect as a financial plan. This sort of optimism affects much of the first third of the book, and it’s extremely unlikely that families in turmoil can “readily transform sources of envy and resentment into collaboration.” However, when Sonneveld turns his attention away from psychological abstractions and focuses on the solid machinations of family planning, he offers thoughtful guidance.

An uneven but often helpful guide to the management of familial legacies.