ILMA Compoundings - August 2020 - 31

new demands. While they may find
it impossible at this time to attend a
full day off site, joining a virtual call
with a focused agenda can be the best
way to connect an ownership team
and conduct important and timely
discussions that should not be delayed.
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Where there were serious divisions
between family members before the
crisis, in many family businesses, crisis
management has created motivation
to resolve conflict in order to create
united leadership and greater unity
among family branches. If you are
needing to resolve conflict virtually,
we strongly recommend that your
virtual meetings be professionally
facilitated. An experienced facilitator
can create safety for participants and
make certain all voices are equally
heard - an essential element for
all virtual meetings and particularly
important when the meeting is established to resolve differences.
Typically, solving conflict requires
scheduled meetings over a certain time
span, taking time to systemically explore
difficult issues, forward the learning or
action and create alignment on new
ways of being together. Virtual meetings, given their efficiency, can be less
intrusive and perhaps less threatening
than scheduling multiple face-to-face
meetings for the same purpose.
FINANCIAL & ESTATE PLANNING
Significant life events always bring
with them a financial impact. In
the context of business valuations
and investment portfolios, although
market volatility can be unsettling for
investors, times like these can present
estate-planning opportunities. The
economic fallout of this pandemic
will mean that many financial and
estate plans will need to be updated
and altered. Now more than ever, it's
imperative that estate documents
are up to date, and it's particularly

important to have powers of attorney
for property and personal care in place.
The efficiency of virtual meetings
makes this platform ideal for gathering
trusted advisors to provide integrated
advice. Having your estate attorney,
corporate counsel, CPA, financial
planner and family business consultant all join a virtual meeting together
to discuss your intentions and establish a better understanding of how
you would like to plan for your family
and for your business is ideal. Where
traditionally much professional advice
is siloed due to the complex nature of
planning for family businesses, exponential value is realized when advice
is integrated and advisors work as a
team. Virtual meetings, in this context,
enable efficient collaboration that may
lead to more effective planning for
both the family and the business.
ONGOING EDUCATION
& COACHING
Virtual meetings are also an excellent
way to facilitate ongoing education to
sharpen leadership skills and prepare
the rising generation for new roles and
increased responsibility. For example,
learning to read financial statements
so new owners can understand and
contribute to decision-making about
shifts in strategies, like going from
a growth strategy to a cash flow
preservations strategy - and possibly
lowering or suspending dividends.
Another thing that works well in
this virtual world is something I like
to call "just-in-time coaching" to
support next-gens in their learning
about how to be effective contributors
to their family businesses. Virtual
coaching can provide support for the
rising generation to help them bring
forth ideas in a way that is received
well with the incumbent leadership. In
addition, "it's lonely at the top" senior
leaders can also benefit from real-time
coaching as they seek support and,
perhaps, someone to walk alongside

them. Coaching can help leaders align
themselves internally to strengthen
their ability to cope with issues, both
personally and professionally, that they
have never faced before.
VIRTUAL BOARD MEETINGS
Family businesses who have a Board
of Directors are using virtual meetings
to bring their boards together with
increased frequency. Given the immediacy and quickly evolving state of
things, these shorter monthly or even
weekly virtual meetings are enabling
boards to support leadership as they
pivot strategies. Here again, the ease
and cost-efficiency of virtual meetings
make them extremely effective in
providing responsive direction in a
rapidly changing world.
GET STARTED
As we have said many times over,
communication is critical to family
business, and during this pandemic
being proactive in communicating
while we are dealing with physical
isolation is more important than
ever. If you haven't already started,
we recommend that you give video
meetings a serious try and strive to
run them in a way that complements
and even enhances your family and
business culture. We encourage you
to get creative and use them in ways
you never thought you would. Who
knows, virtual reality may be coming
sooner than we thought!
Miziolek is a consultant with
The Family Business
Consulting Group.

This is an excerpt from an article
titled "Remote Togetherness:
Leveraging the Role of Virtual
Meeting in Family Business" that
was originally published on the
The Family Business Consulting
Group's website. It has been edited
according to Compoundings style.

31
ILMA Compoundings - August 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ILMA Compoundings - August 2020
