Strategic Alignment
All effective collaborations require alignment around a common purpose
The Challenge
The continuity of family enterprises rests on the extent to which the owners’ personal, familial and economic aspirations align. However, that alignment becomes increasingly challenging as the family and their shared enterprise grow in complexity over time.
Our Solution
LGA advisors refer to alignment across a family enterprise as the Shared Dream. It is a vision that adds meaning and vitality, broadly defining the unique purpose, vision, and culture of your enterprise.
The Shared Dream is a product of good communication, open discussion, and realistic goal setting that provides the answer to the most fundamental question all business families must address: Why should we stay together as a family and as owners of this collective enterprise?
How does it work?
While it begins with a more abstract exploration of individual and collective aspiration, this is not a theoretical exercise. All aspirations ultimately need to be grounded in reality and tested for strategic, financial and organizational feasibility. Only when your family’s individual and collective aspirations are well understood, articulated, embraced, and shared can they be fully realized.
We augment our analysis of your family enterprise’s strategy, performance and structure by systematically gathering information about what owners want for themselves, their families, and the enterprise.
Individual interviews and group discussions give each of your family stakeholders a chance to answer fundamental questions, such as:
Why am I involved in this family enterprise?
What do I expect to receive?
What am I willing and able to contribute?
Building on these conversations, the Shared Dream comes to life as your family reaches conclusions about what these answers mean for individuals, the family enterprise, and your future together.
The process will define a range of feasible possibilities and provide opportunities to benchmark with other families to help you pick the best path forward.
Achieve clarity on your unique path to family enterprise continuity.
LGA provides a suite of services to help your family make these critical decisions together, from providing alternatives for future ownership models to the specifics of implementing ownership structures and policies. This support includes:
- Facilitating discussions on what it means to be a value-added owner of your family enterprise — including both the opportunities and the responsibilities that come with this privilege
- Analyzing and integrating estate planning to accomplish your succession goals
- Ensuring that estate planning is strategically aligned and coordinated across the family
- Collaborating with your family’s legal and financial advisors to execute any necessary structures and agreements
- Designing and activating governance bodies to oversee and support wealth transfer vehicles like trusts and family offices
- Educating your family on the responsibilities of ownership
- Considering the role of philanthropy in ownership and wealth planning
How does it benefit your family?
Your family will emerge from this process with a shared vision anchored on realistic goals and the resources available to achieve them, an action plan to bring you closer to these objectives, and some of the formalized structures that will underpin your success. You will also have buy-in from all of your key stakeholders, since their voice and perspective was directly involved throughout the process.
Case Study
Case Study: Launching a Family Office
The second-generation CEO of a large family enterprise was approached by a strategic investor who made a generous and unsolicited offer for their legacy operating business. The CEO had previously never explored a sale — both because of her strong emotional connection to the company and its employees — two of whom were her kids — and because of its attractive cash flow and growth profile.
Related Insights
How can Families Build Lasting Wealth Beyond the Balance Sheet?
In this episode of the LGA Lighthouse podcast, host Tim Yeung interviews Feisal Alibhai, Founder of Qineticare, the world’s first family health office.
Why It Took Me Three Years to Finish HBO’s Succession and What It Teaches Us About How Not to Run a Family Enterprise
I tried to watch the award-winning HBO series on numerous occasions, stopping repeatedly, not because it wasn’t brilliant, but because it was brutal. The cynicism, humiliation, and constant power games felt too extreme. For anyone working closely with multi-generational family enterprises, this world of perpetual chaos and zero-sum power felt not only far removed from our reality, but was also a painful mirror reflecting everything that causes a family enterprise to fail.
LGA Insights – October 2025
In this edition, you’ll find a fresh perspective on the “three circles” from Nate Hamilton, who introduces a powerful metaphor of the Enterprising Family Tree, visualizing how Family, Ownership and Business systems are all inextricably linked.
We also feature the latest insights from Fernanda Jaramillo and Gustavo Carvajal who examine the critical role of the Board Chair in a family enterprise.
The Enduring Enterprise: Thriving in a Turbulent World
In this episode of the LGA Lighthouse podcast, host Tim Young sits down with LGA’s Founding Partner Ivan Lansberg and Managing Partner Devin DeCiantis to discuss their book, The Enduring Enterprise: How Family Businesses Thrive in Turbulent Conditions. They explore how family businesses can navigate the increasing turbulence and uncertainty in today’s world
LGA Insights – July 2025
As the world embraces the beginning of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and prepares for winter in the South, LGA extends our deepest gratitude to our clients and partners that allow us to play such a pivotal role supporting the continuity of leading family enterprises around the world.
Jobs vs. Wealth
Family leaders must have the courage and stamina to create an inclusive, participative, and results-driven culture in the family and business, supported by the right policies and systems. Such a foundation will set the stage for a family legacy which both sustains across multiple future generations, and grows along the way with each group driving growth and diversification and making its own mark.
Featured advisors
Tim Yeung
Tim Yeung has a strong background in business and a deep understanding of family enterprise dynamics and governance structures.
Michal Lubovsky
Michal brings over two decades of experience as a senior HR executive and strategic consultant, specializing in guiding leadership teams through complex organizational transformations, ownership strategy, and the critical implementation phases of transition.
Lira Low
Lira Low is a conflict management specialist and a mediator, as well as a facilitator and executive coach. She facilitates sensitive conversations with and between different generations of enterprising families to support understanding, clarity and alignment on governance processes and systemic dynamics.
Bobby Ning
With 25 years of experience, Bobby empowers wealth inheritors within enterprising families, equipping them with the essential mindset, practical tools, and crucial communication skills to become responsible owners and stewards of their wealth. He specializes in owner education development and financial literacy, delivering comprehensive wealth, tax, and estate management education tailored specifically for family enterprise and business leaders.
Alphil Guilaran
With 25 years of experience, Alphil empowers wealth inheritors to become responsible owners and stewards of their family’s legacy. He’s passionate about fostering financially literate generations, helping families bridge communication gaps to preserve their values and vision.
Sharilyn Hale
Sharilyn helps generous families and individuals channel their wealth and influence for good. She works with leading philanthropists and social purpose organizations across North America and the Caribbean, guiding them to give well, engage their families, and create a meaningful legacy.