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
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Featured advisors
Neus Feliu
Neus has 20 years of expertise in corporate and family business governance specializing in large Latin American and European.
Ivan Lansberg
Ivan is a Founding Partner and consults with complex family businesses in the USA, Canada, Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Wendy Ulaszek
Wendy is a partner that has over 15 years of consulting and counseling experience in individual, group, and organizational assessment and leadership development.
Devin DeCiantis
Devin has been advising and teaching for over a decade and specializes in the financial, organizational, and strategic aspects of complex family enterprises.
Fernanda Jaramillo
Fernanda is a partner working primarily in Central and South America. Fernanda has extensive experience supporting families in transition.
Jeff Melanson
Jeff is a seasoned consultant known for his inventive approach to meeting business challenges and opportunities with a bold strategy.
