Family Business Morning #1

Family businesses are hybrid organizations in which the juxtaposition, or even superimposition, of family and business spheres generates definite competitive advantages, but can also weaken company management. Conflict is often a difficult ordeal, particularly in the context of family succession. Family shareholders - managers, successors, family members - must learn to manage their emotions on a day-to-day basis in a context where the emotional interferes with business management. 

• How to react to emerging tensions and when conflict threatens the succession process?
• What strategies can be used to manage conflict effectively?
• Can conflict be a revealing factor whose effective management can strengthen the family business?

Resolving conflict can take time and energy, so learning to recognize the warning signs of conflict before it escalates is a key skill to acquire in family businesses. Using case studies from multi-generational French companies, we have identified different types of conflict to show how they can escalate, and how they can be managed effectively.

Understanding the emotions involved in conflict, including the mechanisms of fear, can help families to better manage conflict when it arises, and to better structure management, governance and company operations to limit the emergence and proliferation of conflict.

Three experts took part in this round table on conflict management:

Miruna Radu-Lefebvre
Professor of entrepreneurship at Audencia and an expert in family succession issues, Miruna has been involved in research in France and abroad for 20 years. Her work focuses on emotional, relational and gender dynamics in family businesses.

She answers three main questions:

• What are the most common conflicts encountered in family businesses?
• In what situations do these conflicts arise?
• What would be the best way of easing or resolving these conflicts?

Anne-Laure Nouvion
Ph.D. in biology, executive coach and trainer with expertise in behavioral psychology and neuroscience. A hybrid scientist, Anne-Laure builds bridges between the biological sciences and the humanities to better understand and support human dysfunctions.

She answers three main questions:

• What are the main brain mechanisms involved in conflict?
• What are the communication and perception issues behind these conflicts?
• How can we put an end to cognitive dissonance to calm conflicts?

Hubert Biard
Partner at Cornet Vincent Ségurel, certified mediator and approved by the Bordeaux Court of Appeal. Hubert advises his clients on the choice, implementation and securing of acquisition transactions and structures, taking into account the strategy of his national and international contacts.

He answers three main questions:

• Why is mediation a good way to resolve conflicts?
• What are the legal means of anticipating conflicts?
• What are the crucial points for defusing conflict?

The round table "Conflict management: when family and business collide!" is part of a new series - Family Business Morning, co-organized by the law firm Cornet Vincent Ségurel and Chair for Family Entrepreneurship & Society at Audencia.