Are you tossing and turning at night, worrying about your family owned business and wondering if your family, or your business, (or both!) will crumble and fall apart?

There just is so much promise in a family business like yours, isn’t there? You have had the hope of enormous productivity, independence, and the personal pride that comes with creating prosperity for your family. There just isn’t anything else as wonderful as working in a family owned business.

But when the promises are unmet or broken, and communication is frustrated by family conflict, and cooperation seems elusive, and the “goofy stuff” in the family is threatening the success of the business, and YOU ALONE, yes YOU ALONE seem to be the person that is expected to fix it all… it can all be more than a bit overwhelming.

“You bet it can be overwhelming! What in the heck am I doing here? On my worst days, and at my worst moments, I do become terribly concerned… if not discouraged. I want my family to be happy and my business to work well and I want it all to be great for years and years to come. But it can be really frustrating at times. Really frustrating. Sometimes it seems like I’m in this pretty much on my own. That’s not a good feeling.”

We hear you, and we get it because we have all been there, seen it, and done it.

I’m Andy Atwood and my colleagues and I are “Integral Family Business Specialists.”

Interesting. Who the heck are you guys?”

We are Family Business Owners who have pooled our talents and resources to help Family Owned Business to compete against the crazy stuff that happens when “family issues” infiltrate a family business, threatening its success, if not its very existence.

We love to work with the leaders in family businesses who have enough character and competence to appreciate our passion for bringing objectivity to their family owned business in the form of greater openness, honor, and collaboration.

We are seasoned family business owners, each a professional in his or her own right, each with a ton of hands-on experience… and we love family owned businesses!

“…we believe in the heart of our hearts that families and their businesses are the very bedrock upon which are built the communities where we live…”

“Why?”

Because we believe in the heart of our hearts that families and their businesses are the very bedrock upon which are built the communities where we live, raise our families, send our kids to school, shop, worship, play, and enjoy life with our families and friends.

Family Businesses are the foundation upon which love and work are woven together into character and competence.

We know that you are facing an explosion of competition from outside your company, and we also know that the last thing you need is to implode because your family issues are jamming up your business.

What we love to do is to partner with the leaders of family owned business to help both their family, and their business, to be more successful.

Yes, that’s what we love to do.

“There are lots of Family Business Advisors out there. I’ve called in a number of them already. In fact, I’ve used advisors all along the way just like any other business owner. What makes you guys any different?”

That’s a great question, and one we are asked all the time.

There are two incredibly important ways in which we are significantly different from any of the other family business advisors we have met, read about, or of which we have heard. These are the two powerful truths that give us purpose and focus, that give us courage and unique competence.

Before I tell you about the two marks of our uniqueness, let me first share a list of important factors that we share in common with some family business advisors, but surely not with others.

• We are, generally speaking, older and wiser (some older, some wiser, some both).
• We have a lot of first-hand experience owning, operating, and coaching partnerships and family owned businesses.
• We have screwed up in a thousand different ways, and we aren’t ashamed to admit it.
• We aren’t “suits.”
• We don’t BS our way around stuff.
• We know how to create winning strategies for change.
• We know what it is to balance a budget.
• We can put together a sales and marketing plan.
• We appreciate efficient operations and know how to create them.
• We know that families can be challenging, even under the best of circumstances.
• We like to put the “fun” back into dysfunctional.
• We have the heart for this work. We love families, and we love work.
  

Each of these “important factors” says something about who we are, and some of these clearly differentiate us from others who work with people and systems in family owned businesses.

Here is the first incredibly powerful mark of our uniqueness: We are on a spiritual quest.

“You have to be kidding. I didn’t expect that. Honestly, I’m a bit confused after reading that. I’m concerned about my family and profit, along with the goodness that comes from both. I tend not to think about working in my family business for some sort of ‘spiritual quest.’”

Now, before you react too much, either one way or another, hear me out. Everyone on our team wants to grow spiritually and we believe that kind of growth happens best within a well integrated community where people have come together to fulfill their unique purpose in life.

"We are intentional about deep collaboration and the cultivation of our co-intelligence. We are after “flow.” We are highly committed to being a community of professionals that model openness, honor, and collaboration. There is a certain kind of bliss right there, and the promise of more."This isn’t a job for us. We all are successful in our separate endeavors. Each of us is an award-winning professional. Our work with family businesses and their leaders is way, way more than a job.

The rather remarkable truth is that this is the vehicle that brings us together around a shared work where we each can integrate our own talent with that of other equally talented people. When complimentary strengths are integrated, the results can be truly remarkable.

We are an intentional community of gifted professionals who share a common vision for helping the leaders in family owned businesses to be extraordinarily successful, generation -to-generation.

Let me tell you something of my story so that you can get the context for what we are doing with family owned businesses. Everyone on our team has a story; this happens to be mine.

I grew up in the New York metropolitan area; Long Island and New Jersey. My wife and I met at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. Years of graduate school followed; two masters and a doctorate. I became an ordained minister and served a “New Church Start” in Southern California for a year.

In 1974 I returned to West Michigan and with a partner co-founded a nonprofit counseling center. By 1980 I was a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and a Licensed Master Social Worker in addition to being the “Executive Coordinator” of a thriving group of clinicians. Thousands of people have been helped over the years by the competent and dedicated staff of the Fountain Hill Center for Counseling and Consultation.

And like any business leader, I know the sick feeling that goes with screwing up. Have we experienced our mistakes, hiccups, losses, break-ins, and thefts? Sure. What business hasn’t? Have we made some bad hires? Yup. Invested a bunch and seen it disappear? Yes, again!

But over all, it has been a wonderfully successful run.

In 1995 I began working with family owned businesses and partnerships and this work brought me immeasurable joy. For years I looked to one colleague after another hoping someone would find the same kind of personal and professional satisfaction that I enjoyed in working with family businesses and partnerships. Alas, no one ever grabbed at the challenge.

Then, in 2004, one of my colleagues introduced me to Dr. Greg Kuhn and I found my “family business soul mate.” For almost four years we worked together side-by-side, around the clock. Then, on November 27, 2007, a heart attack took Greg in an instant. He was 58.

My wife and I have experienced a number of sudden and not so sudden losses in our lives. While one never becomes accustomed to such tragic loses, the experience of intense grief can become familiar. It has for us. The degree of grief is commensurate with the degree of love. We also know of the immeasurable opportunity that comes along following such an enormous vacuum.

Greg and I had formed “Atwood + Kuhn” and one of the most enjoyable pieces of our partnership was the gathering of a team of professionals around us, each of whom shared our commitment to family businesses as “the bedrock in our communities upon which character and competence are built.”

Today, it is “Atwood +” the terrific people that have teamed up with me.

Get this: We are a team of “big city professionals” without the stuffy attitude and the jargon that is meant to wow you into feeling like a small town hick. We are regular guys (although, there are women on our team) who value openness, honor, and collaboration.

“But can you help me with my brother? He is a lazy SOB and my resentment toward him is huge. There are days I can’t even bring myself to speak to him. He just angers me so much. Can you help me with that?”

Probably.

Frankly, you have probably heard other family business leaders share their stories and discovered that while different than yours, they sound so very much the same. Yes, your brother is a challenge.

• But so is Aunt Sue who puts the company newsletter together.
• Or, your wife’s brother, Darren, who hasn’t quite completed the software installation in accounting.
• Then there is the bank deposit that is still sitting in the truck of your nephew’s car after he forgot to make the deposit last Friday.
• Or, the phone system that works intermittently so that Grandpa has to yell down the hall to the payroll person.
  
• How about the cheap fax machines that keep breaking all the time because Junior doesn’t want to spend any money.
• This one is a sticker; the sales and marketing manager keeps threatening to quit because he can’t tolerate using pencil and paper instead of web-based contact and ordering systems.
• Or, the way data must be entered and re-entered over-and-over again because dual systems won’t talk with each other.

Frankly, there are so many ordinary scenarios that it becomes, at times, difficult to tell fact from fiction.

Before we get to your brother, or further into whatever other family and/or business matters concern you, there is one other important fact to bring up.

The second incredibly powerful mark of our uniqueness: We are fearless disrupters of the status quo.

If you are like everyone else that has ever tried to lead a family owned business, every now and then you become stuck. You become stuck, your family becomes stuck, and your business becomes stuck.

Something needs to happen, and you probably know what it is, or at least you have a pretty good idea. There is a change that needs to take place. Something has to go. Someone needs to move on with their life. A system or a process needs to be updated. A relationship has to be healed.

A truth needs to be faced.

“We are only engaged by those who are brave enough to partner with us as together we open the black box - and move on.”

We talk about it this way; the black box has to be opened, and whatever is inside has to be dealt with if the very best is to emerge.

Right there in the middle of everything is “the black box.”

The power it holds is enormous. There is great fear surrounding the black box and the secret within it. Should the black box be opened, “all hell might break loose.”

“… the black box has to be opened, and whatever is inside has to be dealt with if the very best is to emerge.”Some might have ventured forth and opened the box, and the repercussions were enormous. Maybe there is such deep mythology built around the feared consequences should anyone dare to go near the box… that no one ever does.

But take notice – We aren’t afraid of the black box!

We are fearless disruptors of the status quo, and the black box – with all the fear surrounding it – is precisely what is keeping you stuck.

Dare I say it this way? We are only engaged by those who are brave enough to partner with us as we together open the black box and move on.

In fact, part of our qualifying process involves a measurement of the fit between your character and ours. We absolutely must fit if we are to embark.

Yes, we do have some limits. We don’t work with jerks. That might sound a little harsh, but there doesn’t seem to be a more direct way to get the message across. Oh, we know that everyone can be a “situational jerk,” but there are those “certified jerks” out there. If you are one of those, stop reading this and go away.

If you have “a certified jerk” in your family or workplace, then yes, we can probably be of help to you in your efforts to deal with the black box that has you stuck.

We are professional change agents with an array of natural talents that have been welded into real strengths through education, training, and experience. We are capable of working with you around Leadership Development, Sales and Marketing, Finance and Accounting, Operations, and more. And, unlike so many others, we will work with you and your people.

But know that working with us is to engage with us in the pursuit of a spiritual quest where the black boxes are opened and worked through so you and your people are no longer stuck at a level far below your grandest potential.

The absolute best is achievable after the black box has been opened; when there is no more fear, all that is left is pure potential.

While we can help you with a variety of issues in your business, the one thread that runs through all of our work with family businesses is that we work with your people. We work with the people in your family, and in your business. If need be, we even work with the families of the people in your business.

“…we work with your people. We work with the people in your family, and in your business. If need be, we even work with the families of the people in your business.”

We know that little happens in a family owned business if a human being doesn’t make it happen, and so the best family businesses have the best human beings working well together.

“We are really fortunate to have a lot of great people in our family and our business. Both are full of terrific people. But, some just don’t get along with each other and it has become a real threat to the business.”

It is funny, isn’t it, how great people can be so foolish with each other? How often have you heard it said, “If they would only communicate better the problem would be solved.”

That’s likely true, but it can be very challenging to help even two good people to communicate more effectively with each other. I know, because I’ve spent more than 63,000 hours working with individuals, couples, and families in my role as a marriage and family therapist.

“It isn’t just one person not communicating well with another; it is one whole department not communicating well with another department! And this has gone on for years. I don’t want to fire any of our great people, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what to do to change it. Every time I get people together to talk it ends up in a food fight.”

“When people don’t communicate and work together it eats right into the bottom line and you know it more than anyone else does.”Ouch. This is a tough one, isn’t it? And it is enormously costly. When people don’t communicate and work together it eats right into the bottom line and you know it more than anyone else does. Whole departments can behave like little kids and you want to just knock their heads together and tell them to cut it out. But you are afraid to.

Fear.

Fear is a big deal.

Remember, we help people to become fearless.

When the President of a company comes to us and says, “I have 8 siblings who are shareholders in the business and my 84 year old mother is the Chairman of the Board, and I have 5% of the company and I am only one of two siblings working in the company, and….”

How does one respond?

With a lot of empathy, of course. Being the leader in a family owned business means that you have to navigate from one double-bind to another.

Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

If you tell the truth, it is good… and it is bad. If you avoid the truth, it is good…. and it is bad.

People. It is about people in your family and in your business and how to get them in the “right seat on the raft” so that they can work together as a team.

And, of course, whenever unhealthy family dynamics infiltrate the way the business functions, the business always suffers. While it is perfectly normal to have this contamination, it is always troublesome and costly. Because family problems jam up the business, our work almost always involves a turn-around of some parts of the business.

“Because family problems jam up the business, our work almost always involves a turn-around of some parts of the business.”Maybe your finance and accounting departments have suffered because of the infiltration of family issues into the business? Or, maybe it is your sales and marketing department that have suffered? Or, has it been operations that have become jammed up because of goofy family issues that have contaminated objective thinking and best practices?

Wherever the symptoms are, and there are surely some symptoms, it is always the case that unhealthy family dynamics distract the business from optimal performance. While addressing the family issues our team can also help you with business issues so that both are turned-around rapidly.

We can help you with a very wide array of business challenges so that your business quickly gets un-jammed and begins to quickly move in the right direction. If you haven’t taken a look at “Our Team” and learned about their capabilities, make sure you do that before you leave this website.

We want to know what challenges keep you awake at night.

You probably noted the FREE eBOOK offer on our homepage. There isn’t any gimmick here. Actually, it is pretty straight forward. If you will complete a survey for us, we will give you a FREE eBOOK in return for your time and effort.

The survey is managed by surveymonkey.com, a great online tool that we use frequently. The survey is anonymous, of course. We are using this method to gather first-hand information from people like you.
“Being in a family business is like riding in a raft down a river with rocks and rapids! That’s what it’s like, a whitewater rafting trip!”
We want to hear something of your story. An anonymous survey will give you a chance to spill your guts if you want, or to just pass the pablum if that will make you feel better.

The eBook is not like anything you’ve ever read. I can guarantee you of that. Maybe you have read Jim Collins’ book Good to Great. It really is one of the classics in the business world. Collins uses the metaphor of a bus in his book. “What’s important is getting the right person in the right seat on the bus.”

Then, it occurred to me while driving early one evening; What family business is like a bus ride? Then I thought, “Being in a family business is more like riding in a raft down a river with rocks and rapids! That’s what it’s like, a whitewater rafting trip!”

The River Raft idea took hold. In fact, the whole white water river metaphor became a way for us to communicate with family business owners about their own family journey, and the journey their business has taken. You will find more information by clicking on the “River Map” link up above, toward the top of this page.

The eBook is titled “Whitewater Rafting Your Family Owned Business down the River of Fortune” You can have it for FREE within a minute of completing the online survey. After you have had the eBook for a week or so we hope you will email us with your feedback. If you think it has little value, tell us. If you think it is great, tell us that too! If you think we should elaborate on certain sections or if you have a story to tell that will help to illustrate a part of the eBook, tell us that as well.

We want to hear your story. We want to hear your story about the challenges that you face as you work to balance family and business.

As we all know, the challenges you face are very real. If the business fails, the family is in deep trouble. You probably get that more than some of the others in your family. That’s one of the reasons you are taking the time to read this. You want to make things better. For that, you are to be applauded.

But “making things better” is a hard job.“If the business fails, the family is in deep trouble. You want to make things better. For that you are to be applauded.”
“It sure is. I want my family to be better off for all the hard work I am putting into this company. I’ve sacrificed a great deal to build this thing. There were plenty of times that I missed family events because of work. They have all enjoyed the fruits of my labor… and now it is someone else’s turn to take the reins… but it is hard. Really hard.”

Succession is one place where things can get really sticky.

But, there are a lot of other places where “things” can become troublesome.

Here is an important differentiator between us and a lot of the other advisors out there that business leaders, such as you, turn to for help. Lawyers and accountants are absolutely necessary and helpful in some very, very important ways. You can’t do business without them, of course. The really good ones, and we know a bunch, are smart and sensitive, and they partner with you in the good times, and in bad.

But when the people problems get sticky, they are often in over their heads. It just isn’t their area of specialty. There are people on our team that are gifted experts, and they are capable in ways that I will never be. Consider this: Which one of your advisors wants to jeopardize his or her professional relationship with your family by going to your son and telling him that your daughter could do his job better than he is doing it right now…and she is 5 years younger and doesn’t have an MBA like he does!

I have to tell you, I’ve been at the table when a founding father, whose son was working in the company, said, “Frank, I’m the boss here, and you’re fired as of today. Son, I’m your father, and I just learned that you lost your job today and your mother and I would like you to come over for dinner so we can talk about it.”

It can be very difficult. Very difficult indeed.

It is a family, and it is a business.

We are big fans of “Integral Theory” as it has been developed by Ken Wilber and the myriad of people around the globe who are working collaboratively to create a “Theory of Everything.” There is, it has been said, nothing as practical as a good theory.

Integral Theory helps us to work with every single corner of your business in a purposeful way. It is the cataloguing, or indexing system we use to address everything. We use Integral Theory:

• With the inside of each of your people – Upper Left
• And with their observable behavior - Upper Right
• With whole cultures – Lower Left
• And with all the systems, processes, and procedures that give work its structure – Lower Right

You will find a growing number of articles available on our website which describes the wonderful work being done around the world by sophisticated business thinkers and leaders who are putting Integral Theory into practice. Let me just site a simple example, the “four-quadrant model.” This is one of the five models that comprise the whole of Integral Theory. When we work with a family business we are working with all four quadrants at the same time.

Many change agents and consultants work with one, or maybe two of these quadrants. The two upper quadrants speak to individual issues, and the lower two to collective or organizational issues. Together, they cover the waterfront. But there are also lines, states, levels, and types; frankly, it is much more than is appropriate to delve into here.

Integral Theory is eminently practical, which is why it is catching on around the globe. There even is an “Integral Business Institute” where cutting-edge work is being collated.

Our niche is, of course, family owned businesses, and so that is where we are making a unique and significant contribution to the field. We are applying Integral Theory and Practice to Family Owned Businesses.

A wise sage once observed that “If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.”“Our niche is, of course, family owned businesses, and so that is where we are making a unique and significant contribution to the field.

That is so true.

We have maps and models, plans and processes, and we can help you to understand the simplest, and the most sophisticated of systems and procedures… including the dynamics of human functioning.

We are Integral Family Business Specialists.

Here in West Michigan, there is Grand Valley State University and their Family Business Institute. Their focus seems to be on research around family business issues. Recently they have teamed up with the Family Business Alliance from the Chamber of Commerce. Together they are working to uplift the health of family businesses in West Michigan. That is terrific! And there are various consulting services provided by some great accounting and law firms. We have some vibrant relationships with firms that specialize in working with family businesses.

But, when the going gets tough and people are really screwing things up, that’s when we are at our best. It’s the black box again. When it gets in the way of personal growth and development, or corporate growth and development, the status quo prevails. Stuck.“But, when the going gets tough and people are really screwing things up…that’s when we are at our best.”

We work with the systems to change the culture, and both of those to influence people. We sit face-to-face and work through the truth. We handle the tension and anxiety that would drive others crazy. Remember, we are professionals at this stuff. It’s what we love to do.

You wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t have, right now, a special challenge in your family business. You are looking for some outside help that can bring objectivity to the issue.

We are here to help.

“Okay, so I’m intrigued enough to be somewhat interested. What’s the next step?”

Pretty simple.

Give me a call.

It doesn’t have to be anything long and drawn out, and it doesn’t have to lead to anything else, unless, of course, it does.

You are invited to give me a call. You could easily start with me, and if it is appropriate I’ll connect you to someone else on our team if it makes sense to do so. I’m sort of the hub of the wheel for most activities.

“Do I have to be from West Michigan to catch your attention?”

Not really. We do travel.

What you have to be is a person of enough character and competence to appreciate our passion for bringing objectivity to your family owned business in the form of greater openness, honor, and teamwork.

There is a lot more we could talk about, isn’t there?

The next step is yours.

Think about it some more. Complete the survey and read our eBook. Look at the material here in our website. And if, after some consideration, you want to talk, then give me a call… or shoot me an email.

That would be a reasonable first step.

I’m seldom far from either my cell phone, or my computer. However, when I’m working with someone I turn both off, so you might have to leave a message.

Remember, it isn’t always easy, but it is very often worth it.

Hope to hear from you.

Dr. Andrew D. Atwood
Atwood + Integral Family Business Specialists

Atwood Plus, Inc.
Clark Place at American Seating Park
801 Broadway Avenue NW Suite 436
Grand Rapids, MI 49504
Voice – 616.901.9816
Email – andy@atwoodplus.com

 

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