Coaching in the Family Owned Business

A Path to Growth

David A. Lane, Manfusa Shams, David A. Lane, Manfusa Shams

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9780429912054
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Negocios en general

A scholarly work from leading coaching psychologists from all over the world that provides thoughtful analysis of group dynamics, family systems, and psychotherapeutic approach to family business coaching. The book provides both a theoretical groundwork and a practical application of group dynamic issues to family business coaching practices and will be a key reference for family businesses, practitioners, business coaches, researchers, postgraduate students, and coaching professionals.

Chapter One

Key issues in family business coaching

Manfusa Shams

Introduction

Coaching as a practice is a vibrant area, developing continuously with the demands from different disciplines. One such new development is “coaching psychology”, and the gradual emergence of family business coaching embedded within coaching psychology. This area is still too immature to suggest any definite framework upon which family business coaching is built. However, we were able to gather together existing practices in order to present key issues based on these cumulative coaching practices for family businesses. One of the fundamental issues is whether the concept “coaching” can be applied universally to all coaching practices. To answer this question, we have to look into the meaning of coaching. The following sections will make an attempt to find the existing definitions of coaching, main features, and, finally, the definition of family business coaching.

What is coaching?

The best way to answer this is to get an overview of the existing definitions and then extrapolate key terms from the existing definitions of coaching. The focus of this book is coaching psychology, hence only a few recent simple and complex definitions of coaching will be presented, followed by an evaluation of each definition to suggest common key features and the underlying meaning of the definition provided for coaching.

To start with a simple definition, “coaching is the art of facilitating the performance, learning and development of another” (Downey, 1999). An extended definition is by Grant and Stober (2006):

coaching is a collaborative and egalitarian relationship between a coach, who is not necessarily a domain-specific specialist, and coachee, which involves a systematic process that focuses on collaborative goal setting to construct solutions and employ goal attainment process with the aim of fostering the on-going self-directed learning and personal growth of the coachee.[pp. 1-14]

A simple definition from an interpersonal relationship context is “a systematic procedure enacted within a helping relationship that has the aim of fostering the coachee’s development” (Stewart, Palmer, Wilkin, & Kerrin, 2008). Another definition takes a social constructionist perspective to define coaching, for example, “coaches participation in the development and learning process of the person in focus. This process creates the foundation for new, alternative, or revised narratives of the focus person’s personal and professional life” (Stelter, 2007). A more formal definition of coaching is offered by Grant and Greene (2001), “coaching is a solution- focused, result-oriented systematic process in which the coach facilitates the enhancement of work performance and the self- directed learning and personal growth of coachee”, which has been analysed by Senior (2007), “coaching is revealing itself as a unique system of communication that seems to facilitate excellence in performance and enhance quality of life across work and home domains”. Yet another recent definition has given emphasis to the therapeutic parts in coaching practice, “coaching psychology is for enhancing performance in work and personal life domains with normal, non-clinical populations, underpinned by models of coaching grounded in established therapeutic approaches” (Grant & Palmer, 2002).

An in-depth review of these definitions shows the following major features of coaching concept:

• maximizing human potential;
• personal growth and self-directed learning;
• solution-focused and performance enhancement;
• facilitator for goal-attainment.

Now the question is, where does psychology fit into this picture of coaching? Obviously, this question was the main driving force behind the development of coaching psychology in the UK. Psychology deals principally with behaviour, hence coaching psychology deals with human behaviour to develop and nurture human potential to a maximum level. Coaching psychology incorporates all types of coaching, for example, life coaching, executive coaching, business coaching. Therefore, family business coaching is one such coaching practice, embedded within business coaching.

Major features

Recent attempts to conceptualize coaching from an applied psychological perspective are focusing on the functional elements of coaching. Various dynamic concepts, such as “stages”, “personal creation and recreation for meaning in experiences gained” and “pathway to growth” (Lane & Corrie, 2009; Stelter, 2009) are used in the ongoing discussion on coaching.

There is a growing interest to ground the concept “coaching” in various theoretical frameworks so that appropriate techniques can be applied in coaching practice. However, this is still at an experimental stage, remains to be unfolded to appreciate the need for a solid theoretical grounding for coaching psychology. The delay in defining coaching psychology is due to continuous negotiation over varying issues in order to settle the dispute over ownership of the coaching concept, as it was very much a monopoly of sports (Stelter, 2009), so the question remains: how do we accept a general coaching concept, applicable to all disciplines, thereby ensuring generic coaching skills, which can be blended into coaching practice for diverse disciplines?

What is family business coaching?

Typically, a family business refers to a business owned by family members, which may or may not be founded by a family member (Shams & Bjornberg, 2006).

Family business coaching shares the central tenets of business coaching, but, in addition, it is directed to coaching a family as a social unit independent of business functions. Therefore, it also embraces the essential coaching technique for families, and presents a dynamic and distinctive feature for this type of coaching.

Key issues in family business coaching

The major emerging issue in family business coaching is the presence of a blended coaching approach for family businesses, with an interdisciplinary focus in practice, in which fusion of counselling, psychotherapy, and psychometrics is evident. The blended coaching approach highlights the importance of family in business coaching, hence, family business coaching can be characterized by coaching for the family by the family business owners and coaches, implying that coaching is provided by many family members themselves when they grow and gain longstanding experience in various business sectors. This is verified by some of our authors, who are owners of family businesses as well as working as coaches both for their own businesses and for other family businesses.

There are common issues running across all types of coaching, for example, application of active listening, empathy, nonjudgemental attitudes, openness, and transparency. However, there are distinct issues in family business coaching, related to family functioning and family therapy. Counselling also plays a major role in family business coaching. The focus is on the family by the family business owner in the interests of developing a sustainable business; hence, issues originating from a family context must be addressed in coaching sessions. Any coaching intervention is based on a two-tier system—family intervention and business intervention.

Family dynamics in family business coaching

The major areas in family dynamics are family types, relationship patterns, and communication styles between family members, and nature of holdings and position in the family business. A case study (Shams, 2006) is presented here as an example of the presence of family dynamics in family business coaching:

Case study A

Two brothers are founders of a family business, which was later further developed by one of the brothers’ wife. The other brother’s wife is not active in the family business with no ownership, executive, or governance responsibilities. The eldest brother has two sons, only one of whom is involved in the family business, performing executive and governance roles. None of the second brother’s three children are interested in the family business—they are neither involved in the family business nor have they been assigned any executive or governance roles as successors. The structure of this family business suggests a complex family dynamic in which the elder brother’s family has more involvement than the younger brother. This may indicate that the elder brother has a dominant influence in running the family business, raising the question of how the business functions, and how decisions are being made with the younger brother, who does not have anyone from his family to actively contribute and support him in family business functions.

Interface between family and business

In a family business, family and business are not opposed to each other; rather, it is a blended functional product, where a family turns to the business to meet economic needs. As such, families and businesses are working in partnership to generate economic function and sustainable growth. The transaction between a family and a business is enhanced and facilitated by that family’s distinctive features, such as family structure, number of family members involved in the business, their positions, and communication and relationship patterns. A typical picture is presented below (Shams, 2006).

Case study B

A family business is being operated by a family member (nephew) other than the founders’ children due to the lack of interests and apathy to get involved in the family business. The nephew has taken on a main executive role, making him the obvious choice to run the business upon the death of the founder, thus raising the issue of succession in a family business where a relative has more ownership and executive role than the founder’s children!

Family business coaching in the business world

The business world is vibrant; therefore, family business coaching must find the most appropriate course to establish its position. The legitimate position of family business coaching depends on the successful application of various coaching techniques to the development and progression of family businesses. Ironically, despite the high percentage (Shams & Bjornberg, 2006) of family businesses among all businesses in the world, there is still a lack of consolidated literature on family business coaching practices, which may well be because family business coaching has been taken for granted and the need to develop a solid theoretical base with practical applications, on which family business coaching can be grounded, has not been sufficiently appreciated. This may also be because coaching has been carried out following a business transaction model, without necessarily valuing the inherent potential of the coaching practice to influence and enrich the family tapestry in relation to business. It would also be worth exploring the views of family members in business, and their attitudes towards family business coaching, so that the effectiveness of family business coaching can be documented and future directions in family business coaching can be offered from a family vs. business perspective.

Family business and economy

The complexity involving family business functions and diversity in management and operational style does not lessen the significant contribution of family businesses to the national economy. Recent literature (Duh, Tominc, & Rebernik, 2009) suggests that, in the USA, family businesses currently account for eighty per cent of business organizations, produce over fifty per cent of the gross national product (GNP), and employ more than fifty per cent of the domestic workforce (McCann, DeMoss, Dascher, & Barnett, 2003). In several European countries, family businesses represent the majority of all national economic output, for example, France 60%, Germany 60%, and in the UK 70% (IFERA, 2003). There has been discussion in the literature about various factors affecting the nature and size of economic contributions from family businesses to the national economy.

These are:

1. Family business size: Westhead and Cowling (1998) have demonstrated that family businesses were generally smaller in employment as well as sales revenues than were non-family enterprises. This is evident in other European countries as well, for example, according to Vadnjal’s (...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• About the Editors and Contributors
• Series Editor’s Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter One Key issues in family business coaching
• Chapter Two Recent developments in family business coaching psychology
• Chapter Three An integrative coaching approach for family businesses
• Chapter Four Intercultural coaching approach for Asian family businesses
• Chapter Five Dealing with relationship issues in a family business from a coaching context
• Chapter Six Family first or business first: issues in family business
• Chapter Seven Exploring a coaching approach for expatriate family businesses in an international context
• Chapter Eight Understanding the impact of family dynamics on the family business coaching approach
• Chapter Nine Conclusions and future directions
• Index