How do you balance tradition and innovation in family businesses?

Family businesses lead to the family feeling entitled and yet in business it is the customer not the family that is the source of income from sale of product or service so the customer is more critical than the family no customers means no business

As a second generation in family business, I believe that honouring roots is extremely important when it comes to innovation. While innovation is important to keep up with the times, it is imperative that some values and traditions remain the same. This could include, maintaining the same company values, service quality and trust amongst customers. Yes innovation is important, but so are values that form the company's foundation and make it what it is.

I have worked to support family businesses over my career. All businesses have complications, but in my experience family run businesses have more than their share of complications due to the mix of personal and professional issues. Honoring family roots and respecting the legacy of the senior family member or members that built the company up is critically important. Many of the "quirks" of the business have contributed to its success. Accordingly, all must recognize that changes must be implemented slowly and with deference and respect for the accomplishments of the senior family members. Honoring the roots is simply a must! Intergrating professional management into a family business is likely adviseable but must be done carefully.

If you do not embrace change you take a greater risk than doing nothing: if you do something you learn and if you learn you made a mistake you fix while if you did not make a mistake something good came about

Balance tradition with innovation by honoring the past while embracing new ideas. Blend old practices with innovative approaches to keep your family business thriving and relevant in today's ever-changing world.

In my experience embracing change in all businesses is important and advisable. However, in a family business it is not always easy to cause family members to all agree to embrace change. Accordingly, having trusted advisors integrated into the management and decision making process will help family members to reach consensus and more easily embrace changes. Respecting the ways of the past while embracing and implementing positive changes is the secret to making necessary changes. Using professional advisors to facilitate meetings addressing needed changes to help the family reach consensus allows all family members to feel good about needed changes and thus embrace the changes

Engaging all generations in a family business is generally very advantageous to all. In my experience respecting the wisdom and successes of the older generations while respecting new ideas and the energy of the younger generations will lead to the best decisions and most harmony for the family and contribute to the ongoing success of the business. Integrating trusted advisors that both the older generations and the younger generations is of critical importance. As the trusted advisors can help facilitate the integration of not only new ideas, innovations, technologies and enhanced practices, but can accomplish the embracing of these changes by both the older generations and younger generations.