Family meeting

A family meeting is the most general term in family governance. It can mean a regular gathering, a meeting called for one decision, or the first time a family sits down to talk about the business as owners rather than relatives. Unlike dinner-table conversation, a family meeting has a purpose, an agenda and some agreed rules.

A family meeting tends to work when it has:

• A clear purpose: information, discussion or a decision, and which one is stated in advance.
• An agenda sent before the meeting, so nobody is surprised.
• Ground rules for how people speak and disagree.
• A facilitator when the topic is sensitive, ideally someone without a stake in the outcome.
• A written record of what was agreed and what happens next.

Family meeting, assembly or council?

A family assembly is a formal gathering of the whole family, usually on a fixed schedule. A family council is a smaller representative body. A family meeting can be either, or neither: it is any structured family conversation. Small families often hold family meetings long before they have an assembly or council.

Why it matters for the successor

Succession is one of the hardest topics a family meeting can take on. It touches roles, ownership and the fair vs equal question among siblings. Successors are often more anxious about the family meeting than the board meeting, because the audience is personal and the history is long. Preparing for it, including what the successor will say first and how they will respond to the hardest objection, matters as much as preparing for a board presentation. How to run a family meeting about succession gives a practical structure.