​When businesses talk about equity and value, they talk almost exclusively in financial terms: How much is the company worth in dollars. This, of course, makes perfect sense--the purpose of a business is to make money, in order to grow itself or sustain its owners and employees. However, for family businesses, financial equity is not the only form of equity that must be discussed. When a company is run primarily by relatives, the emotional health and strength of the family is of utmost importance and must be tended to consistently in order to grow and flourish. We call this process “building emotional equity,” and while some parts of building emotional equity are common sense, other parts may not be quite so intuitive. 

Strengthening Your Family Is Just Good Business 
Few people would say that maintaining strong relationships with their relatives is something they don’t want to do, and plenty of business families talk (rightfully so) about how to make sure that they keep a strong family life outside of just business. Just think about how many families have a “no shop talk at the dinner table” rule, just to ensure that some time can be intentionally left for just maintaining these relationships. 
However, building emotional equity isn’t just about setting aside work talk (which is something even non-business families often do); it’s about accepting as a business family that strengthening the family bonds is an integral part of strengthening the business as a whole. In his book The Soul of the Family Business, Tom Hubler talks about how building these relationships is equally important for creating not only a strong family legacy, but a strong business future as well. By strengthening intergenerational family relationships, we create dynamics that make for healthy, happy families and long-lived, profitable businesses: 
Building the shareholder legacy of family harmony is a gift to the future, and not only for the family — research indicates it is a significant gift, one that shows up in the profits of the business. At your next family meeting, include a discussion of the ways to strengthen your family’s emotional equity. I know you will not regret it. -Tom Hubler, The Soul of the Family Business 

​How to Build Emotional Equity within Your Family Business 
Like most strengthening practices, the key to building emotional equity is intentionality: identifying and naming the desire to build emotional equity in your family is an important first step, but hopes and wishes alone are rarely enough to make meaningful change. Another common pitfall is assuming that the business will inherently bring everyone together. It makes sense on the surface--after all, you’re all in business together and all (presumably) have some level of passion for or interest in the work you do, so why wouldn’t your work dynamics strengthen the family? But as important as this can be for your business, building real, lasting, intergenerational emotional equity requires focusing on the family as a unit that exists independent of the business. 

This is why we’ve seen families find great success when business families intentionally set aside time to spend together, especially by including extended family who may not all live in the same household outside of work. We’ve discussed at-length the importance of family meetings, and these are a great time to build emotional equity: rather than having a meeting be all serious discussion, split that time up between important family meeting topics and fun family activities, or even integrate family meetings and family vacations in a way that allows for fun, stress-free bonding and constructive dialogue. 

Alternatively, not all activities need to be divorced from business to build emotional equity. We’ve already covered how emotional equity should be considered a core component in building a strong family business, and the two can be combined in unique ways. We’ve seen families put together family business retreats, where kids, older generations, and extended family are offered unique and memorable activities to bond with each other while adults immediately involved in the business can meet to discuss necessary business topics. If you’re imagining a typical business retreat combined with a family reunion, you’re not far off! As with everything else, intentionality here is the major component: these activities within the retreat should be planned to encourage this emotional equity building, rather than everyone left purely to their own devices. 

​It can be difficult to pay attention to building emotional equity in your business family when it’s so easy for everyone to get bogged down in the daily stressors of keeping a business running smoothly. For more advice on building equity in both your business and your family pick up The Soul of the Family Business by Tom Hubler. Through personal anecdotes, real-world case studies, useful tools and frameworks, and more, Hubler offers an in-depth look at the challenges faced, strategies employed, and successes achieved by all sorts of family businesses. You can pick up The Soul of the Family Business, available in hardcover form on Amazon.com, directly through Itasca Books, or at a bookstore near you. And of course, if you’re ready to take the next steps, you can always contact Hubler for Business Families today.

Nobody needs a reminder of how challenging the past year has been on us and our world--just about every business owner has been swamped in the difficulties that come with running a business during a pandemic. With vaccine rollouts speeding up and restrictions across the nation starting to loosen up, it seems like there’s finally a light at the end of the tunnel. That renewed sense of hope can make it easy to feel like we’ll just slip right back into the normal swing of things, but we also can’t be caught flat-footed by the unique challenges that will come with returning to any sense of normalcy. 

Businesses Have Undergone Trauma--How to Adapt and Survive 
For many businesses, the past year has been little more than triage--small, often family-run businesses like salons, restaurants, and independent shops in particular have faced special difficulties in the face of suppressed business. Staff cuts, changes to hours of operation, and full closures for months at a time have forced many to adapt to this survival mode, and this trauma thinking can cloud judgment as businesses begin to return to normal. Business operators will need to step back and question their own questions: If you’re constantly worrying about if you can afford to bring back an employee, reframe it as “will this employee help generate more income?” If you’re trying to justify a previous business expense that was put on pause during the past year to save money, remind yourself why you invested in it in the first place and if it will be useful as business picks back up. The answer may not be “yes” every time, but it’s helpful to be reminded that austerity measures won’t always be the best way to jump-start business growth after a difficult year. Conversely, some industries have seen massive growth during the past year, and those business operators need to be realistic that “going back to normal” may require planning for a loss in business and subsequent cuts in spending. 

Bringing the Business Back to Business Families 
The pandemic has not only affected the bottom line; it’s also dramatically altered workplace norms and cultures. After a year of working from home, many people will find difficulty in things they once found second-nature--working from an office, dressing professionally every day, dealing with common workplace frictions, etc. While there’s no single piece of advice that can help make this transition smooth, simply being aware of the stress and anxiety it may cause can help people better prepare. 
For business families, this return to a normal business culture can be especially difficult: Families that have worked hard over the years to build healthy work-home boundaries, maintain professional standards with family members they work alongside, and create institutional structure in the workplace may find that those have fallen by the wayside as everyone focused on survival. As businesses regain a sense of normalcy, it’s more important now than ever before to refocus on healthy family business practices: regular family meetings, organized succession plans, and a commitment to a Common Family
Vision™. If you’re a business family that’s spent significant time and effort building a functional work environment, don’t let that falter as the world changes around you. 

​What is the “New Normal?” 
Of course, we’ve spoken at length about a return to normalcy, but we also need to stress that there may never be a full “return” to the way things were. Over the past year, many businesses have successfully adapted and seen their teams work tremendously well using technology, work settings, and organizational structures they never thought possible, and may be in no hurry to give up the changes they’ve found positive. This is fine, and no business should feel pressured to revert away from workplace changes that are clearly beneficial. But every employee has their own preferences and priorities, and even maintaining these new practices may create friction, turnover, and management difficulty; any business doing so needs to be aware and prepare their team for this new reality. 
As the world slowly lurches out of a year-long stasis, any business lucky & smart enough to have survived now needs to set sights on the future, including a return to old challenges and the emergence of new, unforeseen difficulties. For more advice on moving forward after this difficult year, pick up The Soul of the Family Business by Tom Hubler. Through personal anecdotes, real-world case studies, useful tools and frameworks, and more, Hubler offers an in-depth look at the challenges faced, strategies employed, and successes achieved by all sorts of family businesses. You can pick up The Soul of the Family Business, available in hardcover form on Amazon.com, directly through Itasca Books, or at a bookstore near you. And of course, if you’re ready to take the next steps, you can always contact Hubler for Business Families today.

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March is Women’s History Month, and we hope it goes without saying that people are completely capable of building and running their own business, regardless of gender. We live in a world that typically undervalues the hard work women do and often positions entrepreneurship as a career path primarily for men. We have nothing but applause and support for women who start their own businesses and build them to success, but we also want to celebrate women in another common scenario: those who take over running an existing business as a successor to a man who started the business. This could take the form of a daughter named successor by her retiring father, a wife taking over a business after the passing of her husband, or even simply a higher-up executive who happens to be a woman taking over the company. While we all like to think we live in a world where gender is no longer a factor in business success, the truth is that while we’ve come a long way, there are still challenges that uniquely affect women business leaders or women looking to move into leadership positions.

Gender and Succession Planning
While we’ve largely moved past a culture where the only roles for women in the workplace are administrative assistants and nurses, many women still end up directed into roles that emphasize “soft skills” and people-facing roles such as customer service. These roles are valuable and necessary for the function of any business, but it can cause issues when it comes to succession planning, as the roles often considered for advancement (think the “hard-nosed salesperson” or the “genius engineer”) are the roles men tend to be pushed into more than women. However, by paying attention to talents without making any assumptions based on gender, we can avoid inadvertently setting up these “glass ceilings.” Just consider this excerpt from the story of Betty Novak as told in Tom Hubler’s book, The Soul of the Family Business:

As a female entrepreneur, Betty had no formal training in business, but she grew with the business primarily because of her exceptional people and relationship skills with customers and employees. She was effective in sales and marketing, and because of her impressive technical, mathematical, and analytical skills, she was the primary estimator for the company and bid on projects quite successfully.
Betty is the perfect example of someone who’s people skills helped her get started in the professional world, but who also had the combination of “hard” and “soft” talents to successfully build and run the whole business.

Additionally, Betty and her family are a great example of navigating another common expectation that can cause friction when it comes to succession planning: women being put in the role of caretaker by default.
As Betty and her husband Ken (the primary engineer behind their company) aged, Ken was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. While Betty initially served the role of Ken’s primary caretaker while still maintaining her role at the head of the company, the family developed a succession plan to help both her and Ken lead their best lives as they aged. Betty and Ken’s children helped take care of Ken alongside their mother so Betty could continue working, and Betty mentored her son and son-in-law (along with a non-family manager) to maintain the business after her eventual retirement. While many women entrepreneurs in that position would have either been forced to work essentially two jobs (leading the company and being obligated to take care of their husband) or give up the work they loved, Betty and her family all collaborated to allow this incredible entrepreneur to continue living a truly fulfilling life.

​Celebrating Women Entrepreneurs Everywhere
Every woman has her own experience with gender dynamics and her own way of approaching potential issues, but we hope that for those of us supporting, working for, and working with female entrepreneurs, this can help at least share a few of the unique challenges associated with the position. For more help navigating succession planning, family dynamics, and the challenges associated with it all, pick up The Soul of the Family Business by Tom Hubler. Through personal anecdotes, real-world case studies, useful tools and frameworks, and more, Hubler offers an in-depth look at how transitions can go smoothly and effectively, regardless of who’s in charge.You can pick up The Soul of the Family Business, available in hardcover form on Amazon.com, directly through Itasca Books, or at a bookstore near you. And of course, if you’re ready to take the next steps, you can always contact Hubler for Business Families today. 

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Tom Hubler says he has “come to look at Legacy as your gift to the future to help others find their own success.” In other words, if you feel you’ve lived a life well-lived, your legacy is the roadmap that others can use to discover their own lives worth living. Hubler’s Legacy Model™ is made up of five different areas and aspects of life--both financial and non-financial--that should be considered when defining the legacy you want to pass on as a business owner and entrepreneur. The five areas are as follows, in no particular order (as they all interrelate): 

1. Wealth Care (Money/Property): This is the primary financial aspect of legacy, defining how you want to transfer wealth, financial inheritance, valuable personal property, and more. Things to consider in the Wealth Care area are wills (who gets what?), taxes (how will my beneficiaries avoid large tax penalties?), trusts (how and when will my wealth be distributed?), investments, and more. A dedicated financial consultant can help you work out all the details about your wealth care wishes, but it’s important to more broadly view it as only one related aspect of many when it comes to building your legacy.
2. Heritage (History/Ancestry): Many people see themselves as one link in the chain of a family history, and place huge importance on passing the family history and ancestry onto future generations. So when working on defining your legacy, begin to think about what you value in the legacies of generations before you--are there unique stories you wish to tell your children and grandchildren? Meaningful heirlooms you want to see stay within the family? Lessons, values, work ethics, and traditions that were taught to you by family that came before and you’d like to see continued? These are all considerations you must take into account.
3. Family & Self (Loving/Caring): While Heritage is all about passing on the gifts given to you by generations before, the area of Family & Self is all about how you connect with yourself and your individual family unit. How do you want to inspire your children to succeed in their own lives? What life meaning have you discovered and wish to share? Have you lived your life with purpose and found fulfillment? These questions and many more help define your personal legacy.
4. Business Legacy (Succession Plan): As entrepreneurs, our businesses are significant parts of our identities. We hope that when we retire, we leave a successful business, run with the values that helped build it, to continue for years to come. When it comes time to pass the business on to others and take our hard-earned retirement, to whom are we passing ownership? Will it stay in the family? Will we create a board of directors? Who will lead the business to continued success? With our business a key part of our personal legacies, a well-considered succession plan is vital to making sure it doesn’t fall apart during a time of transition.
5. Community (Service-Philanthropy): For even the most dedicated entrepreneur, business success will risk ringing hollow if it’s the only lasting part of their legacy. The vast majority of people care deeply about building community and helping those around them, and many people want to leave a legacy of philanthropic endeavors, whether they involve volunteering, charitable giving, or whatever an individual feels called to do. So look inward and outward simultaneously--who do you want to help? What organizations could use your support? Are you in a place to give time, to give money, to give expertise? Find something you care deeply about (if you don’t already know), and commit to living out your values to assist that cause.

According to Tom Hubler in his book The Soul of the Family Business, “Fine-tuning a legacy system requires implementing all five aspects of the model. It’s important to capture stories that relate to family and history, and to consciously voice life and family values.” For a lot of us, these aspects of our legacies are things we understand intuitively--but the difficulty comes in bringing them to the forefront and considering them with mindfulness and intentionality. Doing so enables us to truly build and define our legacies, rather than leave them as nebulous hopes and dreams.

For stories of successful legacy planning, pick up The Soul of the Family Business by Tom Hubler. Through personal anecdotes, real-world case studies, useful tools and frameworks, and more, Hubler offers an in-depth look at how entrepreneurs can leave a lasting impact on the world around them. You can pick up The Soul of the Family Business, available in hardcover form on Amazon.com, directly through Itasca Books, or at a bookstore near you. And of course, if you’re ready to take the next steps, you can always contact Hubler for Business Families today.

In watching all the news this past week, I can’t believe how hard I’ve been hit emotionally by the events of George Floyd’s death. I’ve been brought to tears on multiple occasions as I’ve discussed my response with family and friends. The emotional pain of the Black community is devastating and palpable.  What’s shocking is the racism that’s being protested has been there for years, and for the most part, nothing has been done about it. In my own family, my children who are Black (now adults) and grandchildren have been hurt by this racism and hatred.

As Nelson Mandela says:
“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” ​
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In this time of trial, may the peace of the Lord fill our hearts with love.  May the solace that’s created give us all the courage, each in our own way, to act, speak out and eradicate systemic racism from our culture.

I’m not sure about you, but I’m emotionally raw when it comes to dealing with the impact of the COVID-19 Virus.  Each evening when I watch the Evening News, I see first responders and family members who are suffering from losses of one kind or another involving loved ones.  At the same time, there are these wonderful stories of courageous people who are continuing to do their jobs on a daily basis without protective gear, like the bus driver who risks his health to continue to drive the bus to take people to the hospital. There was one particular story that really touched me.  A hospital employee who was caring for patients had now contracted the virus and was now at the point of having to be ventilated.  The hospital employee who was attending to him said to him before he was about to insert the ventilator:  “I love you Ray” and Ray responded:  “I love you too.”  I was really taken with this exchange, but the emotional swings are for me what is so heart wrenching. ​

With all of the uncertainties and confusion of Covid-19 Virus, we are all clamoring, in one way or another, to get back to “normal” and create certainty in our lives. The pundits, politicians, and physicians are all offering advice on what to do. They say: “social distance, wash your hands, stay at home and stay safe.” The people on the front lines, in all aspects of our culture, are giving courageously and generously to perform daily miracles to save our lives and many times at the risk of their own.

Review by Luca, Italy on Amazon.

Families are complicated. Farming is complicated. Family businesses are complicated. So family farm businesses? One might say they’re the most complicated.

Tom Hubler is a well-known expert in family businesses: he's appeared on television and has been quoted in places like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. He lives in St. Paul, MN, and we were fortunate to have him present at our 2020 Customer Summit.

Welcome to 2020! To celebrate the new decade, we’re pulling a meaty tidbit straight out of the heart of The Soul of the Family Business by Tom Hubler and learning Hubler’s five secrets of highly successful family-owned businesses. While obviously these are not the be-all-end-all of success (these tips occupy merely a few pages of a lengthy and insightful book), they are fundamental lessons that can be taken alongside more detailed explanations and strategies found within the rest of the book and this website. For more information, consider picking up The Soul of the Family Business, but without further adieu, here are five secrets of highly successful family-owned businesses:

Tom recently presented Creating A Common Vision for a Family Enterprise at the Restaurant Finance & Development Conference in Las Vegas, NV. To listen to the audio session, please click play below.
​For the accompanying slides, click here.