Family Business Operations Tips and Strategies

As business owners, we run into many obstacles.  Adding family to the mix can create a few more obstacles to overcome. I have heard countless horror stories about family businesses that fail because they don’t separate work from the family.  For instance, many hire, or even worse, pass on the company to a family member just because they’re family.   And because family members have different dreams for the future of the business, there is often conflict in decision making. How can you avoid these problems?

Raley’s is a family owned and operated business celebrating their 85th year of business and is in their third generation of family ownership. Only 12% of family businesses make it to this point. So, I asked Mike Teel, the chief visionary officer of Raley’s, to help me answer these questions for you. 

Raley’s and the Teel family  have not been immune to the common problems that family businesses face, but they have acted and responded to these issues in a way most don’t even think about. 

Mike talks about how he left the company after college in order to develop the skills necessary to earn a leadership role one day, instead of having it handed to them. When all five family members, who were board members, did not see eye to eye on the future of the company they brought in a trusted third party to facilitate how to move forward with both the family’s and company’s best interest in mind. 

Mike shares other stories of how his family has been able to solve the problems they have faced as a family business. It takes this kind of outside thinking to grow a family business that not only stays in the family, but also is able to keep the company mission a higher priority than the family’s wants and desires.

This is the type of thinking it takes to build a family business that defies the odds and continues on for generations. 

Mike gives family business operations tips and strategies and shares the challenges he faces running a third generation family business with 12,000 employees and 2+ Billion Dollars in revenue (4:39)

Mike shares why he left the family owned business the first time and why that was beneficial to him eventually leading the family business management. (8:36)

Mike talks about family business operations management and how tough it is to lead family members to a position of leadership and the trait they need to have in order to do so. (17:50)

Mike shares how important having a trusted third party to help facilitate major decisions around how the family should move forward with the business is to the future success of the company. (21:02)

Mike talks about how he and his family successfully navigated the potentially turbulent waters of creating a family business operating agreement and buying out all of his sisters in order to have control of the company. (24:31) 

Mike talks about how in order for a family business to succeed the needs/goals of the family and the owner have to be tied to the company's needs and goals and not personal. (29:04)

Mike shares his belief on how powerful attaching an unattainable just cause to the purpose/mission of the business is. (33:06)

Mike shares how the family business, Raley's, is innovating to address the need for improved convenience in the fast changing technological market place. (47:13)

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