How to Exit the Family Business — Without Exiting the Family

The “family” dynamic in a family business has the potential to make a company great and undermine it at the same time. Even when things seem like they are going well, complex, underlying issues among family members can eventually lead to someone deciding to split from the business. If you’ve read the tabloids or have been near the internet in the past few months, you’ve likely heard a famous example of this: Prince Harry and Megan Markle are exiting the most famous family business on the planet — the British Royal Family. For a variety of reasons, the pair has decided they would be better off being family members, not “Royal” family members. The story makes for great drama, but it’s a pretty common occurrence in family businesses.

Every family has conflicts. When those conflicts come in a family business, though, they can escalate quickly. Without a resolution of these issues, there inevitably comes a time when a family member decides to leave — or is forced out of — the family business. Too often though, the issues that force a family member to leave the family business spills out of the “business” and into the “family,” negatively impacting the ability for the family to coexist as it did before.