Accountability and equity among keys to managing family employees

Fans of the ctional HBO drama “Succession” have likely watched the relentless struggles between company founder Logan Roy and his children, who want control of the family’s global media and entertainment empire.

e narrative of squabbling heirs seeking power is not far from reality. Family businesses face unique challenges when it comes to succession planning.

“I have observed mediations where litigants have nearly come to blows and witnessed numerous shouting matches,” said Gerard Mantese, an attorney at Mantese Honigman PC in Troy. Mantese has handled shareholder and member disputes for fam-

“In one case, one party deposited a dead, gutted deer near their sibling’s (co-owner’s) driveway,” Mantese said.

Family business owners without a succession plan risk not only having to derive a plan amid a crisis — such as the unplanned disability or death of a family member — but also the business’s demise.

“If a family business really has the intention to succeed to future generations, having a strategy and plans in place to achieve that really is necessary,” said Rejeana Heinrich, director at the Stevens Center for Family Business at Saginaw Valley State University.

When a parent with the controlling interest in a family company passes away without a legal plan, siblings are often left to ght for control, which

Mantese said can lead to litigation and lack of direction at the company.

“What makes family businesses so complicated are these overlapping layers and dynamics — the mixture of blood and money — that can get in the way of either the success and profitability of the business or the family harmony or both,” said Heinrich.

According to a 2015 SVSU study of 61 family-owned businesses in the Great Lakes Bay region, 75 percent indicated they would pass their companies on to future generations, but only 26 percent said they developed a plan to guide them.

See SUCCESSION on Page 10 at’s why it’s just as imperative to establish employment policies among family member employees as for nonfamily employees — particularly when they work side by side.

Family businesses aren’t just mom-and-pop stores that keep the lights burning. According to Family Enterprise USA, the 5.5 million family businesses in the United States employ about 59 percent of the private sector workforce and contribute $7.7 trillion to the GDP.

“Transparency and clear rules get a workforce more committed to the business, more engaged and satis ed with the job and motivated to work and grow along with the family business,” said Ana Gonzalez, director of the Family Owned Business Institute at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids.

Frankenmuth Bavarian Inn Holdings Inc. grew from the Zehnder family’s Bavarian Inn Restaurant, acquired in 1950, to a multi-business organization that also includes Bavarian Inn Lodge, Frankenmuth River Place Shops and Frankenmuth Gift Shop Inc.

See FAMILY on Page 10