Business, family and mediation

Maria Munné Tomàs
Director of the Master in Professional Mediation
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Founding families have shaped Catalonia and other countries as a place of business and work over past centuries. Ninety per cent of all German companies are family businesses, which generate 52% of sales and account for around 58% of all jobs subject to social security contributions in Germany (Staufenbiel Institut Köln). 88.3% of Catalan companies are family businesses and generate more than two-thirds of the wealth and 76% of the total employment in Catalonia, according to the Catalan Association of the Family Companies. Ninety per cent of Spanish private companies are family businesses, generate almost 70% of private employment and contribute about 60% of GDP, according to data from the Family Company Institute (IEF).

Complexity is the main factor for defining a family business mediation, the difficult intersection between property, family and company defines everything

Complexity is the main factor for defining a mediation of family business, the difficult intersection between property, family and company defines everything. This complexity is evidenced, first, in the contradiction between the positive emotional functions of the family, which according to Meltzer and Harris in their book The educational role of the family are: to generate love, to foster hope, to contain suffering and to help think. These are the elements, the basis for the growth of family businesses in our home. Complexity is the integration of the former with the negative emotional functions described by the same authors: hatred and envy among their members, unrest and distress, which can lead to despair and always generate confusion.

When power struggles lead to the destruction of the source of shared revenue, the whole structure and money monopolizes. A client after a struggle for the company's succession, commented in a mediation: "I don't think my cousins who have EUR 100 million have an interest in dealing with me who only have 10."

Conflicting in Family Company

The conflict in the family business is detected by communication, the parties tend to mix a family communication, affective, informal and implicit, conditioned by their family history, with a job communication, explicit (manifesta), formal and focused on interests, which attempts to separate the problem from the people involved. Family members often act in the same way regardless of where family or company are found, often to respect family order agreements companies have not organised well and their continuity may be jeopardised by this bad organization.

It should be noted that according to the IEF 43% of family businesses in Spain reach the second gernation and only 15% the third generation. This tells us about the difficulties of survival. The current President of the IEF, Marc Puig, sets as long-term objectives the exchange of experiences, solutions and examples of management adopted by family companies in the generational transition, the great impasse for the continuity of these companies.

To manage the disagreements, in the transformational change processes required by the family company in Catalonia, the mediating space is the most appropriate

To manage the disagreements, in the transformational change processes that the family company needs in Catalonia in innovation, digitization, international and internal competition, access for skills, business professionalization and succession the space of mediation is the most appropriate. It allows the constructive management of conflicts that may arise due to the necessary renewal and modification of the governing bodies, supporting the family assembly and its council.

Mediation

Successfully mediating in family business conflicts requires, firstly, a definition of the overall problem to be tackled, then an analysis of the mediation model to be chosen. To see if what is intended is a punctual agreement with a single specific theme, so a model of problem solving that avoids the complexity of the environment would be the most appropriate or if what is wanted is to prevent future conflicts, renew aspects of the business culture to encourage the company's continuity and transformation to continue to grow.

For this second option it would be necessary to work from a transformative view of the conflict, looking at the conflict as a positive opportunity for the change in generation of a new relational culture, involving formal and informal leaders within the family and favoring future-proof changes. Required transformations in this area that still move with discriminatory patterns affecting social aspects such as the gender of its members, the ages and potentialities of developing the same capabilities in the service of the good of the company and family.