KENNESAW, Ga. | Mar 1, 2024

Family Business Professionalization: aligns family values with strategic planning, HR practices, and the formalization of processes to ensure the business's success is sustained across generations.

Q: What is professionalization?

A: Professionalization is not a family business topic but a core topic of entrepreneurship, strategy, and corporate governance.

Professionalization is a theme that is relevant across all sorts of ventures, from brand new businesses considering how to initially develop their operations to established corporate ventures evaluating different management policies.

Simply put, professionalization is the process for formalizing value-added activities in a business.

Q: How is professionalization different in family firms?

A: Like all businesses, family businesses need to professionalize to effectively leverage their evolving capabilities to pursue opportunities and grow. However, as for many other topics, professionalization in family businesses can look unique.

Most of this distinctiveness is rooted in the fact that family teams have pre-existing relationships that inform their social dynamics.

• In corporate team building, professional teams work together to identify shared visions and goals that can be used to develop their own distinctive team identity and dynamics.
• Family teams, however, usually come to the table with a significant pre-existing family identity that can inform their strategic goals and identity.

As a result, family businesses often retain informal processes much longer than their non-family counterparts. Even the oldest, largest, and most diversified family businesses in the world often rely on family logics when approaching opportunities and solving problems.

Professionalization isn’t just an idea; it's the means to translate passion into a well-managed legacy, ensuring success across generations.

With over 33 million small businesses in the U.S., it's a shared journey. Professionalization may seem intricate, but it is essentially blending corporate structures with the enduring influence of family dynamics.

Its significance lies in fostering long-term sustainability, streamlining decision-making, and facilitating adaptability to growth.

As your family business evolves, professionalization practices offer effective conflict resolution and empowering talent development. 

Integrating professional HR practices ensures the cohesive collaboration of family and non-family members, creating a workplace where everyone is valued and motivated.

Bifurcation bias is the tendency to treat family and non-family members differently—manifesting as unequal opportunities or decision-making influence.

Embracing professionalization in a family business involves recognizing and addressing the potential bifurcation bias as non-family members become integral to the workforce.

Challenges such as differential treatment and communication gaps can emerge but are mitigated through HR practices—a key aspect of professionalization.