Any family owned business's bottom line can be greatly enhanced by improved relationships amongst family and non family employees.

At Systems @ Work (part of the Family Systems Institute), we have a particular interest in the interesting challenges and possibilities of combining family relationships with the running of a sustainable business.  We attend to the complexities of families and organisations in the belief that the keys to implementing successful growth strategies are predominately locked up in the complex family and non family employee relational patterns.

Our consultants understand the complexities of relationships which are a particularly important and complex resource in organisations where familial and work relationships are blended.  We can lend a hand to family run organisations by providing:

• Coaching to family business leaders

     or a

• Training and support program for family run business management teams

"Keeping a family business alive is perhaps the toughest management job on earth.  Only 13% of successful family businesses last through the third generation.  Less than one third survive into the second generation."  Chaponniere, C., & Ward, J. (2003) Family business through Darwin's theory of species.

What's unique about our systems training and development package for Family Businesses?

• We understand the complexity of relationship patterns and their impact on workplace efficiency - especially the particular challenges of the family that also operates as a business.  Our knowledge base is in family systems theory and its application to organisations.

• We can identify and assist in resolving stuck points in relational problems at work.  A key to this is seeing relational triangles where problems escape their origins and emerge in other parts of the system.

• We understand how relational stress impacts an individual's functioning, both behaviourally and physiologically.  We assist individuals to be aware and to manage their reactively driven behaviours.  And we assist individuals to train their brain to reduce reactivity that can reduce their effectiveness and overall health.

"Emotional process plays itself out in a family business through the relationships between family members working in and not working in the business, between other non family employees, and with clients or customers.  It is a very subtle process that operates out of conscious awareness."    Leadership, Legacy, and Emotional Process in Family Business"  K. G. Baker, K. K. Wiseman.  FAMILY BUSINESS REVIEW, vol. XI, no. 3, September, 1998.