Free checklist · ~30 minutes
Who decides what?
Most family-business friction isn’t about people being difficult, it’s that nobody ever said out loud who owns which call. Go through these twenty together. Tap who owns each one. Print it and stick it on the wall.
Founder, the founder/parent still owns this call
You, the operator owns it outright
Together, a shared/escalated decision
0 of 20 agreed
The rule that makes this work: anything not on this list, or that you disagree on, automatically goes to a short monthly review, instead of being re-litigated in the middle of a busy day. Decide once. Move on.
When the list gets hard
Some of these will spark a real conversation.
That’s the point, and it’s exactly the work I do with operators in the first three weeks of the pilot. If a few of these feel loaded, that’s worth a chat.
- Ben.