Disagreeing about the business without disrupting Sunday lunch

In family businesses, tension between parents and children who are also shareholders often comes from the lack of a formal place for disagreement not from the scale of the disagreement itself.

There is a situation we repeatedly see in family businesses that have grown successfully: parents and children are shareholders, everyone has a legitimate view on the direction of the business, and a discussion that began in the meeting room continues over Sunday lunch, now with a different tone. After this happens a few times, the family starts avoiding certain topics to preserve personal relationships, while decisions that need to be made are put on hold in the name of keeping the peace.

Disagreement among shareholders is healthy and is part of any well-structured partnership, including between parents and children who see the business differently. It becomes damaging when there is no proper place for that disagreement. In other words, when there is no formal forum with an agenda, clearly defined authority, and a record of what was decided, allowing difficult conversations to begin and end within the company.

Many of these companies operated for years without feeling the need for this kind of structure. When the business was smaller, decisions involved fewer people and had a more limited impact, which made it possible to resolve almost everything through a quick conversation between two or three people who trusted one another. But revenue grew, the organization became more complex, new shareholders joined, and the second generation took on greater responsibilities. The informal model that had always worked began to create friction precisely because it remained informal.

Corporate governance in family businesses often carries a reputation for being expensive bureaucracy, disconnected from the reality of those running the business. In practice, it serves a very concrete purpose: defining who decides what, within which limits, and based on which information. It also helps structure succession planning before it has to be done under pressure.

In professionalization and succession processes, the turning point is rarely technical, since controls and financial information usually already exist in some form. What often unlocks the situation is bringing in someone external and neutral, someone with no family history and no side in the discussion who can help separate business decisions from family relationships and guide the structural conversations while keeping the process on track.

As Emanuele Solyom, partner responsible for Consulting and Governance at VBR Brasil, puts it: “When a family has a place to disagree about the business, they can continue being a family outside of it.”

If your company is going through a similar moment, with the next generation taking on a larger role, shareholders moving at different paces, or a succession process that needs to start taking shape, it is worth addressing the governance structure before the friction begins to affect family relationships. Let’s talk.