EXECUTIVE AND FAMILY BUSINESS COUNSELING

For some 30 years Shelly has counseled and consulted with an array of business executives, business owners and successful professionals on their personal issues within the context of their business and professional roles.We all need a trusted confidant we can talk freely with, someone who can offer perspective, an “outside the box” approach to decision making that gets us beyond an impasse we are encountering.  An executive may be struggling with a conflict management or communication issue, dealing with an office romance, reoccurring depression or immobilizing anxiety. The higher you rise in your career the lonelier it can get if you haven’t built in human and spiritual support along the way.

Owning a family business can be very satisfying on so many levels.  Working with your spouse, child, parent, sibling, relying on one another for business success can strengthen family ties.  Growing a business together to higher levels of structure and prosperity is something to be proud of.  Even successful businesses may need someone outside it to process the emotional dynamics, which entangle decision-making.  

Regardless of business structure, family businesses share certain issues not shared by non-family businesses. Boundary and identity issues are obvious in family businesses, as are overlapping authority and communication issues. Personal familial and couple issues infect office dynamics.  Sometimes one family member has psychological/behavioral issues getting in the way of smooth business functioning, in another there is generational conflict around how the business should progress.