True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.
Socrates
Building family legacies and ensuring one’s own legacy is the most complex and important initiative a family business owner undertakes. Yet many families ignore the crucial first step: understanding one another and their organization’s preparedness for the transition.
FamilyNavigator empowers families with knowledge that provides a foundation for cultivating stronger families and building enduring legacies.
What is Family Navigator?
Developed by Dean Fowler, Ph.D., a pioneer in family business consulting, FamilyNavigator quantifies the inextricably linked ecosystem of individual family members, the family, the family’s organization, and the governance and estate plans that hold it all together.
FamilyNavigator’s statistically validated 69-question assessment surfaces opportunities and risks related to succession and transition planning, necessary for creating an actionable roadmap for optimal transition success.
Much like a SWOT analysis, the FamilyNavigator identifies the perceived strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats faced by the family and family business.
The knowledge garnered empowers families to reap maximum multigenerational rewards as they:
- Gain insight into each other.
- Create alignment around a shared vision.
- Develop strategies for the family and the business.
- Codify ownership, leadership, governance.
The ecosystem is evaluated across 4 fundamental pillars which build upon each other, starting with family dynamics and scaffolding up to transition planning.
The analysis provides measurable and unbiased insight into family members and their businesses across 12 key competencies that are recognized as foundational to success.
Family Dynamics
- Culture & Communication
- Purpose and Fulfillment
- Roles & Relationships
Preparation & Development of Rising Generation
- Maturity
- Business Compentency
- Compensation
Business Preservation & Growth
- Business Structure
- Non-Family Management
- Business Strategy
Transition Planning
- Family Leadership
- Governance
- Estate, Financial, & Tax Planning
The Family Navigator ROI
The FamilyNavigator provides family members with clarity, equal stature, and nuanced insight into each other, allowing us to collectively identify specific areas of strength and opportunity, ranging from unique ways to maximize an individual’s interests and special talents to recognizing a true competitive advantage.
With this level setting knowledge, we are then able to successfully guide families through complex alignment discussions and create customized and actionable strategies for the family and its organization, using the discovered strengths to bolster those necessary but under indexing competencies.
Building on the foundational FamilyNavigator discovery, alignment and strategy, we then work to codify ownership, leadership, control and governance, creating the best road map for optimal long term family and family business success as defined by our clients.
About Us
Joshua Gentine is the President and Founder of Bench Consulting, a Family Business Consultancy that advises family offices and family operating companies across diverse sectors with annual revenue between $10MM – $1B+. He helps clients build and sustain actionable strategic plans that best reflect and deliver on their family values and business goals. An ex-Deloitte consultant and a Director and 3rd generation owner of Sargento Food, a $1.7 billion family business, Josh brings both first-hand knowledge of the challenges and opportunities faced by closely held businesses and deep business strategy experience to best serve the specific needs of successful family businesses. His expertise is navigating multi-generational transitions and facilitating difficult, high stakes conversations that benefit both the family and the business.
Dean R. Fowler, Ph.D. is recognized as one of the world’s leading family business advisors. For forty years he has served hundreds of families-in-business and facilitated Forums for Family Business™️ – peer advisory boards. The Family Firm Institute, honored him with the prestigious Award for Interdisciplinary Achievement.
He is author of three books: Love, Power and Money, Family Business Matters, and Proactive Family Business Successors, all available at Amazon.com.
Contact
To learn more about FamilyNavigator, email: [email protected]