Only One Knife at Thanksgiving, Please!

The Company:
The company is a franchise of a leading home and industrial cleaning service that was started in the 1970's. Although much of the early work involved standard home cleaning services, as those services became more of a commodity service, the company sought and captured more and more industrial and specialty clean up. Wayne Lutz and his wife owned the company for over 30 years and expanded it into several related business areas. Wayne was a TAB board member from 2005 until he sold the company.

The Business Issue:
Wayne stated at his first TAB board meeting, "I think I have a problem!". His son-in-law, who had worked in the business for ten years, was "of the opinion that he (son-in-law) would receive the business for free" upon Wayne's pending early retirement. Wayne had several other sons-in-law who were not too thrilled with this situation, nor were their wives, his other three daughters.

TAB Board and Coaching Session Impact:
Wayne's newly-formed TAB board took on this very interesting challenge as its first major endeavor. The board essentially wanted to better understand the following: What happened to get Wayne into this situation? What was Wayne's long-term plan (the "Personal Vision Statement" ("PVS"))?

The board began what turned out to be a 17 month effort and eventually named the effort: "Only One Carving Knife at the Next Family Thanksgiving Dinner!"

First, Wayne and his wife had to develop their Personal Vision Statement. Wayne and his wife had never really focused on these issues. After about 10 months and with the PVS in hand, an independent valuation of the company was performed. The board recommended a third party intermediary present the proposal and that Wayne and his wife would "disappear" to "let the dust settle". There was a natural "fall-back" position to this approach. Wayne could reinsert himself and have one more shot at resolving this situation. These intermediaries were the TAB facilitator (Denny Coll), who had previous experience with family business situations such as this, and another board member, who knew the son-in-law from church.

"My TAB board and its facilitator Denny Coll have guided me through potentially explosive negotiations of the sale of my business. The thing that really impressed me with my TAB board was that they were not only interested in my business, they were also interested in the quality of life that I had away from the business. Finally, Denny kept me away from family conflict in the negotiation of the sale of my business. Denny helped us craft our personal vision statement, and then guided us through the process of preparing the business for sale and obtaining a fair valuation for the sale, in the family or outside."

Business Result:
The sale was successfully completed just before Thanksgiving and because everyone in the family knew that had happened, the day was a very enjoyable family get-together.

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