Family businesses face the same operational crises as other companies, but ownership and family relationships can add another layer of complexity. During a disruption, the business may need fast decisions about liquidity, leadership, suppliers, employees and public communication while family members are also managing questions of control, legacy and succession.<\/p>\n
A credible crisis-management plan should therefore connect operational response with governance. It should not depend on invented stories or universal claims that one governance model makes family businesses \u201c40% faster\u201d at recovery.<\/p>\n
ISO 22361:2022 provides guidance for organisations that want to establish, maintain, review and improve a strategic crisis-management capability. It covers crisis leadership, decision-making, communication, training, validation and learning.<\/p>\n
Source: ISO 22361:2022, Crisis management \u2014 Guidelines<\/a><\/p>\n For a family business, that capability should make explicit how family governance and corporate management interact during a crisis.<\/p>\n IFC’s Family Business Governance Handbook highlights the overlapping roles common in family businesses and the need for clearer governance structures as the business grows across generations.<\/p>\n Source: IFC Family Business Governance Handbook<\/a><\/p>\n Before a crisis, clarify:<\/p>\n Unclear roles can turn a business problem into a family conflict at the worst possible moment.<\/p>\n Not every disruption requires the full crisis structure. Teams need triggers that distinguish normal operational issues from events that could materially affect people, operations, reputation, liquidity or ownership continuity.<\/p>\n Possible triggers include:<\/p>\n The IFC handbook emphasises CEO succession and governance arrangements as family firms evolve. A business that depends on one founder for customer relationships, bank authority, supplier decisions and internal conflict resolution has concentrated operational risk.<\/p>\n Succession planning should therefore include:<\/p>\n ISO 22361 recognises the specific decision-making challenges that crisis teams face. A family-business crisis team should be small enough to act and broad enough to represent the functions required for the event.<\/p>\n Depending on the crisis, this can include:<\/p>\n Membership should follow the crisis, not family status alone.<\/p>\n A crisis can create simultaneous pressure on revenue, cash, suppliers and employees. Financial preparation should identify:<\/p>\n Do not rely on one universal \u201cmonths of cash\u201d rule. The appropriate buffer depends on the firm’s operating model and risk profile.<\/p>\n Family businesses can have strong personal relationships with employees, customers and suppliers. That can be an advantage when communication is clear, but a disadvantage if different family members give conflicting messages.<\/p>\n During a crisis, establish:<\/p>\n IFC’s current family-business governance work emphasises governance diagnostics, family-business governance improvements and policies or procedures that support sustainable growth.<\/p>\n Source: IFC, Family Business Governance<\/a><\/p>\n A family constitution, family council, board or shareholder agreement may provide a route for issues that should not be resolved inside the operational crisis team.<\/p>\n The exact structure depends on the family and company. The important point is to separate operational decision-making from unresolved ownership or family disputes where possible.<\/p>\n A crisis exercise should test more than emergency procedures. Family firms should test:<\/p>\n After a crisis, separate individual mistakes from structural weaknesses. Useful review questions include:<\/p>\n Family ownership can be a source of continuity, commitment and fast informal coordination. It can also concentrate authority and blur roles. Crisis resilience improves when governance is clear before the pressure arrives.<\/p>\n For crisis leadership in a different organisational context, see Crisis Management for African Nonprofit Leaders<\/a>.<\/p>\n Practical guide to crisis management for MENA family businesses, covering governance, decision authority, continuity, communication, succession, exercises and post-crisis learning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9173,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9172"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10324,"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9172\/revisions\/10324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/matsh.co\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Separate family, ownership, board and management roles<\/h2>\n
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Define crisis thresholds and escalation<\/h2>\n
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Succession is a resilience issue<\/h2>\n
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Use a crisis team with defined decision rights<\/h2>\n
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Protect liquidity and critical operations<\/h2>\n
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Communicate facts, decisions and uncertainty<\/h2>\n
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Use governance structures before conflict escalates<\/h2>\n
Exercise the governance as well as the operations<\/h2>\n
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Learn without turning the review into a blame exercise<\/h2>\n
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A practical family-business crisis cycle<\/h2>\n
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Related MATSH resources<\/h2>\n
Sources<\/h2>\n
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