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Balancing family and business needs with individuals’ skills and aspirations and forming healthy partnerships and collaboration between members of various generations, are at the foundation of successful continuity. AMI’s expertise in personal development and in partnerships’ relations, help our clients reach new solutions, define suitable roles and develop effective multi-generational partnerships.

Together with key family members, AMI helps the family business to make optimal placement decisions and promote executive development while taking sensitive family needs and professional business requirements into consideration.

Agreements are essentials, but by themselves they cannot always prevent fights. The written agreement must be the final product of a trust building process, in which the family clarifies its values, heritage and vision for the future. Preparing the agreement may be a unique opportunity to discuss sensitive issues and air old grievances in a context of a shared mission. When this is accomplished, signing the agreement becomes a vow of loyalty to the family, its values and its vision. Agreements that are established through such a process may serve as the family anchor even in stormy times....

It’s no secret that complex conflicts are deeply embedded within every family-business system. AMI helps family members learn the communication skills that allow them to recognize conflicts and deal with them constructively.

Successful succession is based on a fine euqilibrium between business needs and individual aspirations and capabilities of the younger generation. It requires the establishment of inter-generation partnerships, as well as partnerships among siblings and cousins of the same generation. Our expertise in the development of careers and in the creation of partnerships, together with our understanding of organizations and management, enables each family member to choose an appropriate career path, while assuring the needed synchronization with business needs and organization structure.

Multi-generation family councils and family meetings are powerful tools for conveying family values, vision, and goals. AMI assists families in organizing and conducting family meetings that are rich in content, as well as positive in spirit and atmosphere. Every aspect of the event, from location to meetings, speakers, leisure activities, menu and documentation, are well designed in order to perfectly match the family’s heritage and vision.

Dr. Orenia Yanai has developed unique tools and techniques in the area of career diagnosis and development. She is a therapist and a guide of personal quests focusing on careers and callings of individuals, couples and partners. Her book “Every Person Has A Path” has been on the best selling book list in Israel, since its first publication. Dr. Yanai holds a B.A. in Psychology and Semitic Languages, an M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Tel Aviv University and a Ph.D. in Psychology from London University. She has lectured at Tel Aviv University, The Hebrew University, London and Munich Universities;...

Disagreements are an inseparable aspect of a complex, multi-dimensional system such as a family business. This is a well known secret! We encourage families to welcome disagreements and to turn crises into opportunities. We help family members to acquire communication skills, resolve past tensions and uncover the the sources of the conflict. At this point the road toward new solutions is clear and family members can restore trust and respect among them.

Making a decision to sell a family business and carrying out the process while keeping family relations intact is a challenge that requires professional guidance. Likewise, investors wishing to invest in a family-owned business would profit from a due diligence process that assesses the internal make-up of the business including ownership, management, organizational culture and the potential for partnership. AMI works with business owners and investors alike to bring the selling of a family business to a successful and fruitful finish for both sides.

Board of Directors and Family Councils are necessary governance systems, which provide responsible management of the family and the business, and protect one from the other. We guide our clients through the process of establishing governance systems, help them select external board members and accompany the Board and the Council through the launch period.

Once clear differentiation has been created between ownership, management and family, AMI assists its clients in deciding on the Board's composition, finding external members to serve on the Board and monitoring the launch of the Board of Director.

For the business to grow and continue to provide for the family's growing needs it should constantly upgrade its management tools and personnel. We get involved in the design of management training programs, organization structures and managerial processes. We help family businesses to successfuly introduce non-family CEO's, when the family is ready for it.

AMI helps to create balance between each individual family members’ strong commitment to the family business together with their personal skills and aspirations which always poses a serious challenge for family members. Dr. Yanai’s unique method for career development leads family members in exploring options and making choices.

AMI conducts 1-2 days workshops, designed for the owners and their families. In the comfortable atmosphere of a retreat, away from their everyday stresses, they discuss issues of continuity, estate planning, future ownership and future development of the business. Often these workshops are remembered as the turning point in the life of the family and the owners. Once the direction is clear and agreed upon, the journey can take off.

AMI helps to set in motion written agreements that monitor the family’s conduct on issues of governance, ownership, and continuity. Establishing agreements like these are critical in creating harmony within the family and within its business relations. AMI facilitates the process of formulating family agreements while creating family consensus around the essential issues.

Young and not-so-young family members are often torn between their deep commitment to the family business, and their desire to fulfill their own dreams and talents. Dr. Yanai's unique methodology for personal development, helps family members consider options, make choices and continue to develop their career, inside or outside of the family business.

Two partners – whether they are siblings or friends that decided to start a business together at a young age have built special and intimate relationship: "We share secrets that we wouldn't even tell our spouses". They know each other's abilities very well, and their weaknesses, too. They complement each other, share challenges and achievements, accompany each other in choosing spouses and having children, rejoice in moving to a new house, support in the illness and death of parents and suffer the children's "growing pains" together. They are absorbed in the momentum of activity....

Can the quality of a sibling's partnership be predicted? We believe it can! A partnership of brothers or sisters is a partnership of destiny. They are born to the same family, with different genders and in a certain order: an older and younger brother, the second brother and fourth sister, five brothers, two sisters, twins, etc. This (imposed, if you will) partnership of destiny, grows and evolves in the family. Some siblings are closer than others. Between some siblings, abysses of pain may develop – which are expressed as infinite rage, permanent hatred and a continuous fight. In most...

A recent study of the differences between entrepreneurs and managers of family-owned businesses (Yanai, Yanai & Milo, 2007), concluded that entrepreneurs and managers tend to come from different family environments, that they had distinct motivations and passion quests and that the consulting process for these two groups should be equally distinctive. These findings supported the notion that family dynamics reveal people’s core emotional pain, which drives their personal quests and motivation, and leads to the roads along which they develop the legacies of past generations (Yanai, Yanai & Milo,...

In an international family business conference, held in Bilbao, Spain in 2002, Dr. Yanai & Dr Milo presented a live case, showing how families could use internal conflicts as a catalyst for change. In this workshop family members told the history of their conflict and were guided in a process that led them to a renewed dialogue in the family and the business. View this slide presentation to learn more about the importance of conflicts and some constructive ways to handle them.