The family business experts gathered by the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED) and IESE on 11 May in Barcelona in the academic session “Mejora de la viabilidad de las empresas familiares” (Improving the viability of family businesses) agreed to highlight the need for these companies to have a diagnosis and a protocol of anticipated action to solve any crisis of the model before suffering its consequences.

Guillermo Perkins, an IAE professor at the Austral University of Argentina, explained that he works precisely on the concretion of a model “very new, which indicates where the problems can go and, from there, fix the tools to help the family in its unity, especially to bring the latest generations of society to join their interests”.

For Ricardo Aparicio, a professor at the PanAmerican University of Mexico, “in the face of a crisis of disunity it’s important for families to anticipate possible allies in a timely manner that can help societies break down. Which have high costs and must be avoided”.

Arlette Urrea, a professor at the University of Costa Rica, emphasized the need to specify “the fundamental basis of why the union is formed so that we can move forward and what are the conditions that favor this union to put it before any crisis”.

Finally, Miguel Ángel Gallo, professor emeritus of IESE, full academician of the RAED and president of its Senate, alerted on the main reasons that generate the crisis of the family business model, on which the society must have a specific impact. “Ignorance is one of the main ones -he pointed out-. There are many times that family business managers have little knowledge. Another enemy is malice, cunning, because there are family members who aren’t as good as they should be. s iImportant to establish mechanisms to detect and avoid these behaviors in time”.

The session was conducted and moderated by Joan Francesc Corona, director of the Spanish Institute of Family Business and full academician of the RAED.