Family Transition Memo

There have been many transformations, both personally and professionally, that have taken place in the Gupta family recently. The family and business have done an exceptional job adapting to the changes thus far. However, the transition that is about to take place, as you step into your new role could be more difficult for everyone to adjust to. This memo is going to address what should and should not be done during this transition, recommend an action plan that will improve overall chances of success for changes in the business, and recommend best practices that all family business should work towards implementing.

Stepping into a management role can be difficult for anyone who has been with a company for an extended period of time. The transition

Another transition that raises concern to this issue is Karan stepping up as the CEO of the company. These changes in upper-level management are going to bring about people trying to establish themselves within the business and their new role. There is nothing wrong with any member of an organization trying to establish themselves in their role or to have high goals, however, these things often lead to making unnecessary changes to the business. With your ambitions of becoming a top five player in the industry, change and growth are going to be inevitable, but in order to allow these changes, there will need to be some change in the business culture. In order to allow the smoothest possible culture change, as the new leaders are stepping up, there are four steps that should be followed. First, challenge the status quo, this can be done by asking fundamental question and collecting external data to create a dissatisfaction with the status quo. Second, take an external perspective, focus on the customer and the competition. Third, the leaders need to have a vision of where the company should be going, which you do (move the business towards becoming a top five player). Finally, there needs to be a sense of urgency developed, while avoiding attempting to do too

In order for this transition to be as smooth as possible I recommend implementing a consensus/ collaborative decision-making method. The consensus method includes receiving input from important decision makers in a company. This method makes it impossible to receive input from every employee, but if you include key decision makers (Karan, Sumit, and yourself) and lower level management who work with the employees and ask the employees their opinion, it is possible to receive “buy-in” from the employees. The “buy-in” of employees is going to be generated from a sense of inclusion where everyone feels included in the decision, egalitarianism where the input of everyone is weighted the same (even though the employees are not directly involved, their opinion is still considered through the management representatives). The company might be hesitant to implement this decision-making method because of common misconceptions. The most common misconceptions about consensus that I see are; everyone has to be in full agreement, it takes too long, and consensus cannot be reached without the decision being everyone’s first choice. If you would like to discuss these misconceptions more or how to overcome them, feel free to contact