business. The challenge for Sabine and Toby was toestablish a plan and process for aligning their mindset and methods if they wanted to capture the newopportunity and become an enterprising family. There are a number of things Toby and Sabineneeded to do to ensure they were an enterprisingfamily. First, they needed to develop communication skills to have an effective dialogue. Most families assume they are able to carry on a dialoguesimply because they are a family. In actuality thefamiliarity of a family can make it very difficult tochallenge assumptions and talk about differingviews. Often families need a facilitator to help themdevelop communication skill and have a dialogue. Second, they needed to make sure their views of thefuture were the same. Families often have a vague notion of “working together,” and they assume that theywill figure the details out over time. This is a clear formula for future discontent and conflict. In reality, Tobyand Sabine had very different visions for their futures.Sabine’s vision was to enjoy her passion for breads whilebalancing growth with her lifestyle interests. Toby’s vision was to exploit his passion for breads by buildingnew businesses on the family’s reputation and skills. Third, Toby and Sabine had very different riskprofiles. What Sabine was willing to risk for futurereturns was very different from what Toby was willingto risk and the returns he desired. It is not surprisingthat the successor generation is willing to risk morethan the senior generation. The key is to keep talkinguntil you understand each other’s perspective. Onceyou understand each other you can create a businessmodel and structures that accommodate the risk profiles of both generations. Locking into one generational perspective or the other undermines thecollective strengths of a multigenerational team. Fourth, remember that timing is everything. Usually for the successors the time is now and for theseniors the time is someday . Chances are that bothgenerations will end up out of their comfort zones alittle. Toby and Sabine realized that timing was reallya strategy question of how they would proceed, notjust if or when they would proceed. Fifth, get creative. You can be sure that the finaloutcome will not look exactly as either of you envisioned. Through dialogue it became clear to Tobyand Sabine that the range of options was fairly extensive. We often tell family members to “remembertheir algebra” when it comes to dialogue. Just because “ a equals b” it doesn’t mean that “a” might notequal “c, d, or even e, f, and g.” The point is that onceyou start a true dialogue, you may find many moreoptions than you originally envisioned.