Exit

There comes a moment in some sibling- and cousin-consortia when consensus no longer forms and co-habitation becomes untenable. At that point, the problem is no longer strategic. It is constitutional. The question is not what the company should do next, but whether those who own it can still exercise authority together within one institutional order.

Families often resist this moment. Unity is treated as virtue and separation as failure. Yet continuity does not depend on permanent ownership. It depends on coherence. When co-ownership produces paralysis, silent vetoes, and conflict over decision-rights, authority stops being allocated. What looks like family disagreement becomes governance breakdown.

Beneath this lies the tension between emotion and reason, between inherited history and present responsibility. Families unravel when memory outweighs judgment, when old grievances harden into governance, and when no one can translate plurality into direction. Leadership is not managerial skill. It is the capacity to hold emotion without being governed by it, and to articulate a horizon strong enough to discipline agendas while preserving dignity.

External capital is sometimes imagined as a remedy. Capital is never neutral. It brings rules, disciplines, and accountability. Investors read not only balance-sheets, but the human architecture behind them.

Where shareholders cannot arbitrate conflict or stabilize authority, risk is embedded in governance. Valuation discounts not only performance, but trust.

Public markets do not absorb incoherence. They expose it, and they price governance-risk accordingly.

Across these paths runs a principle investors apply quietly: capital follows governance, and governance follows leadership. Financial strength cannot compensate for institutional fragility.

Beyond motives and memories, what remains is the enterprise. The test is survival and renewal: can it recover coherence, regain direction, and remain among the strongest? Exit, then, is not retreat but re-allocation. When co-habitation exhausts governance, the decisive act is to re-design ownership and authority so the business is no longer hostage to competing 'ME', but anchored again in a viable 'WE'.

W.