Family Businesses
Where the business and the family meet,
GLAS brings clarity.
For family businesses, owner-managed enterprises, family offices and family-like partnerships navigating the complexity of people, legacy and growth. GLAS is the family business operating system
The insights, research, and tools we offer apply to all types of organisations navigating the overlap between family and business.
Beyond the 3-circle model — what actually drives a family business
The traditional models of family business consulting show you where people sit and where tensions may arise. They have value. But seeing the system is one thing. Knowing what to do within it is another.
GLAS goes deeper — into the human operating system that drives how a family business actually operates. Identity that is tied to role and history. Relationships that carry decades of meaning. Decisions that hold commercial, emotional and relational weight simultaneously. Purpose that different generations hold in different ways.
When this system is unclear or out of balance, the patterns are familiar — decisions that don't quite land, conversations that circle, roles that blur, tension that sits underneath everything, history that shapes today in ways nobody has named.
GLAS reveals that system, designs it deliberately, and gives the whole family — and the business — a foundation to move forward from.
"Family businesses can teach us everything we need to know about life. It's not just family businesses that need to consider succession, it's every organisation, person and family; or to put it another way, ensuring sustainable success for the future is imperative."
Dani Saveker - CEO & Founder (The GLAS Group)
Magazine cover 2004 - Dani with the first product she designed for her family’s business.
This is not a framework built in a boardroom. GLAS grew from Dani Saveker's own experience as a fourth-generation family business member — running, restructuring and ultimately closing a 106-year-old business. She has lived the complexity this work addresses.
The GLAS Method®
The 7 elements:
What every family business needs defined
Every family business operates across seven interconnected elements. Most are partially defined at best. The GLAS Method® gives each one structure, language and intentional design — so the system holds across generations, not just in good times.
-
Identity
01
Know who you are - and where you have come from. Clarify the values, story and strengths that connect generations and anchor how the family and business move forward. Identity in a family business is rarely just the brand. It is history, character and the unspoken rules that shape every decision. -
Relate
02
Keep relationships honest and healthy - especially the difficult ones. Trust, boundaries and clear expectations across family members, non-family leaders and the business as a whole. The quality of relationships in a family business determines almost everything else. -
Activity & Results
03
Align roles, responsibilities and effort so that work creates momentum rather than friction. Clarity about who does what, what matters most right now, and how the business delivers on its priorities — without the confusion that blurred boundaries create. -
External Impact
04
Understand the exchange between your business and the world around it - clients, stakeholders, markets and community. How your reputation is shaped by who you are as a family, and how external change creates both pressure and opportunity. -
Purpose
05
Stay connected to your why - as a family and as a business. Purpose is what holds across generations when everything else is changing. It is the compass for decisions about succession, sale, growth and legacy. -
Leading
06
Share leadership with clarity, governance and care. Who holds authority, how decisions are made, how the next generation is developed — and how the business moves forward without depending on one person's knowledge, relationships or energy. -
Motivation
07
Understand what drives each person - and what drains them. Different generations carry different ambitions, values and needs. When motivation is understood rather than assumed, the business can sustain energy and commitment across everyone involved.
What GLAS brings that no other adviser does
Legal advisers can structure ownership. Accountants can model the numbers. Wealth managers can protect assets. What none of them can do is reveal the human system underneath the business — the dynamics, patterns, relationships and identity questions that determine whether any of that advice actually sticks.
GLAS works in the space that formal advisers cannot reach. Not instead of them — alongside them. The Blueprint creates a foundation that makes every other piece of advice more effective, more aligned and more likely to hold when pressure arrives.
We work with the whole system — family members in and out of the business, non-family leaders, boards and ownership groups. With individuals and with the collective. With the generation handing over and the generation stepping up.
The result is a more honest, more aligned and more confident family business — one where the human side of the enterprise is as well-designed as the legal and financial structure.
Succession, transition and future-proofing
Succession is not just about exit plans and ownership structures. It is about what happens to the identity, relationships, purpose and leadership of a business when the people who built it begin to step back.
Done well, it is one of the most significant opportunities a family business has — to clarify what it stands for, strengthen the next generation, and build something that lasts beyond any individual. Done poorly, or left until it is forced, it is one of the greatest risks.
GLAS brings structure and sensitivity to this process. We work with families at every stage — exploring options, preparing the next generation, navigating the emotional complexity of transition, and designing the foundation the business will operate from in its next chapter.
The GLAS Blueprint is particularly powerful here. It becomes the document that captures the family's values, governance approach, leadership intent and purpose — giving everyone involved clarity about what is being passed on, and what that means in practice.
Whether you are planning five years ahead or navigating something that is already in motion, GLAS provides the framework, the neutrality and the partnership to turn uncertainty into confident direction.
How we work with family businesses
Every engagement is shaped around the family and business we are working with. The following reflects the most common ways we work — either individually or in combination.
Ready to talk about your family business?
We start with a conversation — about where the business is, what is working, what is not, and whether GLAS is the right fit. No pitch, no proposal. Just an honest discussion about what you are navigating and how we might help.
-
The starting point. A structured process that surfaces how the family business is actually operating across all seven GLAS elements — where things are working, where they are fragile, and where the human dynamics are creating friction that is hard to name. Rated on lived reality, not aspiration. The foundation for everything that follows.
-
The single most valuable thing a family business can build. A living document that captures the family's identity, shared purpose, leadership approach, relationships, governance and direction — designed collaboratively across all seven elements and built to last across generations. Whether the business stays in the family, transitions to management or prepares for sale, the Blueprint adds emotional and financial value. It is the foundation the business operates from — and the peace of mind that comes from having it clearly defined.
-
Structured development journeys for leadership teams within family businesses - building shared language, leadership capability and alignment between family values and business strategy. Designed for both family and non-family leaders, and built to sustain momentum long after the formal programme ends.
-
A designed programme to support specific moments of transition — a founder stepping back, a new generation stepping up, a significant ownership change or a period of rapid growth. GLAS designs the programme around the transition you are navigating, combining the Blueprint process with facilitated sessions, leadership development and cultural alignment work.
-
One-to-one and group coaching grounded in the GLAS Method® — for individual family members, leadership teams, next-generation leaders and founder transitions. A neutral, trusted space to work through the questions that are too complex, too personal or too important to navigate without support. Coaching is how clarity becomes confidence, and insight becomes action.
In Search of Understanding
The work that Dani and her team have undertaken over several years, focused on building personal, relationship, business and market alignment - as well as building identity and purpose; which are essential to all family businesses.
Bourn out of the frustrations Dani felt having been fourth generation in her family’s manufacturing business, she wanted to provide the right understanding, support and inspiration.
She also felt that the existing thinking around family business was out of date and irrelevant in a fast changing world, and created FIB to tackle this. Alongside her “day job” within FIB, she continued to seek understanding around the dynamics of both families and business, both separately and combined. This research was eventually what formed the basis of GLAS; the Global Life Alignment System. To this day, Dani and her team are committed to an openness and curiosity for how the world, business and society is changing and evolving - to ensure the best and most relevant support is available to clients.
GLAS became far more than a family business tool in 2015, and is now the overarching framework for families and businesses, sports teams, wealth management, sport and nutrition, legal services and projects - to name but a few areas. We often refer to GLAS as providing the structure for infinite applications.
We still work with many family businesses (as well as clients in many other contexts), but all under the GLAS brand. This includes the option of developing the GLAS framework for other advisors to use with their clients under a licence, whether that is a family office, wealth advisors, accountancy or legal firms.
What our Clients Say
The sale of our business finally completed yesterday — and I genuinely don’t think it would have happened the way it did without your help.
Your guidance gave us the clarity and alignment to focus our efforts on the right goal at the right time. Without that, we likely wouldn’t have agreed collectively to pursue a sale, and we certainly wouldn’t have secured our valuation before COVID.
That focus and timing made all the difference — shortening the process by years and protecting the true value of what we’d built.
2nd Gen - Family Business East Midlands
Director and Shareholder
This project turned into a huge piece of work, but it’s already proving invaluable.
I truly believe it marks a turning point in our company’s history — and it’s one that you made possible. Thank you for guiding us through it.
5th Gen - Family Business West Midlands
Director and Shareholder
Working with Dani and the GLAS Method really helped us to understand and align our plans for the future as well as ensuring we were equipped to communicate better.
Dani has an experienced, calm and thoughtful approach that creates space for everyone to be heard and facilitates open and honest dialogue, with actionable outcomes. Personally, it has helped me understand my own role more clearly and given us tools to move forward together with more confidence and clarity.
Josie Morris MBE
2nd Generation CEO
The LEAPERS Club ...
Now Open ...
The LEAPERS Club ... Now Open ...
The LEAPERS Club
The Growth Lab for Bold Thinkers
Start With the Taster. Rethink Balance.
The LEAPERS Club is the online platform for the GLAS Method®, created for people who want clarity, not clichés.
If you’ve ever been told to “find work–life balance” and quietly thought, that’s not how this works, you’re in the right place.
Our entry point is simple. Join the community and receive the free Taster Playbook:
Work–Life Balance is BS.
Because balance is not about splitting your life in half. It’s about understanding energy, alignment, and proportion across what matters.
Inside the Taster, you’ll experience the LEAPS structure, Learn, Energy, Action, Processing, Shout Out, and explore how the three states of balance show up in real life: too much, too little, or just enough.
From there, you can choose your path. Stay connected as a Community Member, or
step into a focused Set (general or specialist areas) as a Club Member.
The LEAPERS Club is not about doing more. It is about seeing differently, thinking clearly, and choosing deliberately.
Specialist Sets for Family Businesses within the Leapers Club are designed to support the unique dynamics that exist when family, ownership, and leadership overlap. These Sets provide a structured space to explore decision-making, communication, succession, and long-term direction. By applying Leapers thinking to real family business challenges, they help strengthen clarity, relationships, and sustainable progress across generations.
Start with the Taster. Then decide how far you want to leap.