The following guest post was provided by business coach and professor, Dr. Julie Morton of Conscious Legacy Coaching. She assists family businesses to remove barriers and achieve a collective vision: Julie A. Morton PhD In family businesses, relationships are complex and agendas may be conflicting. Healthy, high functioning relationships are predicated upon 'Trust'. However, as many families know all too well -- especially those in business together -- just because two people are members of the same family, or family business, in no way guarantees that Trust exists or is maintained between or among these individuals. Worldwide statistics indicate that where family members are in business together, in generation after generation, in country after country, family members often experience a falling-out, distancing, or severing of family and business relationships. Family ties are especially fragile at times surrounding organizational succession. Why? People stop trusting one another. What it looks like when trust breaks down: Believing the person with whom you are interacting is (at best) working on his own personal agenda or (at worst) trying to hurt you; Having strained family events or a total inability to socialize together. When families come to me they are often experiencing the effects of a ' Crisis of Trust' . They wonder how their relationships can ever be repaired and talk with bafflement and wonder at how their relationships reached such a state. But this doesn't mean Trust cannot be re-established. The way to begin is through 'Trust Conversations'. The four behavioral elements of