The Keys To Family Business Success - Hardcover

The authors of this book are members of the internationally renowned Aspen Family Business Group. They understand the perils faced by families in business and have developed many of the best practices used to address these perils and to help families and their business to succeed.

Amount the book's highlights are a list of questions that should be asked as part of the succession-planning process (chapter12) and advice related to financial management (in various places in the text). A helpful analogy likens a company's board to the owner of a house under construction, and the senior managers to the contractors who build the house. The readers will discover some gems that are worth highlighting for easy reference when times get rough. (Examples: "Typically in a family business one knows what the right thing to do is. The challenge is having the will to do it"; "Successors who assume leadership often become the lightning rod for unfinished business others have with their father or mother"; "Understand each person as an individual, rather than the person we think they should be.") "Remember: Hope is not a plan," the authors assert. Those preparing to move fro hope to planning should consider taking the time to do the exercises suggested in the Aspen group's book. --Excerpted from Family Business Magazine Summer 2011