8 Insights from Long-Lasting Global Enterprising Families
After an entrepreneur or wealth creator has developed a successful business or family wealth, what is the next act? They often believe that the important work is already done. All they expect from their children and successors is that they don’t waste or lose it. Is that really enough? Or are there important tasks ahead for the generations that follow.
Caught in the Crossfire - The Bridge Generation in Cross-Cultural Family Enterprises
Rishi Patel felt caught in the middle. His very traditional father, Jagdish Patel, had founded a small pharmaceutical company in India which had expanded in size and reach until the family achieved prosperity far beyond any initial expectations. He now expected the family enterprise to pass eventually to Rishi’s two sons and daughter – Jagdish’s grandchildren – who were currently either in university or graduate programs in London, excelling in the sciences or law.
Engaging Your Children in Management of Family Wealth or Business
After building a successful business, founders often shift to concern about passing it on to their “rising” generation heirs. How will the family wealth affect them?
From Traditional to Blended Cultures
Cultures in different regions of the world generate various patterns influencing business families as they integrate personal relationships, parenting, and commerce.
Fourth Culture Rising
In the 21st-century environment for business and wealth, families are rapidly converging in their values, behaviour and way of life. This convergence does not always proceed without conflict, however.
Why the Second Generation Can Make or Break Your Family Business
While the traditional view of family business is that first-generation (G1) business founders are the entrepreneurial dynamos whose work and energy drift away in subsequent generations, the Rockefellers’ story demonstrates that the second generation of a family business doesn’t have to live in the shadow of the first generation.
Introducing the Next Generation Family Champion
Timo Recker is a 29-year-old third generation family member of a successful German meat production company. While the business is successful and growing, he knows that meat production is costly to the food chain, and, more people can be fed if they eat fewer meat products. He wanted to do something that leveraged the skills within his family, which also help create a sustainable future.
Succession Begins on the First Day of Work
By using the ‘four phases of succession’ a family business owner can pinpoint precisely where the business is and then smoothen the transition to the next generation. But the key is to take painstaking care during the early phases.
Family Business as a Model for Sustainability and Social Responsibility
Our study has interviewed family owners of nearly 50 large family enterprises, many of them lasting more than a century so far, who have passed their values and legacy across several generations. They have seen a shift in the past two generations from paternalistic leaders, who ran the business for the family members, to greater engagement and participation by increasing numbers of family owners who are creating an active community of family owners who use the family wealth and enterprise to express shared values and fulfill obligations to current and future generations and communities. They have moved from paternalistic management to a more democratic, engaged and participatory form.
