01 Jun Are You Ready for Succession?
From Wal-Mart and Mars to the corner store in your neighborhood, about 90% of all U.S. businesses are family-owned or family-controlled. At any given time, a large percentage of these companies is facing a generational transition. Yet it’s reported that less than half have made concrete plans for succession.
This can be for any number of reasons. Some owners are reluctant to give up control, or to choose between successors. Some have market challenges to deal with or financial or tax implications to untangle. Issues of identity and lack of outside interests also can be a hindrance. After all, most entrepreneurs are wired to operate a business, not to hand it off to someone else.
In fact, most owners are so busy running their companies that they keep pushing succession to the back burner. They figure they’ll get to planning “when the time is right.”
But if you want to increase your chances of a successful transition, there’s really no time like the present. It takes months (or even years) of thinking, planning, communicating and doing to pass on a business. Not to mention, the next generation needs time to grow through planned development and mentoring.
You may never feel completely ready for transition, but here’s a first step you can take. Our Succession Readiness Worksheet will give you an idea of how you’re currently positioned in four areas:
Preparing the Company
Developing Your Successors
Involving the Family
Evolving Your Role
The first step in knowing where to go is knowing where you are. Just download the Succession Readiness Worksheet to get started.
Most leaders accept that at some time in the future, their time at the helm will end and the business will be given into the care of the next leader. However, just thinking about the transition can be daunting and overwhelming for the senior leader. If that weren’t enough, most owners experience their own succession just once. Tandem Partners provides the experience and professional guidance needed to move through the strategic, operational and interpersonal issues that are all a part of transition.
For families in business, success is not just measured in fiscal years, but over generations. Yet often, leaders are so focused on the day-to-day that they aren’t able to step back and focus on the issues that impact long-term sustainability. We help leadership teams assess where they are now, where they’re trying to go and how they’re going to get there. Our expertise in the areas of organizational strategy, structure, process and performance is a unique feature of our work, and integral to our transition management approach.
