15 Oct Building Bridges Between Generations in the Family Business
The longest suspension bridge may not be the Mackinac or the Golden Gate, but rather the span between generations in a family business. More often than not, the emphasis in succession planning begins with the senior generation and their pressing concerns. When do they plan to exit? How will they see a return on their investment? How will tax and estate issues be handled? These and many other issues naturally receive a great deal of attention. But as a successor, your role is every bit as critical. Here are five ways that successors can help build the bridge in a smooth transition.
Show Respect for the Past
Many successors are the children of parents who founded or inherited a business. Growing up in a family company, it’s easy to take your parents’ success for granted. Remember that their story is a basis for your learning. Their hard work has planted the seeds for your future opportunities.
Take Responsibility for the Future
As a future leader, take responsibility for your own development. Ask for feedback on your strengths and shortcomings. Find mentors who can help guide and encourage you in the transition. Connect with other successors like you, who may be experiencing some of the same challenges.
Know the Business
You may have grown up with business talk around the dinner table, but do you understand the business like the back of your hand? Have you worked in different roles? Do you fully understand company operations? What about your knowledge of the industry and about business in general? There’s a lot to know, before you can lead.
Be a Good Steward
As a successor, do your part now to protect all of your family’s assets, human, physical and financial. Maintain the highest standards. Work on your relationships. Live within your means. Set an example that others want to follow. You may be about to inherit a business, but leadership is earned.
Exercise Patience
The transition from one generation to the next takes time. Years even. Weaving together multiple transitions – ownership, leadership, management, business, family and personal – isn’t a sprint. The goal is a seamless transition over time, not a sudden jump from one place to the next.
And that’s where bridges come in. As a successor you’re in a unique position to help span the gap between one era of leadership and the next. You have energy and new ideas. You’re looking toward the future. You have a stake in it. If you’re part of the next generation of a business family, work on your role in the transition, just as hard as you’ll work on the business when it’s your time to lead.
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.
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.