Tips for Sustaining Ownership

Listen to David Bentall as he outlines four measures that a family business can take in order to increase their chances of being successful in succession planning. In a family business, it is important to have an independent board of directors, to set up frequent family meetings, to create shared visions and to engage in formalized strategic planning. Though family business founders may be resistant to initiate various changes, many of these changes ultimately result in greater success for the family business.

David Bentall (1) Ironically, my uncle started studying family business. He started studying family business in his 40’s and 50’s, and he realized there were things family enterprises could do in order to increase the chances of them being successful in continuity planning. He learned that it would be a good idea to have a board of directors with outside, independent members – we didn’t have that. He learned it would be helpful to have regular family meetings – we didn’t do that. He learned that it would be good for the owners to get together to talk about what their vision was for the future – we didn’t do that. He learned that it would be helpful if they had formalized strategic planning – we did none of those things. And as he tried to induce my father in his 70’s to add this layer of complexity and governance, my father was highly resistant. The irony was that those four things might have enabled my dad to preserve his vision of a family that would carry on for generations.