In the majority of my work with family business clients, I find one crucial thing to be missing, especially as they begin to look at a succession or transition. I’d like to share a personal experience dear to my heart to illustrate this. In 2018, one of my heroes, Ken Yonker, passed away at the age of 99 years young. Ken was my grandfather, and I was honored to have known him so well. He was a very important fixture in my life all the way up to the end. In early 2018- several months before Ken passed on- I was able to spend time with him over the course of a couple of days talking about his life …
Family Business Transition: How One Family Smoothly Handled a Family Member’s Exit
A couple of weeks ago in a previous blog, I shared a story about a time I was speaking at a global family business event. One of the families in attendance asked a question. They were having a challenge around a family business transition and member who wanted to exit the business against the family’s wishes Below is an example taken from my work with a client of mine. It illustrates very powerfully what can happen when the vision of each individual family member is considered in any sort of transition or family business succession. Personal details, such as names and industries, have been changed to protect the client’s privacy. Family Dynamics The Garrison’s were a two-generation family business who …