Our Best Advice for the Year Ahead

December 18, 2023 - Issue #104

An Innovation Challenge Can Help Employees Feel More Connected A Minneapolis-based firm challenged employee teams to design and build something that would help people in their local community.

Everyday Gratitude in Times of Uncertainty Gratitude leads to better relationships and encourages loyalty among our colleagues. This popular 2020 article has been updated for today's challenges.

Master Three Perilous Stages of Family Business Transition Avoiding these minefields before, during, and after succession will help both your business and your relationships. Leave your own thoughts here!

Keep the Founder's Entrepreneurial Spirit Alive in Future Generations While entrepreneurship often creates the family's wealth, making it part of the family culture and legacy is another matter entirely. Here's how.

Generative AI Can Help Family Businesses Innovate and Grow Technology can now take care of mundane tasks, and give people more time for satisfying, impactful work that requires creativity, emotional intelligence and empathy.

Why Don't You Educate Your Owners? Everyone agrees that families should train members to become competent owners and stewards of the family business – but few of them actually walk the talk.

Diverse Boards Help Family Businesses Expand Internationally Pushing into new markets across geographic borders requires a family business to be more focused on possibilities…and this is where boards can make the difference.

How to Avoid Family Business Disasters

How Family Businesses Survive Unexpected ‘Wild Cards’ From government upheaval to COVID, Poland has dealt with many devastating events over the past 30 years. Fifteen family firms told us how they survived it all.

Seven Things to Consider Before Selling the Family Firm Former family business owners shared their experiences in this panel discussion hosted by the University of St. Thomas's Family Business Center.

Will Your In-Laws Help or Hurt Your Family Business? As the Gucci and royal families show, in-laws can complicate things. Here's how family businesses can benefit from their perspectives and minimize conflict.

Search & Save Enter search below to create an easy reading list

It’s Complicated: Managing Succession in Cases of Divorce and Adoption

6 Questions to Ask Before Creating a Family Business Board

Before You Create a Family Office, Prepare the Next Generation

Why Family Businesses Shouldn't Always Listen to Wall Street

Popular Topics

Money

Financing, revenue, profits

Team

Staffing, succession, relationships

Manage

Best practices for running the business

Grow

Increase customers and revenue

Strategy

Making better decisions

Operations

How the best firms run

Recent

Selling the Family Business? Prepare the Family for What Comes Next

by Susana Quintás / Applied and Practice

A business sale changes more than ownership. Families must also rethink governance, roles, wealth, identity, and purpose after the company is gone. Read more...

How Family Business Succession Shapes Innovation in the Next Generation

by Ludovica Del Barone, Maria Annosi, Filomena Buonocore, and Evelyn Micelotta / Research Insight

Research on 16 family businesses reveals why some successors build on the previous generation’s innovations while others rarely or never innovate. Read more...

When Political Differences Threaten the Family Business

by Paul Edelman / Practice Insight

Political differences can turn dangerous when family members begin dismissing one another’s business judgment based on political identity. Read more...

Why Every Family Business Leader Needs a Peer Group

by Justin Smith / Applied and Practice

More than 300 peer-group meetings show what happens when family business leaders have a trusted place to talk with people who truly understand their challenges. Read more...

by Joseph Astrachan and Claudia Binz Astrachan

Let the Next Generation of Family Firm Leaders Chart Their Own Path

by Klaus Lüber and Nadine Kammerlander

5 Practical Tips for Making Business Decisions With Family Members

by Rostyslav Vovk

Things to Consider When Transferring Family Business Ownership

by Susan Lanz, Gary Burke, Kajsa Haag, and Omid Omidvar

How Family Businesses Can Avoid Conflict Between Family and Business Roles

by Kerry Hannon

Will Your Family Brand Survive New Leadership?

by Meghan Lynch