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.

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

Family Businesses Can Learn From the Battling Brothers of Oasis

Employees With Toxic Traits Can Still Be An Asset at Family Firms

'Performance-Enhancing Vices': Good for Business, Bad for Relationships

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

Family History Can Be Repurposed to Serve Today's Challenges

by Christina Lubinski and William Gartner / Research Insight

Family firms often frame their history as a tale of generations (e.g., first, second, third – generation). This approach has become so ingrained in how we think about family and organizational Read more...

How Do Owners of Family Business Portfolios Restructure Poorly Performing Firms?

by Marina Palm, Vanessa Diaz Moriana, and Nadine Kammerlander / Research Insight

Families can get emotionally attached to laggards in their portfolios and avoid taking tough but necessary action, putting the entire enterprise in peril. Read more...

Academy of Management Honors FamilyBusiness.org Editor Kimberly Eddleston

by Catherine Buday / Commentary

The award recognizes her role in launching and growing the world's leading website for supporting and educating family businesses. Read more...

With Women Directors, Strategy Disclosure Decreases Cost of Capital at Family Businesses

by Rafaela Gjergji, Luigi Vena, Giovanna Campopiano, Salvatore Sciascia, and Alessandro Cortesi / Research Insight

Family firms face higher borrowing costs than non-family firms if they disclose strategic information, but having women on their boards helps them narrow the gap. Read more...

by Joseph Astrachan and Claudia Binz Astrachan

Future Family Business Owners Can Learn to Manage Conflict

by Ritch Sorenson

The Biggest Mistakes Family Businesses Make With Their Boards

by Kimberly Eddleston

Retirement Options and their Consequences for Small Business Owners

by Valeria Alterman and Ariane Froidevaux

How to Run a Family Business Successfully

by Kerry Hannon

How to Plan for a Successful Succession

by Richard Eisenberg