Learning in the Classroom and Beyond

August 18, 2025 - Issue #148

Family Business Professors: 40 Ways to Energize Your Class These free classroom exercises, interviews and other resources will add new energy, fun and inspiration to your students' course work.

What Family Firms Can Teach Us About Work-Life Balance Blurring work and personal lives can lead to stress and exhaustion. Family businesses do these four things to create healthier boundaries.

Family Firms: The Time to Learn About AI is Now Like the telephone or the internet, AI is here to stay, and we need to learn how to work with it.

Helping Next-Gens Envision Their Family Firm’s Future Success This classroom exercise seeks to motivate future family firm leaders to think ahead and design a holistic vision of their family firm in 10-15 years, covering many different (and potentially conflicting) aspects of it.

Growing Pains: Helping a Family Office to Evolve The Single Family Office should be a strategic partner that ensures future stability, but this family saw them as a piggybank.

The Psychology of Effective Exit Planning: A Guide for Families and Advisors Family firms can help the next generation move forward by understanding and supporting the emotional aspects of the exit for the current leader.

Team Exercise: How Parenting Styles Affect The Next Generation This experiential exercise is designed to enhance student learning about the four parenting styles and how they affect the dynamics within the family firm.

ESG Essentials For Family Firms ‘ESG is an existential issue. Businesses that don’t demonstrate their commitment to sustainable practices could be punished by consumers, the media and even regulators.’

CEOs Who've Been Mentored Achieve Better Financial Results Family firms where the departing CEO has mentored the successor enjoyed stronger return on assets.

A New Way to Resolve Extreme Conflict in Family Businesses Family members may feel “trapped” in conflicts, unable to resolve substantive issues without damaging their familial relationships. This often leads to disputes that persist for decades.

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.

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Learn to Defend Your Family Firm

What Business Owners Can Learn From World War II Strategic Bombing

Addressing Substance Use Disorders in a Family Enterprise

Cross-Generational Partnerships Can Be Magical for Business

Popular Topics

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Recent

6 Questions to Ask Before Creating a Family Business Board

by Pedro Vazquez, Isabel C Botero, and Miguel Méndez / Research Insight

As your family business grows, informal decision-making may no longer be enough. These six questions can help you decide when and how to strengthen governance. Read more...

Before You Create a Family Office, Prepare the Next Generation

by Dennis Oteng / Commentary

A full family office may not be the first step. Strong governance can prepare younger family members to steward wealth long before a crisis forces the issue. Read more...

Why Family Businesses Shouldn't Always Listen to Wall Street

by Douglas Hassell and Kimberly Eddleston / Applied and Practice

What Nordstrom, Mars, Dillard's and Patagonia can teach family businesses about ownership structure Read more...

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...

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

Will Your Family Brand Survive New Leadership?

by Meghan Lynch

How Family Businesses Can Avoid Conflict Between Family and Business Roles

by Kerry Hannon