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

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

How Families Can Override Emotions to Make Better Judgments

by Paul Edelman / Practice Insight

When decisions become emotionally charged, it becomes harder to think clearly just when clear thinking is needed most. Read more...

What the Public Gets Wrong About Family Businesses

by Katie Rucker / Commentary

A new study shows that insiders see ambition, innovation, and complexity, but outsiders see tradition. Bridging that divide is key to future success. Read more...

How Families Can Move From Conflict to Forgiveness

by Kimberly Eddleston / Interviews

Set boundaries clearly and often, understand your own hot buttons, and be genuinely curious about why the other side thinks the way they do. Read more...

What Japan's Oldest Businesses Can Teach Us About Longevity

by Peter Vogel / Commentary

Should longevity always be the goal? And if so, what exactly should endure—the operating company, a particular business model, or the family enterprise system itself? Read more...

by Sara Stern

How Families Can Re-Engage Reluctant Successors Without Pressure

by John Cater, Roland Kidwell, Megan Harper, and Marilyn Young

Why Do We Treat Strangers Better Than Family Members?

by Kimberly Eddleston

Listening to the Family: The Strategic Value of Surveys

by Claudia Binz Astrachan

AI in Family Business: Why Brain Capital Is Your Real Competitive Advantage

by Doug Gray, PhD

How to Run a Family Business Successfully

by Kerry Hannon