The Family Business Succession Handbook
A practical guide to succession planning for the 21st century
The original Family Business Succession Handbook, published in 1997, was so successful that every copy was sold. This completely revised edition, featuring up-to-the-minute content, serves as a critical guide to the many issues that arise when a family-owned firm looks to transfer leadership to the next generation. This all-new handbook includes advice from leading family business researchers and consultants as well as real-life family business leaders.
“The Family Business Succession Handbook is an indispensable resource for family business owners. The information explores all aspects of the succession process — from initial planning through installing a well-prepared leader in the role of family business owner—as well as the many issues such a transition generates among all family members. The real-world experiences included in the profiles are invaluable.”
—Dick Emens, Executive Director, Conway Family Business Center of Central Ohio
“The topics in The Family Business Succession Handbook cover a wide range of issues for many stages of corporate development. The handbook format is extremely user-friendly, as it is very easy for readers to find the situations they are interested in.”
—Larry Colin, Principal, Faminomic$ LLC, Alpharetta, GA; co-author of Family, Inc. and advisory board member, Stetson University Family Enterprise Center
The Family Business Shareholder’s Handbook
The Complete Resource for Effective Active and Inactive Shareholder Dealings
The 124 page Family Business Shareholder's Handbook focuses on helping active and inactive family company owners to understand and work effectively with each other. The 11th in our series of acclaimed Handbooks, The Family Business Shareholder's Handbook covers such important topics as:
- Boards of directors and family councils
- Resolving conflicts over investing in the business vs. paying shareholder dividends
- Including the whole family in setting important governance policies
- Shareholder valuation
The Family Business Policies & Procedures Handbook
Practical, step-by-step advice on sustaining your company for future generations
The Family Business Policies & Procedures Handbook offers tools and tips for owners and managers of family firms, as well as real-life examples of how the strategies have been implemented in successful family companies, and why they worked so well. Topics addressed include:
- Developing a family employment policy
- Choosing and training a successor
- Establishing a family council and board of directors
- Planning strategically for the future of the business and the family
- Managing shareholder relations
"As an owner/operator of a family business, I found the laser focus on the critical issues facing all family businesses, coupled with the practical and tactical ‘how to' outlines, a compelling feature of this new resource for the field.... This manual of best practices for family businesses and families of wealth is a ‘must-have' for all constituent interests that serve or are themselves members of family enterprises."
—Dirk Jungé, Chairman, Pitcairn Financial Group, Jenkintown and St. Davids, Pa.
"The Family Business Policies & Procedures Handbook is a helpful resource for anyone who is in, works with, or studies family businesses. The Family Business Magazine folks have taken the time to search the literature for the best, most accessible articles and then organized them around topics most relevant to family businesses and their advisers."
-Greg McCann, Professor and director, Family Business Center, Stetson University, Deland, Fla.
The Family Business Mentoring Handbook
Who do you envision leading your family business 25 years from now? Your son? Daughter? Niece or nephew? An in-law? Perhaps a non-family employee? The most critical challenge facing your family business is smart succession planning. That's why it's important that you have the foresight to intelligently prepare the next generation for the leadership reins of your family's company.
From discovering the principles of mentoring to preparing for succession, The Family Business Mentoring Handbook offers valuable insights and ideas on being an effective mentor-as well as advice to the next generation on being successful protégés.
As the family business leader, it's imperative that you begin laying the groundwork for seamless succession planning. Do you know that the Family Firm Institute estimates that fewer than a third of all U.S. family businesses survive into the second generation? All too often it's because of bad planning. The most respected family business specialists as well as successful family business owners offer their succession methods and mentoring techniques in this comprehensive, real-life guide.
"Through this book, you have access to the greatest minds in the family business arena."
—Richard C. Snebold, Jr., Co-founder, The Family Business Center at Citizens National Bank
The Family Business Conflict Resolution Handbook
The guide for achieving consensus in your family and your company
Even the closest families have disagreements. Even the best-run businesses experience discord. So it's not surprising that family businesses - with their mix of older and younger generations, active and inactive shareholders, family and non-family employees - are ripe for conflict. It's simply inevitable.
Given this, how can your business family manage its disparities in a way that brings stakeholders closer together instead of driving them apart? How can you develop a systematic way of addressing hot-button issues before they hamper your company's progress? How, in fact, can you transform conflict into a positive force that sparks improvements in your company's bottom line?
The Family Business Conflict Resolution Handbook has the answers for you. It's a comprehensive "how-to" manual that captures the best advice from both top-flight experts and real-life family business owners on these critical issues.
The Family Business Growth Handbook
Strategies and Techniques for Increasing Revenues, Profits and Shareholder Value
Featuring the best thinking of top experts and experienced business leaders, The Family Business Growth Handbook covers every aspect of growing revenues and earnings, from planning, to financing, to motivating employees and family members. It is the complete resource for all family businesses that aspire to grow further and build for the next generation.
The Handbook provides answers to the very questions that plague you most:
- Your family is getting larger every year. How can you expand the enterprise to provide jobs and dividends for all who require them?
- Your company's niche is being threatened. How can you grow in scale and market power to ensure its survival?
- Your business and family face an imminent leadership transition. How can you meet the income needs of the retiring older generation without depriving successors of the cash required to run the business?
Whether you want to grow by developing new products, making an acquisition, or simply expanding sales, you will find a wealth of practical suggestions and noteworthy examples in this authoritative guide from the publishers of Family Business Magazine.
The Family Business Compensation Handbook
Practical and Perceptive Advice on Rewarding and Motivating Family and Non-family Employees
- How can our family members' expectations and jealousies be openly addressed so fair, rational pay systems can be developed?
- How can we reward family members for their contributions to the business in a way that won't result in favoritism charges from non-family employees?
- How can our company design incentives to attract top talent without giving away the family legacy?
- How can we establish equitable pay for siblings and cousins who contribute most to the business without alienating the others?
When you face questions like these, where do you find the answers? Your trade association doesn't have them. Neither does your local Chamber of Commerce. Traditional sources of compensation advice and data simply don't address the very compensation issues that are most crucial to family companies.
The Family Business Compensation Handbook provides expert counsel on moving beyond seat-of-the-pants compensation decisions to develop comprehensive pay policies that reflect family goals and reinforce business strategy. Designed for frequent and easy reference, the 172-page Handbook is written expressly for company owners, managers and advisers. Without question, it will help you understand -- and successfully resolve -- the quandaries you face when designing and implementing family company compensation.
Building Strong Family Teams
The Complete Resource for Creating and Sustaining Effective Sibling, Cousin, Husband-Wife, and Executive and Employee Teams
Building Strong Family Teams focuses on the challenges in creating effective co-leadership teams in a family business. Comprehensive and packed with real-life examples, it provides proven techniques and practical models that will increase the power of teamwork throughout the company. Its 170+ pages covers such critical questions as:
- How to determine titles, roles, and fair compensation in a sibling partnership
- What rules and governance structures are needed to foster teamwork among cousins
- How husbands and wives divide responsibilities in the business and keep home and office lives separate
- How to build executive management teams and employee work teams.
The Family Business Leadership Handbook
The Complete Resource for Improving Your Leadership Skills and Developing Leaders in Your Family and Business
The Family Business Leadership Handbook is specifically designed to help business owners unleash the power that strong leadership can bring to a family company. Its 164 pages cover the topic's complete range of issues: the nature of leadership, leadership in the business, leadership in the family, selecting the next leaders, developing leaders, different forms of leadership including sibling partnerships and cousin coalitions, leading the top management team, leading change in the organization, where leaders go for advice and support, and leadership and public image.
The Family Business Management Handbook
The Complete Resource for Building and Managing a Family-Owned Company
The Family Business Management Handbook is dedicated to helping business owners manage the complex interaction between family and enterprise as they strive to create a more efficient, profitable and harmonious company. The 120-page Handbook is a comprehensive "how-to" manual that distills the best advice of an array of top-flight experts and real-life family business managers. The selections have been carefully culled from the pages of Family Business, the quarterly magazine written exclusively for family business owners and the professionals who serve them.
Financial Management of Your Family Company
The Indispensable Resource for Managing a Family Firm's Finances
Family business owners have very special management imperatives. Establishing a solid financial system, or raising capital, or setting compensation rates in a family company are NOT the same tasks as in a public company or in a private company that is not family owned. This is why we have published Financial Management of Your Family Company.
Written expressly for family business owners, their family members, employees and consultants, its 184 pages are chock-full of highly practical advice from experts and owners who truly understand the unique world of family business finances.
Family Business Handbooks
The Family Business Succession Handbook
The Family Business Shareholder’s Handbook
The Family Business Policies & Procedures Handbook
The Family Business Mentoring Handbook
The Family Business Conflict Resolution Handbook
The Family Business Growth Handbook
The Family Business Compensation Handbook
The Family Business Leadership Handbook
The Family Business Management Handbook
Financial Management of Your Family Company