INSEAD Library

Includes bibliographical references and index

Digitized

Preparing your Family Business for Strategic Change Contents Preface .............................................................................................. 1 Shorter life expectancy of strategies .............................................. 1 The Family Factor ........................................................................... 2 Part 1: Reaching Your Family Business' Strategic Potential ..... 3 The leader's job is no longer just to create strategy. The leader's job is to ensure that the organization stays fresh strategically. The difference is pmfound. Sorting through Mixed Signals ....................................................... 3 Understanding the Family Business Strategic Path ........................ 3 Getting to the Next Phase ............................................................. 10 Part 2: Demystifying Past Success................................................ 11 Once the business starts taking off, the factors that brought success tend to become institutionalized into a rigid strategy and structure. That dampens, not enhances, future growth. Unleashing Strategy and Structure ................................................ 11 Loosening Rigid Strategies ........................................................... 12 Making Change Part of Tradition ................................................. 15 Part 3: Preventing Past Business Strategy from Limiting Future Success ..............................................................................................19 Paradox: How you define your business and what brought it success determine your ability and freshness to see new ways to do business. A narrow definition of the business and its success factors can lead to paradigm paralysis. Just What Business Are You In? .................................................. 19 Getting Over Resistance to Planning............................................. 20 Developing Strategic Skills .......................................................... 23 Making Change Less Threatening ................................................ 26 Part 4: Responding to Family and Business Needs .................... 31 As the business and the family members mature, their needs, expectations and goals may conflict. It's imperative for the current leader to sort through and address these needs. The Power of Family Values .......................................................31 Reducing Personal Financial and Emotional Insecurity ................ 32 Matching Family Factors with Business Strategy .......................36 Assessing Risk Tolerance of Family Members ...........................38 Developing Stewardship ............................................................. 39 Part 5: Strategic Liberation and Renewal .................................. 43 Strategic planning is not necessarily a simple, objective process in a family business. Current and future leaders who understand this spare themselves, their managers and their families considerable frustration. New Models for Strategic Succession .........................................43 Appreciating Inherent Family Business Advantages .................. 45 Understanding Inherent Family Business Disadvantages ........... 49 Turning Disadvantages into Advantages .................................... 50 What Have You Done for the Business Lately?.......................... 51 Depersonalizing Disagreements about Succession or Strategy ...52 Getting Input from the Outside ................................................... 54 Conclusions: Getting from Here to There .................................. 57 To navigate your way to where you want to go (Phase 5), you need to know where you are now. Appendix: Exhibits of Financial Performance Over The Family Business Strategic Path .................................................................59 Index ............................................................................................... 62