Carefully identifying and properly developing the next generation of leaders is by far the most consequential decision for any family business founder, owner, or leader. However, all over the world — from the Americas to Asia, from Europe to Africa — many family business leaders are quick to assume that some of their children or other relatives would never become great successors. Most consider only one person (will he or she make a great CEO?), rather than thinking of many key family members and the multiple critical potential roles they can play. What’s more, even among those leaders who want to conduct rigorous assessments of the entire next generation’s capabilities, most don’t know what they should focus on, and many wait until the eleventh hour to ask the crucial questions. Consider the CEO of a family-owned business in Buenos Aires who called me in as a consultant. The executive, who was in his seventies, began our first meeting by leaning forward and saying to me, in
BUSINESS RESEARCH | BRANDING | ANALYSIS