The bloodless
gamesmanship and strategic gambits of corporate leviathans may keep readers
turning the pages of best-selling business books, but those of us who have built
and run our own enterprises are usually unwilling to emulate these tactics close
to home. Indeed, the take-the-money-and-run strategy employed by corporate
poster-boys like Welch, Dunlop and Grasso usually has no place in our thinking.
Overwhelmingly, we are building for the future: Nearly 90 percent of the
nation’s entrepreneurs want their firms to remain in family hands after they
exit the scene. This month, we bring to a close our four-part series on
building our families’ 100-year plans with a look at family business succession
issues and how they are intimately tied to our aspirations for our families, our
financial relationships and our philanthropic pursuits. Our family values
and interests evolve with each succeeding generation; for this reason, the
family constitution we design to guide our business must be flexible. And since
(despite the messianic ardor of many entrepreneurs) there is no corporate analog
for apostolic succession, we must establish criteria to inform those who will
lead our companies in the future, as well as standards to which family members
seeking employment there must adhere. But at the end of the day, no
entrepreneur can foresee all eventualities; we must trust our successors to make
good decisions, for both the business and the family. As Gene Wach, one of the
entrepreneurs profiled in our cover story this month (“Commerce and Consensus”
), says: “If you want to have a good family business, it’s important to
have a good family!”
Dwight Cass
Editor-in-Chief
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