{"id":468,"date":"2022-04-06T05:15:51","date_gmt":"2022-04-06T03:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/family-business\/?p=468"},"modified":"2023-01-09T10:07:14","modified_gmt":"2023-01-09T09:07:14","slug":"succession-the-monumental-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/family-business\/2022\/succession-the-monumental-question\/","title":{"rendered":"Succession, the monumental question"},"content":{"rendered":"

The topic of succession has a long history and has never been limited to the exclusive domain of family business. Putting it into perspective can give us a deeper understanding of its importance in all organizations, both family- and non-family-owned<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

After writing this post, I thought it was perhaps more suited to an academic readership, rather than a general business audience. That said, I think citing my original sources of inspiration<\/strong> on the topic will offer everyone a better and broader conceptual framework. My apologies in advance to all of those authors whose noteworthy books aren\u2019t mentioned here. For space considerations, I had to keep it short.<\/p>\n

There was a popular saying in 1999, when I began delving into the subject of family-owned firms, which, translated from Spanish, would be something like \u201cSuccession: the monumental question.\u201d<\/strong> My friend and colleague Miguel \u00c1ngel Gallo had just published his 1998 book La Sucesi\u00f3n en la Empresa Familiar<\/em><\/a> (Succession in the Family-Owned Firm).<\/p>\n

That same year, Prof. Ivan Lansberg released his best-selling book Succeeding Generations: Realizing the Dream of Families in Business<\/em><\/a>. More than 20 years later, it remains a must-read for anyone who wants to better understand the challenges of successions in family-controlled firms and the keys to a smooth transfer of power<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

That same year also saw the publication of another must-read book: Neil N. Koenig\u2019s You Can’t Fire Me, I’m Your Father<\/em><\/a>. The last chapter offers a unique feature: a list of 55 best practices for family businesses, methodically linked to their related chapters.<\/p>\n

These are the two books that made the biggest impact when I began studying the realm of family-owned firms. As a focus of scholarship, family business only started arousing the interest of academia in the 1980s<\/strong>, after nearly a century of scant attention and, in some circles, its consideration as irrelevant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Succession has always been critical, especially in large businesses, both family- and non-family-led<\/strong>. Company size in succession processes is important, as examined in the late 1980s by two distinguished scholars in their respective landmark books.<\/p>\n

Harvard Business School Prof. Richard F. Vancil published Passing the Baton: Managing the Process of CEO Succession<\/em><\/a> in 1987. It is not specifically focused on family-owned businesses, but the result of his observations of a broad swath of succession processes in leading organizations, many of them non-family businesses.<\/p>\n

Outside academia, he also served as the president of MAC Group, a prestigious consulting firm. His book reflects his distinctive ability to design conceptual frameworks grounded in real-world situations<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The following year, Prof. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of Yale University published The Hero’s Farewell: What Happens When CEOs Retire<\/em><\/a>. Like Vancil\u2019s book, it was not specifically geared toward family businesses, yet featured a model that is still considered the gold standard for successful successions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry if this post was too academic, but felt it was important to frame this important issue. In a future post, I\u2019ll explore succession from a practical, real-world vantage point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The topic of succession has a long history and has never been limited to the exclusive domain of family business. Putting it into perspective can give us a deeper understanding of its importance in all organizations, both family- and non-family-owned. After writing this post, I thought it was perhaps more suited to an academic readership, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":470,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[117537,117563],"class_list":["post-468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family","tag-family-succession","tag-transfer-of-power","megacategoria-mc-family-business"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t