Families and their advisors need to develop new structures and processes, as well as preparing family members to fill them. Too often, elaborate strategic and succession plans go unrealized because these deeper psychological factors have not been taken into consideration. And the most important factor in the successful sharing of ownership is the Shared Dream. Those are three of the book's seven principal points. A leadership transition offers an ideal opportunity to reformulate the company's direction and renew its energies.
Succession is driven by a biological clock.
Efforts to tightly control ownership and decision making in a family company contain the seeds of their own destruction. Lansberg expands elegantly on all seven points and supports them with examples throughout the flow of chapters. Researchers, are not the book's main audience, since it's not about theories and data. However, the book does pose questions and make assertions that need to be tested. Some of its unanswered questions would make excellent dissertation topics.