‘This Business Isn’t Big Enough For All Of Us!’ #succession

Richard Shrapnel's Orienteering Succession blog

Are you a member of the family business’s current leadership and feel like the younger ones just want you gone? Well, do something about it!

There is often a ‘catch 22’ that arises in family business succession around the timing of the exit of the current generation of leaders and the entry of the next generation. What’s the catch? Well, it’s the fact that often the new generation is edging to get in and take control, but the existing leaders are just not ready to leave yet. The catch is that the incumbents keep saying the younger ones don’t have enough experience but they can’t get that experience because the older generation won’t step back.

The new generation rightly say, ‘How can we get the experience you want us to have unless you let us take control and make decisions?’

And the incumbent leaders recognise this fact but ‘hit the wall’ in resolving it as they are, for all sorts of reasons, just not ready to step down.

But there is an answer to this catch 22 and it is pretty simple: business growth!

The new generation probably doesn’t want you to leave, they just want to get their hands on something that they can invest themselves in and grow. And they are more than likely to leave you alone with the business you have built and want to continue to work in, if they can find their own space.

The new generation will see opportunities in the business that they want to open up, explore and grow. LET THEM, and encourage and guide them, but don’t oversee them. Allow them to do it the way they want to and not the way you think you would have if it had been your idea. This is about them gaining the experience they need, you want them to have, and to gain some pride and freedom in what they can achieve.

And don’t forget the best part, they will no longer be interested in you leaving as they have their own business and may even want you around to support them.

The answer is transition is often to grow the business to allow the growing family to find areas that excite them.

 


Active Knowledge Question:

What space have you provided for the new generation to grow and learn in?

 


Act Now

Searching for the world’s best succession guide? Buy Transition – Orienteering The Five Lands of Succession.

Want to become a part of the Entrepreneurs+ community? Sign up for my eNewsletter, and join the conversation by sending a question via Ask Richard.

 

All the best in the success of your business,

Richard Shrapnel