Recommended Reading

Myths and Mortals: Family Business Leadership and Succession Planning
By Andrew Keyt

Keyt interviews 25 family business successors on how they removed themselves from the shadow of their parents and set the business on their own path.

The Business of Family: How to Stay Rich for Generations
By Linda Davis

In this guide on sustaining family wealth over the generations, Davis offers a blueprint on how family business owners can assist in the passage of wealth to subsequent generations.

The Family Business: How to Be in Business with People You Love: Without Hating Them
By Janna Hoiberg

Hoiberg provides practical advice and ideas for running a family business and keeping family relationships close and strong. The stress caused by the intermingling of family and business cannot be eliminated, but this book shows how it can be minimized.

More than Family: Non-Family Executives in the Family Business
By John L. Ward  and Craig E. Aronoff

Hiring and working with non-family managers can present challenges to family firms. Developing trusting relationships with people from outside the family and sharing secretive information are some of the difficulties expanding companies can face. However, it is essential to create an environment in which non-family managers can succeed for the good of the business and the good of the family. This book explores the processes of hiring, managing, and retaining talented outside executives.

9 Elements of Family Business Success: A Proven Formula for Improving Leadership & Relationships in Family
By Allen Fishman  

Running a family business is like running any other business—with the addition of many extra challenges. A family-owned enterprise involves unique management, compensation, hiring, and other business issues regarding family member employees. 9 Elements of Family Business Success addresses the specific challenges faced by owners of family businesses, and it shows family members employed in the business how to enjoy their positions while helping the organization reach its highest potential.

Fishman provides solutions to the problems unique to a family-run business, along with handy checklists to ensure you’re covering all the angles. You’ll learn how to:

• Create a written policy for hiring, reviewing, and terminating family member employees
• Avoid family relationship tension regarding compensation
• Choose a successor and create a succession development plan
• Ensure good results-driven family communication and dynamics
• Maintain healthy spousal relations when you work together
• Recruit and retain talented non-family member employees

The Enduring Legacy: Essential Family Business
By Lance D Woodbury

Succession planning in family businesses often deals exclusively with the passing of financial assets and management skills to the next generation. In this book, however, Lance Woodbury suggests that furthering the family’s legacy requires a focus on the values that define the organization. Intending to encourage family members and business partners to pay close attention to their guiding principles, Woodbury offers more than two dozen values, gleaned from his years as consultant, mediator, and facilitator, capturing the essence of successful family businesses in our day.