Keeping the Family Business Healthy: How to Plan for Continuing Growth, Profitability, and Family Leadership

Less than one-third of family-owned businesses survives until the second generation because owners or managers avoid making decisions about the company's future. As a result, they fail to adapt to changing business and family conditions. In this best-selling reprint of his classic Keeping the Family Business Healthy, John Ward offers numerous practical resources to help family businesses develop strategies for long-term prosperity. You'll learn: how to overcome difficulties caused by changes in the nature of the business, its organization's character, or the family's expectations; how to ensure family interest in leading the business; how to assess the firm's financial and market situation; how to develop a strategic plan; how to plan the family's role in the company's future; how to shape a business strategy that incorporates the family; how to promote a revitalized business vision and strategy after a leadership transition and more... In its pages you'll find a number of practical worksheets and models like: a values questionnaire; a sample financial analysis of business; strategic planning worksheets; sample business strategic plan; sample family strategic plan; chart detailing "blood" equity versus "sweat equity" Keeping the Family Business Healthy is a useful guide for owners, managers, family shareholders, and the professionals who serve family firms.