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

Less than one-third of family-owned businesses survive into the second generation. Why? Often they fail because their owners or managers avoid making needed decisions about the company's future. As a result, the firms cannot stay intact through the rapid changes that take place in business. Heads of firms that do survive learn to anticipate the changes, crises, or problems that may arise and effectively plan to deal with these changes. In this new book, John L. Ward provides comprehensive, practical advice on strategies that will help family firms plan for and survive future growth and changes in the business world. He shows how to maintain growing, healthy, and profitable companies; shape future business directions; prepare new leaders; ensure the support of family members for the firm; help the firm continue from one generation to the next; and balance the needs of the business with the needs of the family. Ward describes how to create strategies for the business and the family and combine them to create a comprehensive plan that resolves such issues as how the firm's assets will be shared and who will succeed the founder. He offers tools for doing market and financial analysis of the firm and its competitors- and gives advice on how to use or reinvest funds to build a stronger firm. Ward discusses alternative strategic plans and shows which businesses and families they are best suited for. And he provides examples of family and business strategic plans, sample strategic planning worksheets, a sample financial analysis of a family firm, and a questionnaire on the values of the business.