document.write('<p><b><font class="heading">How To Successfully Pass On Your Family Business To The Next Generation</font></b></p><p><');
document.write('font class="text">Starting a family business is a difficult adventure, especially when day-to-day tasks can overshadow y');
document.write('our goals.<b> </b>We know your business is something you want to last, and planning ahead will help you achieve that suc');
document.write('cess.</p><p>Old wisdom is clear: The critical issue concerning succession was to identify, develop, and install the su');
document.write('ccessor to the business\'s top executive. That seems simple, but most people don\'t consider all the other elements like n');
document.write('on-family executives and advisors.</p><p>The predominant family business statistic has been that only 30 percent of fa');
document.write('mily businesses survive the second generation. The need for succession planning to avoid becoming a victim of that disma');
document.write('l statistic was the reason for developing the family-business field.</p><p>But family business experts have come to re');
document.write('alize that a 30 percent &quot;survival&quot; rate rather than being a symbol of failure is actually a phenomenal success');
document.write(' achieved by the advantages that family strength brings to business enterprises.</p><p>We now know that the analogy of');
document.write(' &quot;passing the baton&quot; is terribly inadequate. We now understand that succession rarely involves an incumbent an');
document.write('d a successor. Instead, the process involves all of the key players, including family members, executives and advisors.<');
document.write('/p><p>Not just a matter of successor development and the incumbent\'s preparedness to let go, the process is a complex ');
document.write('stew of social, cultural, financial, legal, strategic, moral, and other dimensions that resist logical, &quot;businessli');
document.write('ke&quot; thinking.</p><p>Success, we came to recognize, depends on being able to combine and balance businesslike thin');
document.write('king with family-like thinking. Clearly, &quot;succession&quot; is inadequate to describe the process. Among the many ca');
document.write('tegories of planning - besides succession - too often neglected in family business were strategic, estate, operational, ');
document.write('and governance.</p><p>Failure to plan in any of these areas can be fatal. In many instances, the issue was not &quot;h');
document.write('ow to&quot; but &quot;why not?&quot; What would keep a family business from doing what it should and could to achieve it');
document.write('s goal of self-preservation?</p><p>The need to develop processes dealing with the massive complexity of changes relati');
document.write('ng to personal, family, and corporate finances (including the effort to deal with the estate-tax issue) is key. This inc');
document.write('ludes issues of strategy and structure in the business, family values in relationships and structure, governance and acc');
document.write('ountability, and each of the key players\' personal journeys.</p><p>If you run a family business it\'s extremely importa');
document.write('nt to start the planning process now.</p><p>Please call us and we\'d be happy to talk to you about how to get started.<');
document.write('/p>');