Take the Long-Term View
Overview
Revised Feb 2020
Originally Published in 2014
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As the scope of a business-owning family’s activities expand and the family grows across generations, the organic shift from a business-centric family to a family-centric enterprise or “family enterprise” begins. The family is faced with the issue of how to preserve the family wealth and well-being beyond the first generation.
Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t the size of the fortune that determines a family’s ability to build a successful family enterprise. Instead, family members must have a shared outlook that is characterized by a long-term view and rooted in a common sense of purpose, together with a proven set of behaviors and practices that enable success.
We bring these best practices to life by offering a Family Enterprise Framework, which demonstrates how several systems, processes and disciplines must come together in an integrated fashion to form the family enterprise structure.
In this paper we:
- Explain what “taking the long-term view” means
- Document characteristics of a successful family enterprise
- Describe the Family Enterprise Framework and identify 12 corresponding building blocks
- Provide an assessment tool that can be utilized to develop an action plan to strengthen the family enterprise