Reflections on Storytelling and the Development of the “Company Soul”
In this week’s edition of FFI Practitioner, Ricardo Mejía shares his reflections on the importance of storytelling as a way to transmit the “company soul” to the next generation of family owners.
Transitioning the Family Business Entrepreneurial Culture through Training (for Advisors’ Eyes Only)
Thanks to Sajjad Hamid for contributing this article on incorporating entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial education into family enterprise consulting engagements.
The Virtual Family Enterprise Advisor Has Arrived
Thank you to this week’s contributor, Sajjad Hamid, for his article exploring digital tools that family enterprise advisors can use to expand their practice.
Family Enterprise Advantage: Overcoming the “liabilities of newness”
In this week’s FFI Practitioner, FFI Fellow Lloyd Steier provides an overview of the “liabilities of newness” concept and then uses family business examples to illustrate how the concept can be helpful to practitioners by explaining the family advantage in firm creation, survival, and success.
Family Business Advisor to Knowledge Solopreneur
Thank you to this week’s contributor, Sajjad Hamid, for his article exploring the Knowledge Solopreneur Development Model.
Antifragility: What is it and how does it relate to family businesses?
Thanks to this week’s contributor, Markus Weishaupt, for his article exploring the concept of antifragility and how it may apply to family business clients.
Education and the Rules for Engagement: A case study on ways to encourage young entrepreneurs
Thanks to Ricardo Mejia for this case study discussing how education and clear rules of engagement may still be the best strategy for developing young entrepreneurs in family enterprises.
Changing Demographics in Family Businesses: Highlights from the STEP 2019 Quantitative Survey
Thanks to this week’s contributor, Andrea Calabrò, for summarizing the findings of the STEP 2019 Global Family Business Survey, which was introduced in the January 8 FFI Practitioner edition about applied research in the field.
What Makes a Family Business Program Donor Tick?
Thanks to this week’s contributor, Jerry Katz, Robert H. Brockhaus Endowed Chair of Entrepreneurship at St. Louis University (SLU), for his interview with Mike Medart, a fourth generation family member of Medart Engine, for helping us understand what motivates a family enterprise member to make a gift to a university based family business program.
Cases for Clients
In this week’s edition, we are pleased to feature a selection of family business cases published in FFI Practitioner earlier this year. These cases can serve as effective tools to incorporate in consulting and educational work with clients and further the FFI Practitioner mission to provide readers with practical materials that support their work with multi-generational family enterprises.
Applied Research and FFI Practitioner: A look at the FBR Précis
FFI strives to advance the field of family enterprise through applied research, providing practitioners with practical applications for research conducted by academics from around the world. An example is the periodic précis written by members of the FBR Applied Research Board. Based on recent articles published in FBR, these précis summarize an article and identify implications and applications for advisers to integrate into their work with families. This week, FFI Practitioner is pleased to highlight selected FBR précis on a variety of family enterprise topics.
From Single Business to Portfolio of Businesses: When does the family business become a business family?
Panta rhei. Everything flows and evolves. And family businesses are no exception. From the first-generation founder firm to a real family firm in later generations, and from a single business firm to a complex portfolio business. In some instances, that transition in the family firm – from one to many businesses – happens rather suddenly, in a revolutionary way. Such transformations usually require a few key elements: a natural entrepreneur in the later generations of the family and… a major liquidity event that financially enables the transformation. Marta Widz and
Life Choice or Compulsion: A case study
What can family enterprises learn from a book titled, Who Moved My Cheese? Thanks to this week’s contributor, Ashvini Chopra, for sharing a case study that applies the book’s lessons about change and adaptability to a recent scenario Ashvini encountered with one of his family business clients.
Research Applied: FBR Précis for FFI Practitioner
This week’s FFI Practitioner continues the month-long series of editions relating to the theme of “Reflections.” Thank you to Ken Moores for this reflective précis, where he examines the research conducted about developing a legacy of an entrepreneurial mindset in “The Development of an Entrepreneurial Legacy: Exploring the Role of Anticipated Futures in Transgenerational Entrepreneurship,” an article that appears in the September 2018 issue of FBR.
Advisers for the New Generation: The connector, collaborator, and the co-investor
Thanks to this week’s contributors, Annie Koh and Esther Kong of Singapore Management University for providing a new perspective on how family business advisers can create trust and forge sustainable partnerships with the next generation. Their suggestion? The adviser should play the role of a Connector, Collaborator, and even a Co-Investor.
Increasing Open Innovation in Family Firms
Family firms, like all modern businesses, must depend on growing levels of innovation in order to survive in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. This week, Diogo Cotta and Niklas Rossbach from Maastricht University discuss some alarming trends concerning innovation in family businesses and introduce a research project they’re conducting to learn more about how family businesses approach innovation opportunities.
The Fascination with the Family Bank
This blog by Kirby Rosplock of GenSpring Family Office raises some critical issues for advisors to consider when suggesting a family bank to their clients.