Action Planning, A Question of Balance and Timing

Entrepreneurs in Every Generation: How Successful Family Businesses Develop Their Next Leaders is a seven-chapter book published by Berrett-Koehler Publisher in 2016. Entrepreneurs in Every Generation shows readers how success in family business means assuring next generation entrepreneurial leadership in three dimensions: the business, the owning family, and the organization that nurtures both. Applying the entrepreneurial mind-set to all three dimensions, professors Allan Cohen and Pramodita Sharma define the challenges and the role for leadership; applying the entrepreneurial mind-set in all three dimensions is what sets family enterprises apart. The book not only reviews best practices, but it also urges special attention to the uniqueness of context. It also guides the reader through work sheets on how to understand and adapt to context. In Chapter 7 (15 pages), Cohen and Sharma argue that only a small proportion of families in business achieve a successful balance between building strong family connections and making decisions that lead to strong financial performance. In other words, they aim for "warm hearts and deep pockets." Maintaining this ambidexterity over time requires wisdom, courage, and patience. Both the family and the business must have inbuilt renewal mechanisms so each can regenerate to remain in harmony with the changes in internal context and external environment. But, what to attend to when is a question of balance and timing. In this chapter, the authors attend to this perpetual dilemma that enterprising families face in their long journey to develop entrepreneurs in every generation.

• Leadership
• Family businesses
• Business growth
• Entrepreneurial management
• Succession planning