The Best Traits To Find in Your Business's Successor

In most cases, the family business founder or owner looks to his or her children, first, when considering a successor. It's culturally a trait that is generations old. We want to feel that pride of lineage and stability. We want to experience the comfort of an orderly and secure transition of ownership and assets.

Choosing the best successor, however, is a much more involved process now than a few decades ago. As time and circumstances continue to change, the requirements for competency in a business successor are becoming more well defined. Being the owner and perhaps the business founder, you had certain characteristics originally that led you to leap into business and ride the tide of challenge, growth and success.

Here is an exercise that may bring the issue of choosing a quality successor into clear focus; list your best 10 qualities as a business owner/executive. Now list 10 existing traits of each family successor that you might choose. When you compare the list, look for similarities and differences. Adding points to each or ranking them will add some detail to your criteria. Some of the best characteristics that I often see are; an ability to listen well, ability to handle pressure, a liking for people, a sense of responsibility, being personally accountable, realistically self confident, focused on profit, and so on.

If you have concerns about the how your family candidates scored, deal with it now! In my thirty years of supporting generational business transition, one thing seems to be very true; if your family member isn't measuring up now, chances are that your dream for smooth succession may be in jeopardy. You can initiate executive development training sessions with regular developmental feedback discussions as one method of building your solid foundation for succession.

If you would like more detailed information on the best steps to take in determining the qualified successor for your business, please contact me personally at 847.382.8886 or send me an email at paul@heinze.com .

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