2023-07-20 17:18:00
The exercise of the role of owner is not acquired by learning knowledge and managerial skills only.
The successors in business families, as in the royal families of yesteryear, are formed from childhood. Some of them begin to train their descendants practically from the time they can remember, so that they are good business owners and good partners. It is not an exaggeration, it occurs in dynasties that are clear about their objective of enduring, generating wealth in harmony for generations.
The transition from a family business to a business family only occurs when the conduct, culture, behavior and the way in which its members interact favors the continuity of creating value for a long time.
It is important to be clear that if our mission is to make this journey, the successor’s career must begin at an early age. A good practice is to incorporate activities that they can carry out according to the stage of life they are in:
The first years of life are very important, perhaps decisive, because it is in the first four or five years that the elements of a person’s character are forged. It is at this time when we can influence the traits of intelligence, as well as those of the will, perhaps even more transcendent.
Children can learn to be persevering, willful, dedicated, strong, and consistent from the earliest years. It is also crucial that they learn to share and communicate with others.
Play in activities that have to do with the business, such as in the warehouse, the office, the counter, or the factory. All this is equivalent to enjoying the company from that age. If we talk about work in the business in an optimistic way at home, we are positive about the business work.
During adolescence, you have to be creative and find ways to maintain ties with the company and seek activities that you enjoy, and even that generate financial remuneration. They can take responsibility for all kinds of orders, doing them on Saturdays or on vacation. As they grow and learn, they will have to make increasingly complex and difficult orders, but they can take ownership of them.
In Youth, it is time to continue their professional training according to their orientation. It can be helpful to have support from career counselors to help them discover their talents and aptitudes, as well as their preferences. At these ages they can also experiment with their own early entrepreneurial experiences.
As young adults they can already have professional experiences outside the company, working in other companies, assuming increasing responsibilities in different businesses. Here, too, they can find mentors who continue to help them discover themselves and grow. Similarly, they may themselves become advisors to friends or even take part in business councils of all kinds.
Already as more experienced adults, they can assume command in higher positions until they reach the General Management, or form part of the Board of Directors and its committees and begin to experience shared Ownership processes.
We realize that a large number of family businesses train their successors to be executives. They study administration master’s degrees, read books on managementtake management courses and train for executive positions.
All of this prepares them well to run businesses, but not necessarily to run them and be good partners. The key is to assign them projects for which they learn to respond.
Company pedagogues, by themselves scarce in the business world, understand little about Dueñez. The programs designed in business institutes and schools are focused, in the best of cases, on business management.
Most teach operational management in areas such as finance, marketing, operations, or logistics. Few of them are really oriented towards the work of the CEO: company policy, business strategy, leadership.
The issue of what Entrepreneurial Ownership means in formal education is even scarcer. Something has been developed in chairs of family businesses and wealth management (Wealth Management), but it is rare that successors are trained to exercise the role of Owner.
Carlos A. Dumois is President and
Founding Partner of CEDEM
* “Dueñez®” es a brand registered by Carlos A. Of the month
#successor #race