Family Champions and Champion Families: Developing Family Leaders to Sustain the Family Enterprise

Successful businesses often struggle to remain viable against uncertain economic times, technological advances, shifting consumer preferences, and volatile markets-even without the complexity of dealing with family members. And some family businesses manage to flourish through multiple generations despite these challenges. What makes them different? More important, how can you learn from the experiences of what we call champion family businesses?

These successful family businesses take a long view, investing in the company's development for future success. The champion family concept is linked to the family champion, a family owner who acts as a catalyst to help other family members become more effective. In order to facilitate significant development and change throughout the family, family champions engage and inspire the family to work collectively to sustain their legacy. Ultimately, family champions create champion families.

This book offers clear examples, practice tips and specific advice to start working on championship elements in your family. Each chapter ends with questions for you to consider, based on the material you've just read, to stimulate your thinking about championship ideas and issues related to your situation. The wisdom from these winning families and their stories can guide you around common obstacles and provide inspiration to your business family, regardless of its size or complexity.

"This book opens new ground in the story of the success of multi-generational family business. Its focus is on the nature of innovation and resilience energy in the family, and how it often flows not from top to bottom, or from the old to the new. It is often the spirit and dedication of the newer 'rising' generations that fuels productive change and renewal. Through case studies that highlight the authors' research, this book shows how families invest in innovation by investing in the human resources of each new generation."Dennis Jaffe, Ph.D., Family Advisor, Wise Counsel Research

"Every successful family business will better see the critical roles of the Family Champion behind their success. Reading this book will help assure the conditions for Family Champions to exercise their precious leadership for the long-term continuity of their family's enterprise. The lessons of successful families will resonate with you and encourage you. The book's stories and graphics will stick with you."John L. Ward, Ph.D., Clinical Professor Emeritus at Kellogg Center for Family Enterprises and Co-founder of The Family Business Consulting Group