The INSEAD article from Professor Morten Bennedsen, director of INSEAD’s Centre for Family Enterprise, summarizes his insights from research on more than 10,000 successions covering a period of 30 years. He explains that the traditional model of succession is changing. In the past, succession in the family business was very patriarchal, with the entrepreneurial founder expecting his children to success him in the family business. There was little discussion of alternative careers, particularly for the older sons. The induction into the business was made through an apprenticeship model, in which the preparation of the next generation was based on observation of and direct learning from their father. Successful business founders saw the transfer of their expertise as the best mechanism to train the next generation of leaders. Read…..