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Transition Planning
Jack Jr. has a fancy title, but lacks the authority to go with it. In notso-subtle ways, his father keeps reminding Jack Jr. that he's being paid more than he is "worth." Jack Jr. is forever being gr...
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Managing Relationships
We all can identify people who work hard. We may loosely use the term “workaholic” to describe such people. But there's a difference between people who work long hours and those who let w...
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Born Too Late to Lead?
"I HAVE BEEN WITH THIS COMPANY for 16 years, and I think I know something about the business," Robert McGarry says, his voice shaking with anger. "In fact, Frank and I have been thinking a lot about ...
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How to Earn Respect When You Take Over
Modesty, humility, simplicity. These are not just the traits of a good monk. They are also the essential attributes of a successful second or third generation family member who hopes to take over from...
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Home, Home on the Range...
I WAS ABOUT EIGHT YEARS OLD when I hauled my first bucket of cherries from the family fruit orchards near Caldwell, Idaho, at a place called Sunny Slope. The cherries weighed almost as much as I did....
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Customers for Life
There was never any doubt that Carl Sewell would take over his family's car dealership in Dallas. But the timing came as a shock. Sewell's father died just two years after Carl joined the business. ...
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Managing Hired Guns
Jeannette, the owner of a family business, knew her key nonfamily manager had helped her through many recent business setbacks. Now that the company was back on track, Jeannette wanted to make sure t...
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A Trust Betrayed
ED STOVALL, 62, owner of the Wheatality Baking Co. in St. Cloud, Minnesota, is seething over something he has just noticed in his son Gary's expense report. The bill lists restaurant and motel charge...
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Vive la Difference: Why Family Firms are Special
Family business chiefs are more concerned with successors, long-term stability, and achieving personal wealth than their nonfamily business counterparts. This according to this year's Pulse of the Mid...
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Keeping the Succession Pac-Man Under Control
For employees of a family company, the arrival of a member of the next generation signals momentous changes. Suddenly, there is a new and potentially powerful player on the scene, a son or daughter wh...
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Letting Go
STORIES OF ALAN CRANE'S TEMPER are legendary at the Crane Carton Co. in Chicago. Typical was the day that Alan, while patrolling the plant, found a loaded pallet blocking the fire door. According to ...
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Estate Planning
Excuses, excuses. Convincing owners of businesses that an estate plan is a necessary evil can be more difficult than devising the plan itself. Those who avoid drawing up an estate plan may ultimately...
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The Ghost of Owners Past
The surprise hit movie of the year, Ghost, tells the sentimental story of a kind-hearted ghost, played by handsome Patrick Swayze, who returns to earth and assists his loved ones through trouble and ...
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Make the Kids Earn It
The name Coors carries two very different meanings: It's the beer Americans love to drink, and it's the family Americans love to hate. The catch is that you can't have one without the other. The beer...
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Succession Planning
Charley Jones has a problem. He's nearing retirement age and must find a successor in the business that has taken him a lifetime to build. His two children are competent, and each wants to be CEO. ...
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Saving Your Company By Building Consensus
We often hear it: In any business someone has to be in charge. Particularly in a family enterprise with many active members — parents, brothers and sisters, cousins — it has to be clear who has th...
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Managing People
When you own a business, you'll do anything to keep the customers satisfied, and you try to convey the family business values to every employee. You have a simple and trustworthy feedback system: yo...
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The Reluctant Successor
At one point in Dan Gerber's new novel, A Voice from the River, Nick Wheeler recalls getting up his courage to tell his father, Russell, he is leaving the family company. Nick sees his job in the car...
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Raising Rosinka
Alan Senie and Nolan Kerschner knew they had their work cut out for them as they sat around a conference table at the London headquarters of the Morgan Grenfell bank last January. Their goal: to secu...
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Spouse Troubles
Theresa Cox shows up at the Cox Paper Products plant quite often these days. Sometimes she has her two children in tow, and the three of them troop into the office of her husband, Robbie Cox. Robbie...
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