A Rising Generation Perspective on Ownership

So the owners view taken on the successor to really understand the role of the owner versus the role of the manager or the role of the entrepreneur. I meet a lot of potential successors who don’t want to take the family business because they don’t want to be the entrepreneur that the dad was or want to be in the operation up to here because they don’t feel it’s them. They never had that view that they could just be the owner of the company and really look strategically what’s the future of the company and how much risk should be taken by the company and who’s the management of the company and they can just decide on the management. This is not a full time role as owners that you could actually leave the operation aside and really succeed as a very good owner. Most of the time the operators in the company will take more risk or less risk than should be taken so it’s really the view of the owner to decide how much risk am I taking, how much risk I don’t want to take. Sometimes the entrepreneur can bet the whole shop or the CEO can bet the whole shop and you can say as an owner; I’m not sure I want to bet all this because it’s been a family business for so many year, why take so much risk. It’s really a matter of the owner to decide this. As a family business also, the owners perspective is your multiple owners with your family and yourself. Sometimes it can be an interesting discussion the fact that how much risk you want to take versus your dad or your mom and it’s not always them who want to take risk and you want to take more risk. Sometimes it’s the other way around so it makes an interesting dynamic where in this case, obviously you have to agree, but the owner role is really important and the mindset of wanting to get involved into a family business.