Why do family enterprise decisions stall? Paul Edelman examines six factors, including competing objectives, decision authority, governance, leadership capacity, and family dynamics.

When succession feels stuck, the problem may be the choice the family is trying to make. Succession is often compressed into two either/or categories: founder in charge or founder gone; successor waiting or successor fully responsible. Under that framing, uncertainty can quickly become a verdict: the founder will not let go, or the successor is not ready. Families usually have more choices than those labels suggest. They can ask: • What does each person actually want? • Which

A look at how families can slow the decision down before it becomes a yes-or-no debate.

Why Family Business Founders Struggle to Step Back During Succession

A Blueprint for Multi-Generational Success For many years, succession in family enterprises was framed as a baton pass: identify the successor, transfer authority, move forward. As families grow more complex — with overlapping generations, broader ownership, and longer careers — that model no longer captures what continuity actually requires. Part 1 of The UHNW Institute’s new whitepaper, A Blueprint for Multi-Generational Success, explores a structural shift from “one” to “

I’m grateful to the editors at FamilyBusiness.Org for publishing my new article on how leadership readiness develops across generations in enterprising families. In conversations with founders and senior leaders, I often hear a quiet tension: a desire to prepare the next generation for greater responsibility while also protecting the principles and decisions that built the enterprise. On the other side, rising leaders often want to contribute more, but aren’t always sure how

I’m happy to share that I have been appointed Entrepreneur in Residence at the Bertarelli Institute for Family Entrepreneurship (BIFE)...