After all the hard work that goes into creating a useful Inside-Out Succession Plan™, it can be easy to forget that a just-as-difficult challenge lies in putting that plan into action and taking all the necessary steps to make sure that your succession plan proves to be truly successful. Far too many entrepreneurs and business owners will put incredible work into crafting the perfect plan only to find themselves burnt out and ready to leave before it can be fully realized, leaving the future generation without the proper guidance, training, and leadership they need to succeed.
There are many options that entrepreneurs utilize to proactively avoid this succession-planning pitfall. For one, they can pace themselves appropriately and understand that they need to conserve mental and physical energy for training the next generation, some even understanding that an imperfect plan executed with care and attention can outperform a perfect plan on paper left to whither on the vine. Many choose to supplement the succession plan with a competent board of directors, who can help manage the meat of the transitional process and help ensure a future generation is ready to take over. However, one of the most common options is to hire an interim, non-family company president who helps take stress off the back of the retirement-ready entrepreneur.
Picking a President: How to hire your interim leadership
While there are a wide variety of individual tips for hiring an interim president for your family business, they boil down into two fundamental categories: business acumen and culture fit. While different candidates may balance these two areas in unique ways, if a candidate throws up any major red flags in either area, they may not be the best choice for your company.
In terms of business skills, a good candidate for interim company president isn’t much different than a good candidate for any company’s executive leadership positions; you need someone who, simply put, knows how to run a business. One entrepreneur told us a cautionary tale of hiring an interim president to help guide the company as she moved towards retirement, only to find a few years later that the company was losing profits quickly. When they followed the money, it turns out almost all the expensive losses came from the president’s pet projects, for which he was only accountable to (guess who?) himself! You should be looking for someone with a proven track record of business success and business growth, someone who’s comfortable helping to set formal expectations and boundaries to which they can be held accountable, and (preferably) someone who has experience with your style of business and business structure. (Have they worked with family businesses before? Do they have experience with smaller independent businesses or more with larger corporations?) A good candidate in all these areas could be a great candidate for your interim presidency.
Of course, business skills may not be enough if a culture fit isn’t present as well. You need a candidate who’s willing to listen closely to your family values, the values present in the business currently, and the values you want to pass on to the future generation. A good president will have the leadership skills and temperament to not just keep running and growing a success business, but to train and manage the next generation of family members and company leaders. Your ideal candidate will not just be able to build your business, but pass on your values and cultural identity onto a younger generation of family members. This is, after all, the purpose of an interim president, who will by definition pass on the leadership role once the training is over.
Sometimes, the best way to help a family business succeed is by reaching out to someone outside the family to help with generational transitions. A smart president can take a load off of a retirement-ready entrepreneur and help impart their lessons onto the incoming generation of family business leaders. For more tips on hiring an effective interim president, check out The Soul of the Family Business by Tom Hubler. Through personal anecdotes, real-world case studies, useful tools and frameworks, and more, Hubler offers a wealth of lessons on planning (and executing) a generational leadership transition that helps the entrepreneur, the family, and the business all find success. For all of this, pick up The Soul of the Family Business, available in hardcover form on Amazon.com, directly through Itasca Books, or at a bookstore near you. And of course, you can always contact Hubler for Business Families today to set up a free orientation meeting with Thomas Hubler, the expert on family business planning.
In terms of business skills, a good candidate for interim company president isn’t much different than a good candidate for any company’s executive leadership positions; you need someone who, simply put, knows how to run a business. One entrepreneur told us a cautionary tale of hiring an interim president to help guide the company as she moved towards retirement, only to find a few years later that the company was losing profits quickly. When they followed the money, it turns out almost all the expensive losses came from the president’s pet projects, for which he was only accountable to (guess who?) himself! You should be looking for someone with a proven track record of business success and business growth, someone who’s comfortable helping to set formal expectations and boundaries to which they can be held accountable, and (preferably) someone who has experience with your style of business and business structure. (Have they worked with family businesses before? Do they have experience with smaller independent businesses or more with larger corporations?) A good candidate in all these areas could be a great candidate for your interim presidency.
Of course, business skills may not be enough if a culture fit isn’t present as well. You need a candidate who’s willing to listen closely to your family values, the values present in the business currently, and the values you want to pass on to the future generation. A good president will have the leadership skills and temperament to not just keep running and growing a success business, but to train and manage the next generation of family members and company leaders. Your ideal candidate will not just be able to build your business, but pass on your values and cultural identity onto a younger generation of family members. This is, after all, the purpose of an interim president, who will by definition pass on the leadership role once the training is over.
Sometimes, the best way to help a family business succeed is by reaching out to someone outside the family to help with generational transitions. A smart president can take a load off of a retirement-ready entrepreneur and help impart their lessons onto the incoming generation of family business leaders. For more tips on hiring an effective interim president, check out The Soul of the Family Business by Tom Hubler. Through personal anecdotes, real-world case studies, useful tools and frameworks, and more, Hubler offers a wealth of lessons on planning (and executing) a generational leadership transition that helps the entrepreneur, the family, and the business all find success. For all of this, pick up The Soul of the Family Business, available in hardcover form on Amazon.com, directly through Itasca Books, or at a bookstore near you. And of course, you can always contact Hubler for Business Families today to set up a free orientation meeting with Thomas Hubler, the expert on family business planning.
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