In recent months, I moved 106 research (survey) successors of family businesses. In their opinion, the 3 most important features of the successors on the Polish market, are: diligence, courage, accuracy. How can you explain such opinions? They are different from your opinion.
I think they would expect the successors to follow family values and traditions carefully (diligently). This also applies to successors being able to follow due proceses (e.g to be accountable, not wasteful, keep customers happy and be kind to legacies that had been built and those that are being or will be built.
Successors must be courageous. They must have the mental stability and strength to pursue goals vigorously and in adversity. They must be able to stand strong and not give in easily. I'd consider courage as a strong leadership attribute: it makes the leader stand, even when the followers are weak and tired.
Business owners will want their successors to possess outstanding ability to make accurate/correct judgements. This is very important, otherwise the reputation and success that had been built for years might be washed off with a few errors of judgment.
These three are important and are closely related. If successors are not diligent, they are not better than strangers. If they are not couragous, they are not better than weaklings. If they are inaccurate, the business is not likely to survive,
Hope this helps.
Ewa, I don't see any contradiction between your findings and my statement, where I said that the three core competencies for success of a family business successors are : Drive with a vision, Initiative with pursuance for achievement, and Creativity for Innovation. Rather, I find both complementary or balancing. Diligence is the virtue of hard work, which makes a person to take initiative and not avoid responsibility. A courageous person has the inner urge to explore new things, which is drive. A person, who looks for accuracy, is trying to be perfect or precise. In the process, the person tries to find newer ways and means to achieve perfection, thus being creative.
Ewa, I don´t know if you have also some information about the main features of shareholders of non-family firms, or regarding family or professional managers in FBs,... because I suppose these same features may be also important for these sort of firms. What I am asking myself is whether this characteristics are singular for successors of family businesses or are common for other types of people involved in a business.
There are few articles about family business. You can reach me in any help.Mail:[email protected]
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