Ivan Lansberg

Family businesses thrive in some of the world's toughest environments, providing vital lessons for businesses everywhere. The bulk of the world's growth in population and economic activity in the foreseeable future will be generated in the developing world. This is precisely where enterprising families dominate, operating very differently than their peers in more stable and affluent nations. These businesses not only survive but actually thrive in turbulent times, enduring wars, lawlessness, market failures, environmental disasters, and more. The world's most advanced economies will increasingly experience these types of structural shocks and chronic uncertainties in the years ahead. The question is, what can they do about it?In The Enduring Enterprise, Devin DeCiantis and Ivan Lansberg bring readers into the lives of families operating in emerging and frontier economies who rely on a unique portfolio of stabilizing strategies to create islands of trust, resilience, and prosperity amidst persistent turmoil. Yet these tactics can also be deployed by any business coping with extended periods of volatility or building a more systematic approach to managing risk.Drawing on real cases from around the world, and on their extensive research and consulting experience with family enterprises globally, The Enduring Enterprise will provide business leaders everywhere with new and useful adaptive strategies, proven to work in the toughest conditions, to help them face the world of greater uncertainty that lies ahead.

Generation to Generation presents one of the first comprehensive overviews of family business as a specific organizational form. Focusing on the inevitable maturing of families and their firms over time, the authors reveal the dynamics and challenges family businesses face as they move through their life cycles. The book asks questions, such as: what is the difference between an entrepreneurial start-up and a family business, and how does one become the other? How does the meaning of the business to the family change as adults and children age? How do families move through generational changes in leadership, from anticipation to transfer, and then separation and retirement? This book is divided into three sections that present a multidimensional model of a family business. The authors use the model to explore the various stages in the family business life span and extract generalizable lessons about how family businesses should be organized.