A good book on CEO succession is The CEO Within by my Harvard Business School colleague Joe Bower. Bower studied how companies perform after hiring a new CEO, noting whether the successor had been recruited from inside or outside the company.
Bower makes a strong case for making “Insider Outsiders” your next CEO. These internal candidates with some outsider views have a more objective and independent view about how your company needs to change and adapt. Executives with the right mix of Insider and Outsider attributes, Bower claims, are likely to do a better job and create more economic value as CEO. I agree but CEO selection is more complex for family companies.
Options for Family Companies
In family companies, you also have the choice of family and non-family successors, giving you four broad choices for CEO successors:
[This article was provided with permission from Harvard Business School Working Knowledge.]
The chief executive should aware of the business, usually professional plays a better role than a family member. Important is the experience and knowledge of the prevailing trades in business.
on Mar 25, 2016