takesover asboss, accountant or marketer. bers of any upcoming generation to seek work
Instead, Aronoff suggests that those affected, the experience away from the family. The minimum upcoming generation, be responsible for making experience expected is around three to five years those decisions. Anyone ready to commit to the with at least two promotions to the individual’s business should be able to identify their own credit. Outside experience gives family members a strengths and areas of interest. In addition to their way to bring fresh ideas to the business, to make a roles, the succeeding generation should determine few mistakes and to learn that work really means what their compensation will be, who will be on the working hard. board of directors and the direction of the business.
Making a path
Non-family employees for the next generation
While taking care of family members, it’s Once a family business achieves open commu-important not to overlook the concerns of non- nication, and assigns and holds all employees to the family employees. To create a level playing field for same standards, it’s time to look to the future. All family and non-family employees, Lea recom- businesses face succession planning—who will be in mends creating across-the-board policies for charge when the current boss steps down. But in a employment, promotion and compensation. He family setting, succession planning often boils down says those policies send out the message that the to parents assuming the oldest child will step up business is “managed with fairness and evenhand- when the time is right. And the younger generation edness, and nobody, regardless of their last name, assumes their elders will, indeed, one day give up will get away with murder.” control. Creating a succession plan eliminates any
Longtime non-family employees also need proof assumptions about who will take over the business that the upcoming generation has the skills, not just and when that right time is, experts advise. thelineage,tokeepthecompanyrunning.Businesses, Although no one embraces discussing the says Fleming, have long “institutional memories.” inevitable, experts agree that the best time to put a Non-related employees who watch a succeeding generation grow up tend to hold on to the idea that the
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30- or 40-somethings in charge are still kids. Gibson Funeral Homes One way to shake that image is requiring mem- Kansas City, MO • 1-877-353-1700 • www.heartlandcremation.com Member at Independence, MO
JUST AS IMPORTANT as planning for succession is the division of labor among family members.
“Most families don’t survive the transition into the next generation, because they often share the same job titles or responsibilities in the family business,” says Andrew Loos, president of Gibson Funeral Homes, a 75-year-old family business in Kansas City, Missouri.
Loos, the son-in-law of James Gibson, patriarch and CEO of the company, says that when family members are competing for the same job within the company, the business loses its identity and vision. It also becomes harder to draw the next generation into the business, because they see only a limited opportunity to match their strengths or interests.
“The challenge is to stimulate the next generation by properly dividing the current generation,” says Loos.
STEVE PUPPE PHOTOGRAPHY
Gibson employs seven family members, who operate seven funeral establishments, one cemetery, one cremation facility and Generations, a floral-design and event-planning division. Loos created new divisions of the company and, based on their strengths, matched specific family members to each division.
Loos’ wife, Elizabeth, is director of Generations. His father is the manager of the cremation facility; his mother is a floral and jewelry designer for Generations. A Gibson nephew takes care of public and community relations, and a first cousin is in charge of applying the urban operational models to their rural funeral homes. All this leaves James Gibson free to work on the business rather than in the business.
Loos says that when each member of the family is incubating his or her own division, it breeds positive competition. “We flourish because we found new opportunities for our family members. Whoever becomes a part of our family business will have a unique set of challenges and opportunities, rather than an uninspired way of life.”—T. Foster Jones
By defining and dividing
the roles of each family
member, Gibson Funeral
Homes has continued to
thrive. Back row: nephew
Eric Woodward; Elizabeth,
Andrew and Dick Loos.
Seated: James Gibson,
Anna Beth Gibson
Not pictured: Lesley Loos
References:
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