Families in Business
From Generation to Generation
In a business environment characterized by intensified competition, family-owned companies face unique challenges. Participants learn how to leverage the strengths of family business management and successfully implement practices that drive high performance, shareholder loyalty—and healthy family relationships.
What You Can Expect
Through classroom sessions and dynamic family interaction, this leadership development program explores topics critical to family-owned companies, such as succession, ownership control, and shareholder relationships. Participants discover how to formulate strategies for reaching common goals, addressing conflicts, and planning for a family's future.
Your Course of Study
Led by experts in family business, this executive education program offers proven tools families can use to address issues specific to their own situations. Facilitators work privately with families to create customized plans for positioning their families and companies for ongoing success.
Who Is Right for the Program
This family business program is designed for teams of four or more family members representing both genders and two generations. Participants represent a range of geographies and industries, and come from organizations in varied family, business, and ownership stages.
| Fee: | $35,000 for a team of up to four family members $6,500 for each additional member in teams larger than four |
The program fee covers tuition, books, case materials, accommodations, and most meals.
Programs, dates, fees, and faculty are subject to change.
In accordance with Harvard University policy, Harvard Business School does not discriminate against any person on the basis of race, color, sex or sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, age, national or ethnic origin, political beliefs, veteran status, or disability in admission to, access to, treatment in, or employment in its programs and activities.
What You Can Expect
The primary goal of Families in Business: From Generation to Generation is to prepare participants to identify and leverage business and family strengths for competitive advantage and family success. This leadership training program provides leading-edge information, addresses key topics of concern, and examines successful resolution strategies that are critical to family-owned and family-managed companies.
Through focused classroom sessions, dynamic interaction with participants from around the world, and facilitated discussions with one's own individual family teams, the program prepares individuals and teams to:
- Identify and address the specific challenges associated with family-owned and family-managed businesses
- Maximize the family business's strengths and minimize its vulnerabilities
- Formulate effective strategies to reach common goals, address conflicts, and plan for a family's future
- Develop practices that lead to high-performance companies, loyal shareholders, and healthy families
How Will My Organization Benefit?
Executive Education programs at Harvard Business School represent a are investment for both you and your organization. Going far beyond the basic transmission of skills and theories, each leadership development program provides applicable lessons in the classroom that can be implemented successfully within your organization. You will acquire a fresh perspective on global business from our groundbreaking curriculum, world-renowned faculty, and an accomplished group of elite peers from around the world.
"We found the FIB program to be a powerful experience. Its content, workload, and structure provided an incredible forum for discussion, and encouraged our family to communicate openly about sensitive issues. The business will be well served by the work we accomplished at FIB, particularly in terms of our business strategies and long-term plans. Of equal importance was the affirmation that we love what we do, and we love doing it together. We emerged an even closer and more dedicated group of family owners—our mission has never been stronger."
David McLean [Chairman and CEO], The McLean Group of Companies, Canada
Your Course of Study
Families in Business: From Generation to Generation draws on the experience and expertise of faculty who are leaders in family business education and research, and who consult with family companies around the world. The faculty provides participants with proven tools that they can use when addressing issues specific to their own situations. In addition, trained family business facilitators work privately with family teams to help them identify their particular challenges and goals, and guide them in developing strategies to better position their families and companies for future success. Participants say that these facilitated sessions are the most useful element of the program.
Incorporating thought-provoking lectures, case studies, guest speakers, and small-group discussions, the curriculum explores four key areas:
Dynamics of the Family Business System
- Integrating the strengths of families and businesses
- Preparing for predictable stages of the family business system
- Developing constructive family work relationships and shareholder relationships
- Managing conflict in business families
- Communicating effectively with family members
- Balancing the financial needs of the business and the family
- Adapting the practices of successful family companies and business families
Growing, Preserving, and Sharing the Wealth
- Implementing strategies for growing the company, while maintaining family control
- Distributing wealth and ownership to benefit the family and the business
- Raising children in wealthy business families
Governance
- Developing effective boards of directors and advisory boards
- Organizing family assembly and family council meetings
- Creating policies and plans for the family's involvement with the business
- Developing leaders in the family-business-ownership system
Succession
- Developing the next generation as effective managers, shareholders, and family members
- Managing ownership and leadership transitions
- Preparing the organization for future changes in management and ownership
- Taking charge and letting go of leadership responsibilities
"For me, the most valuable part of the program was the ability to spend a full week together with my father—without distractions—to talk, think, and debate about family and business issues. Through the instructive case studies and stimulating work groups, we realized that generational problems are universal in family businesses, and we now have ways to effectively tackle them. We also were able to better define the role of the board of directors and have since made some changes in order to add more value to our group companies."
Rodolfo DeBendetti [CEO, CIR Group], Italy
Who Is Right for the Program
Families in Business: From Generation to Generation is intended for teams of business family members, such as:
- A chief executive officer [or top family business leader(s)] and his or her spouse
- Children of the business leader(s) and their spouses
- Siblings and their spouses/partners
- Cousins and their spouses/partners
These family members might be:
- A manager or an employee
- A board member
- A shareholder
- An interested relative, who may be an in-law
We recommend the participation by family teams of four or more individuals representing both genders and two generations, when possible. Some families also find it useful to include a nonfamily executive or board member on their teams. Participants are drawn from many countries and represent a range of industries and family companies in varied family, business, and ownership stages.
Visit the admissions section for details about our application process.
Past Participants Represented:
| Industries |
Family Team Members |
||||
| 2% | Chem/Pharm/Bio | 17% | Family member only | ||
| 2% | Communications | (nonemployee, nonowner) | |||
| 21% | Consumer Products | 15% | Family member and owner | ||
| 2% | Financial | (nonemployee) | |||
| 1% | High Technology | 16% | Family member and | ||
| 7% | Manufacturing | employee (nonowner) | |||
| 1% | Nonprofit Services | 47% | Family member, owner, | ||
| 40% | Other | and employee | |||
| 5% | Other Services | 4% | Nonfamily employee | ||
| 4% | Professional Services | (nonowner) | |||
| 3% | Raw Materials/Energy | 1% | Nonfamily employee and | ||
| 8% | Real Estate/Construction | owner | |||
| 3% | Retail Services | ||||
| 1% | Utilities/Telecommunications | ||||
"This high-impact program was crucial in helping us to ensure that our family business continues successfully into the next generation. Bringing forth family issues through facilitators in a nonemotional, easy-to-follow process allowed us to put many questions on the table that we had never discussed. We also had time to form ideas on how we could apply some cases to our own business."
Joseph Sasson [COO], Arco Group, Canada
Meet the Program Faculty
Harvard Business School Executive Education programs are developed and taught by a core faculty of HBS professors who are skilled educators, groundbreaking researchers, and award-winning authors. Faculty leverage their business expertise and field-based research to create new knowledge and enduring concepts that shape the practice of management. The result is a teaching team that exposes participants to multiple perspectives, challenging their thinking on many levels. For more detailed biographies, click on each faculty name.
Joining the faculty for this program are several highly experienced family business facilitators who work privately with family teams throughout the week. The result is a multifaceted teaching team that exposes participants to uniquely different perspectives and challenges their thinking on multiple levels.
David L. Ager, Lecturer on Sociology and Assistant Head Tutor, Department of Sociology, Harvard University.
John A. Davis, Senior Lecturer of Business Administration. Member of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit; and faculty chair of "Families in Business: From Generation to Generation."
Deepak Malhotra, Associate Professor of Business Administration. Member of the Negotiation, Organizations, and Markets Unit.
Belén Villalonga, Associate Professor. Member of the Finance Unit.
"The FIB program reassured us that our problems, which we considered unique, were not insurmountable. We learned that families have disparate goals and many families face issues of family history, trust, governance, and communication, irrespective of industry, culture, or generation. Most importantly, I learned that constructively addressing our issues was critical to the success of the family and the business, despite the tremendous pressure to ignore them in the name of family harmony."
Michelle Dorion [Senior Advisor, Kristel, S.A.], Guatemala