Benefit of Business Succession Plan Completion

Benefit of Business Succession Plan Completion

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report.

Last week, we discussed beginning the process of determining your business succession plan. Although getting through the entire process can take several years, the positive side of completion --in addition to ensuring the future of your family’s farm or ranch-- is that family strife and discord may dissipate.

Dr. Don Jonovic, President of Family Business Management Services, has 39 years of experience helping family businesses go through the ownership transition process. He reminds families that one of the benefits of completing the crucial task of succession planning can be improved family relations.

Jonovic: “People find that they are much more able to relate and love each other the way they thought they always would. Because Farm transition if it’s not planned can become farm succession, like the Civil War, and that is very difficult. So they can see there is a lot more peace and harmony in the family -- they able open up better. They can also see the communication between generations is vastly improved. The conflicts between siblings start to drift away; nothing ever goes away--families are dysfunctional by nature. But at least the business isn’t causing problems. And it is giving people now a sense of opportunity, ‘I’m not alone, that I can depend on my partners. We face the world--which is a pretty tough world--but we face it pretty much together.’ Those are all wonderful places to be.”

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.