NEXT-GENERATION STEWARDSHIP
Advisory for Multigenerational Family Enterprises
Are your children choosing your family business, or are they being chosen, being absorbed by it?
Preparing the next generation for ownership and leadership requires more than skills development and governance education. It requires structural protections that allow that generation a genuine choice. Protections such as:
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Independent career experience in other career options before deciding whether or not to enter the family enterprise
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Formal review points
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Pre-agreed liquidity mechanisms
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Psychological permission to say no
I work with families to build these protections, as I know from personal experience what happens when they are absent.
Looking back over my own life, I can’t identify a single moment before 2024 where I genuinely chose the Dickinson Group of Companies. I entered it. I inhabited it. I served it with everything I had. I was absorbed by it. But choice, real choice - the kind that requires a genuine alternative - came much later. As a result, I ensured both my sons had that choice.
That architectural decision, the most deliberate I have made, is the model for my Next-Generation Stewardship advisory and mentoring service.
– TREVOR DICKINSON