A recent episode of HBO's Succession centered around the funeral of patriarch Kendall Roy. Notwithstanding the show’s title, the fictional Royco company was hardly prepared for an orderly transition of power form Logan Roy to the next generation. Is the reluctance to let go of power shown by Logan unusual in the world of family business?
In a paper titled "The Mortality of Family Business Leaders: Using a Palliative Care Model to Re-imagine Letting Go," published in March in the Journal of Management Inquiry, the authors argue that a business leader's reluctance to let go is the single largest deterrent to succession planning.
Struck by the parallels between planning for your own mortality and letting go of one’s business, they began an investigation into whether acknowledging one's own mortality helps facilitate succession planning.
James Davis, a professor of management, marketing and strategy at Utah State University, and Nancy Forster-Holt, assistant professor of innovation and entrepreneurship in the University of Rhode Island College of Business are two of the three authors of this research and share more details.