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Stephen Shortt

Family Business Succession

This recipe by Stephen Shortt, managing director of ETC Consult and Distributed Training, is required viewing and reading for anyone in a family business - which really is most entrepreneurs.

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Stephen Shortt is the managing director of ETC Consult and Distributed Training. Stephen grew up in two family businesses - as well as starting a few of his own. Having bought both family businesses from his parents and growing them internationally, Stephen learned about successful succession planning firsthand (and made his fair share of mistakes in the process).

Stephen is involved in the fields of leadership development, career guidance, succession planning, career skills and psychometric selection, as well as international education and training. He has delivered keynotes and workshops, moderated panel discussions, taught in leadership academies and acted as the MC for a range of international events. He serves on a number of advisory boards and acts as a coach, mentor and angel investor to emerging entrepreneurs in Ireland and internationally.

Stephen is a former chair of the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards, has served on the global committee for EO Accelerator and is a founding member and past president of the Irish chapter of the Entrepreneurs Organisation.

 

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10 Tasty Bites 

Below is a preview of what you can expect to learn in this recipe. 

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About This Recipe

 

Family businesses have come a long way from the time when it was assumed that the firstborn son - and only the firstborn son - would take over from his father. But in many other respects, families in business experience the same highs and lows today as they have over hundreds of years.

Drawing on his own experience of growing up in two family businesses and buying them from his parents, as well as his extensive research, Stephen Shortt has come to understand what facilitates a transition from one generation to the next, and what complicates it. In this recipe, he shares his insights and knowledge.

He dispels the myth that family businesses falter in the second generation because the heirs are somehow not good enough, explains the power of a values-led recruitment strategy and unpacks how a business can plan for succession by understanding the different types of leaders that will be required at different stages.

What You'll Learn

 

In this recipe you will learn:

  • What distinguishes a family business from other enterprises.
  • What the five P’s for successful succession in a family business are.
  • Why it is so important for the outgoing generation to promote the incoming generation in all senses of the word.
  • Why the head of a company should also be the head of company culture.
  • Why leading with your values is a powerful recruitment strategy.
  • How to reverse engineer a long-term purpose into short-term actions.
  • How to conceive of and implement a successful transition strategy.

Learn

Learn from someone who speaks from a position of real authority, perspective and experience.

Do

Implement practical tips and techniques learned in the trenches - doing, rather than talking.

Share

Join a cohort of like-minded entrepreneurs in our growing community and share your learnings as you go.

Get Learning

This entrepreneurial micro-course will take you only a few minutes per day (or you can binge if you want to). Feel free to skip around and please let us know what you think. 

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Deep Cuts 

Love this recipe? Here are some additional videos to delve even further into the topic.

 
 
 
 
 

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