Learning in the Classroom and Beyond

August 18, 2025 - Issue #148

Family Business Professors: 40 Ways to Energize Your Class These free classroom exercises, interviews and other resources will add new energy, fun and inspiration to your students' course work.

What Family Firms Can Teach Us About Work-Life Balance Blurring work and personal lives can lead to stress and exhaustion. Family businesses do these four things to create healthier boundaries.

Family Firms: The Time to Learn About AI is Now Like the telephone or the internet, AI is here to stay, and we need to learn how to work with it.

Helping Next-Gens Envision Their Family Firm’s Future Success This classroom exercise seeks to motivate future family firm leaders to think ahead and design a holistic vision of their family firm in 10-15 years, covering many different (and potentially conflicting) aspects of it.

CEOs Who've Been Mentored Achieve Better Financial Results Family firms where the departing CEO has mentored the successor enjoyed stronger return on assets.

Growing Pains: Helping a Family Office to Evolve The Single Family Office should be a strategic partner that ensures future stability, but this family saw them as a piggybank.

Team Exercise: How Parenting Styles Affect The Next Generation This experiential exercise is designed to enhance student learning about the four parenting styles and how they affect the dynamics within the family firm.

The Psychology of Effective Exit Planning: A Guide for Families and Advisors Family firms can help the next generation move forward by understanding and supporting the emotional aspects of the exit for the current leader.

ESG Essentials For Family Firms ‘ESG is an existential issue. Businesses that don’t demonstrate their commitment to sustainable practices could be punished by consumers, the media and even regulators.’

A New Way to Resolve Extreme Conflict in Family Businesses Family members may feel “trapped” in conflicts, unable to resolve substantive issues without damaging their familial relationships. This often leads to disputes that persist for decades.

Why Don't You Educate Your Owners? Everyone agrees that families should train members to become competent owners and stewards of the family business – but few of them actually walk the talk.

Search & Save Enter search below to create an easy reading list

Learn to Defend Your Family Firm

Next-Gens Want Peers, Not Parents, to Lead Them

What Business Owners Can Learn From World War II Strategic Bombing

Hand Down the Family Business but Keep a Hand In

Popular Topics

Money

Financing, revenue, profits

Team

Staffing, succession, relationships

Manage

Best practices for running the business

Grow

Increase customers and revenue

Strategy

Making better decisions

Operations

How the best firms run

Recent

Family CEOs May Encourage More Innovation Than Non-Family Leaders

by Mario Daniele Amore, Morten Bennedsen, Bordin Bordeerath, and Nicolai Foss / Research Insight

While professional non-family leadership may bring some advantages, the stability brought by family leaders may encourage employees to innovate without fear of failure. Read more...

Family Culture Can Block (or Unlock) Innovation

by Ricardo Romano and Alessandra Bussi Moratti / Research Insight

Low trust, resistance to change, and intergenerational communication gaps can prevent new strategies and collaboration from taking root. Read more...

Are Your Family and Business Thriving Together - Or Undermining Each Other?

by Kimberly Eddleston and Jennifer Jennings / Research Insight

Like organisms in nature, the relationship between family and business can be mutually beneficial or detrimental. Here's how to strengthen both spheres. Read more...

Family Leaders: Can Your Business Still Sail Without You?

by Bradford C. Jeter, CEPA / Practice Insight

Without a map for navigating emergencies and guiding successors after your departure, your business and your legacy could be left adrift. Read more...

by Kerry Hannon

Consumers Love Local Brands. That's Good News For Family Businesses

by Philipp Jaufenthaler, Andreas Kallmuenzer, Sascha Kraus, and Alfredo De Massis

Future Family Business Owners Can Learn to Manage Conflict

by Ritch Sorenson

How to Plan for a Successful Succession

by Richard Eisenberg

How Family Dynamics Shape Family Businesses

by Joseph Astrachan and Claudia Binz Astrachan

The Biggest Mistakes Family Businesses Make With Their Boards

by Kimberly Eddleston