Supporting a Family-owned business to effectively manage intergenerational succession planning

In Q1 2022, LCap was engaged by a family-owned international plastics manufacturer to support succession planning in the business.

The three main family members, also company directors, were nearing retirement, the company strategy was for the family to maintain majority ownership of the business, however the ‘next generation’ were not yet experienced enough to take on senior management roles in the business. The ‘next generation’ comprised the children of the incumbent directors and there was disagreement amongst the key individuals as to the best route forwards. The individuals acknowledged they were struggling to remove emotion and bias from their decision making process and had therefore come to a standstill.

The leadership team engaged Leadership Dynamics in order to provide an objective, third party recommendation as to how to optimise the senior leadership team and bridge the ‘gap’ between the incumbent and future management teams (the ‘next generation’).

The process involved engagement with senior stakeholders to define the value creation plan, benchmarking of the organisation against a set of peers, and psychometric PACE profiling of key team members including the key family members in the business. At the end of the 3 week process, a full Leadership Dynamics technical report on the team was delivered, alongside an optimisation report, outlining a clear sequence of actions to take in order to optimise the team for success.

Key insights provided included:

• Recommended SLT member hires including full role description and ideal experience and behavioural profile to maximise complementarity.

• Improvements to organisational design to ensure the departmental and management structure increased career pathways and maximised the strengths of the key leaders experience and behaviours in the business.

• Development plans for the ‘next generation’ based on the PACE profiling, outlining how to maximise the development potential of each individual.

Following completion of the Leadership Dynamics process, the family accepted the key recommendations and are currently in the process of implementing the first two key hires as well as conducting a salary review in light of the updated organisational structure. By using Leadership Dynamics as an objective, third party analytics tool to benchmark the leadership team and produce a recommended route to optimisation, the family were able to de-politicise the decision making process and move forwards with a clear plan of action.