Statistics suggest that a family business has only a one-in-three chance of reaching the second generation, yet few business founders believe that theirs will be the one to fail. The reasons why so many family businesses don’t survive have to do with the ways that family considerations can overwhelm business realities, and the consequent lack of focus on the need for business renewal.

This dynamic arises from the unique quality of the family business, in that people from different generations of the same family may share management and ownership of the business. Not every family member inherits ownership and not