An exchange with a very successful entrepreneur in the last few months has moved me a lot. Why do many “company seniors” not succeed in retiring? Many pioneers founded their companies in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and in some cases led them to global success. My interlocutor can also look back on an unbelievable lifetime achievement. Started in the 1970s in his mid-20s, he still runs a company alone today with some hundred employees and production facilities in several countries: A true champion in his field. What prevents these entrepreneurs from retiring from business life, handing over the company to their children or other successors? You can read my analysis of this here:
If you ask the entrepreneurs themselves, there have many reasons that you can understand logically in the conversation. From a neutral point of view, these reasons are mostly solvable tasks. Doesn’t it often have other unspoken causes? Is it maybe the fear as a retiree to see how the company is changed? How the own for many years successful concepts are thrown overboard? How potentially the company goes under, the own lifetime achievement is trampled underfoot?
In any case, it must have something to do with inner principles that can block the ability to act in matters of succession. It is not “the others” who can implement the succession satisfactorily. Who, if not the entrepreneur himself, can dissolve these blockades and free himself from his fears? A coaching process can help here if the entrepreneur is aware of his inner constraints. But only then!! I can’t accept assignments like “coach my son in my footsteps please”, they are doomed to failure!
I would be happy to speak to you to deepen this topic. Make an appointment for a free, non-binding conversation about blocking principles in company succession via info@torsten-spill.de .