In this episode of The Disruptive Successor Show, Jonathan speaks with Bill Yoh, Chairman of the Yoh Group and Co-Owner of Day, and Zimmerman, a 45-thousand-employee, century-old business. He is a third-generation owner and the youngest of 5 siblings and has a personal view of the human dynamics behind large, multigeneration family businesses. He regularly writes about leadership, relationships, and family business using his proprietary methodology called famlylitics. He recently published Our Way, a biography on his father and family which has been hailed as a transgenerational saga. Bill also teaches a class at Wharton on the family business. He talks about how his father grew their business, being G2, and how even being G3 it is still more of a sibling partnership than anything. Succession was smooth in their business and they ensure that any family members who want to enter the business have had related experience first before coming aboard. In their experience, having outside consultants is critical to find out what others have been doing and going through that process first before landing on policies on hiring and governance. Bill stresses the need to nurture the relationships within the family business and how consultants can help with this. Bill's family has a master plan that they discuss when things are good so that when unexpected events happen, they are not blindsided. Bill then shares the genesis of his book on his father and how it was an effort to immortalize the rich lessons in life and business that his father learned over many decades. HIGHLIGHT QUOTES BILL: Work with external advisors as a group "For our experience, where we landed on say our employment policy or our governance model, whatever else, is really not as important, in my opinion, to other people as the process, as going through the process as an ownership group, with or without management, intergeneration or not, whatever your dynamics are, going through that process as a group is, to me, more important than whether you land on, you have to work outside the business for 2 years of 5 years." BILL: A disruptive successor must drive how the succession looks like "There are literally an infinite number of ways that succeeding generations can succeed the incumbent generation, but of that infinite number of ways, the only one I can say with certainty that will not work is one that the incumbent generation designs for the succeeding generation. That succeeding generation has to not just participate but has to drive what that succession process looks like." Connect with Bill and get his book with the following links: About Bill Website (Personal) Website (Company) If you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe, review and share with a friend who would benefit from the message. If you’re interested in picking up a copy of Jonathan Goldhill’s book, Disruptive Successor, go to the website at www.DisruptiveSuccessor.com
In this episode of The Disruptive Successor Show, Jonathan speaks with Bill Yoh, Chairman of the Yoh Group and Co-Owner of Day, and Zimmerman, a 45-thousand-employee, century-old business. He is a third-generation owner and the youngest of 5 siblings and has a personal view of the human dynamics behind large, multigeneration family businesses.
He regularly writes about leadership, relationships, and family business using his proprietary methodology called famlylitics. He recently published Our Way, a biography on his father and family which has been hailed as a transgenerational saga. Bill also teaches a class at Wharton on the family business.
He talks about how his father grew their business, being G2, and how even being G3 it is still more of a sibling partnership than anything. Succession was smooth in their business and they ensure that any family members who want to enter the business have had related experience first before coming aboard.
In their experience, having outside consultants is critical to find out what others have been doing and going through that process first before landing on policies on hiring and governance. Bill stresses the need to nurture the relationships within the family business and how consultants can help with this.
Bill's family has a master plan that they discuss when things are good so that when unexpected events happen, they are not blindsided. Bill then shares the genesis of his book on his father and how it was an effort to immortalize the rich lessons in life and business that his father learned over many decades.
HIGHLIGHT QUOTES
BILL: Work with external advisors as a group
"For our experience, where we landed on say our employment policy or our governance model, whatever else, is really not as important, in my opinion, to other people as the process, as going through the process as an ownership group, with or without management, intergeneration or not, whatever your dynamics are, going through that process as a group is, to me, more important than whether you land on, you have to work outside the business for 2 years of 5 years."
BILL: A disruptive successor must drive how the succession looks like
"There are literally an infinite number of ways that succeeding generations can succeed the incumbent generation, but of that infinite number of ways, the only one I can say with certainty that will not work is one that the incumbent generation designs for the succeeding generation. That succeeding generation has to not just participate but has to drive what that succession process looks like."
Connect with Bill and get his book with the following links:
If you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe, review and share with a friend who would benefit from the message. If you’re interested in picking up a copy of Jonathan Goldhill’s book, Disruptive Successor, go to the website at www.DisruptiveSuccessor.com