Last week, I met two business leaders with similar stories and challenges. Both leaders own and run profitable companies with loyal customers. They both hope to scale back or retire in the next five years. And both individuals recognize that although they currently have a significant impact on their company’s success, they want to see their company’s legacy continue beyond themselves.

The challenge of each leader represents a textbook succession planning scenario. Each of these leaders acknowledges the need for help to create and execute a plan:

• to prepare their organization to operate without them,
• that enables them to strengthen the overall value of their organization in a way that creates healthy ownership transition options, and
• to fully transition the leadership and ownership of their organization to a qualified, trustworthy, culturally compatible individual or team in a way that enables everyone, including their employees and customers to win (experientially, financially and otherwise).

This is a common scenario in Central Pennsylvania, an area rich in private businesses.

I know because over the last 28 years, my colleagues and I have seen it over and over again as we’ve walked alongside owners like the two I recently met. But even though theirs is a common scenario, every transition is filled with complexity and challenges.

Beyond the anticipated (textbook) complexities, are many unexpected and challenging emotions. And given the pressure to complete a transition, it’s often tempting to shortcut healthy processes, which rarely ends well for the parties involved.

However, these pitfalls and challenges can be overcome.

At North Group, we always turn to our core values because we’ve found that they help navigate both the anticipated and unanticipated challenges in every transition:

• to model an other-centered focus in a way that values each person and brings out the best in them,
• to instill hope in a way that reminds individuals of the benefits to stay faithful to a healthy process even before the results are clear,
• to build character in a way that prioritizes the long-term best interest of everyone involved, AND
• to encourage balanced living in a way that takes into consideration the whole person and how our overall “health” helps us to optimize our potential.

We’ve found that healthy and successful transitions are always driven by truth—truth that’s stood the test of time. And we know that the pathway toward your highest potential is hidden in those very same truths. That’s why we walk alongside you to model, reveal, and encourage these truths within your life, your organization’s life, and within our community.

Are you facing a similar challenge? We can help. Please call or email if you’d like to learn more.