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Family Enterprises: Preserving Culture
The Culture Conundrum
How Can Family Enterprises Integrate External CEOs While Preserving Their Culture?
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Culture eats strategy for breakfast.
- Peter Drucker
To be clear, we’ve got nothing against strategy. It’s critical to have direction and have a plan for getting there. But, in a family enterprise, culture and values are key.
Your values and culture are the core of who you are as an organization. They are your uniqueness. Your identity. And what inspires your people and drives your success.
Many family enterprises are concerned about hiring an external CEO, believing they’ll erode the cultural foundations of the organization and compromise family legacy.
But with a strategic approach to the CEO selection process, you can balance preservation and necessary transformation.
This starts well before an external CEO is hired. At the core of the search and selection process, it’s important to align on values, styles, and more importantly the definition of rules, channels of communication, and governance. Once the CEO is hired, you can then focus on setting them up for success with a solid transition process.
How to Preserve an Organization’s Culture
So, when hiring a new CEO, what transition actions can a family enterprise take to preserve the organization’s cultural identity?
1
Document your organization’s past
First, a clear understanding and crystallization of your values as an organization is key. Set out the founding story and principles that have guided the business over time. This will help to cement the organization’s identity.
2
Immerse the new CEO in your history
Next, thoughtfully onboard the new leader by immersing them in the organization’s family history, values, and guiding principles. This will help the new CEO understand and embrace the unique identify of your organization—and the core of what has made it successful.
3
Help the new CEO understand family dynamics
Ensure the new CEO spends time building effective relationships with the key leaders in the firm. It’s important that they begin to build trust and alignment as early as possible—without this, it will be impossible for those leaders to thrive.
How to Embed an Outside CEO
Hear Paco Ruiz Maza, a family enterprise advisor at RRA, discuss how family enterprises can best integrate external CEOs.
It’s not an easy job to do. But striking the balance between preserving your cultural identity, while remaining open to change, is critical to ensuring enduring success.
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Lead by Justus O’Brien, our global family enterprise advisory practice brings decades of experience working with family enterprises globally, whatever stage of their journey. We recognize that family enterprises represent something extraordinary—where legacy meets innovation, family meets business, and shared values create powerful business advantages. Our commitment extends beyond traditional consulting—we build enduring relationships to become trusted partners in family enterprises for generations to come.
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