PERPETUATING RANCOUR-FREE FAMILY BUSINESSES IN AFRICA: THE WAY FORWARD

This book is part of my unrelenting effort to contribute to corporate governance perfection and excellence with particular reference to perpetuating family businesses in Africa.

Sure, it can be nightmarish, and sometimes puzzling for eponyms - business founders to make a choice of a ‘’performing successor’’ from among their many children; for which most people either procrastinate, leave it to heretics - relatives or children etc, who mess it all up by using tradition protocols etc.

Selecting a successor ought to be based on peculiar ‘’gender’’ practice, or by way of ‘’classical procedures’’; which must never be done by inapplicable means and procedure.

By gender terms, the ‘’adjective’’ qualification of the successor must square up with the ‘’noun’’, being the eponym in personage and performance history.

Yes, selecting a business successor is not an ‘’oxen that needs an ox’’! What else makes matters worse?

Some eponyms do not groom their successor long enough and qualitatively.

In the book of wisdom, we are admonished that ‘’all mankind’s affair is guided and influenced by time and procedure’’; for which we must not be negligent regarding applicable procedure, in whatever we do.

The monumental role of bequeathing and having a successor is therefore; edgewise, commercial, and technical; and it is never traditional. Consider comments and experiences hereto.

A man I met at the bank in Nigeria proudly introduced his ‘’in process successor CEO’’; who is a son undergoing training. What more?

According to Craige Zildjian the oldest family business CEO in America, choice of business successor should not be left till the last minute, nor must it be done irrationally or unprofessionally; as many business tragedies accompany same.

In Africa, some tragedies of badly transmitted business even resulted in strange and tragic deaths, that are too ‘’heart wrenching’’ to be related here.

Which explains why; Craige Zidjian said, selecting the successor CEO should not be ‘’dump junked’’, just like picking unwanted or unqualified stock around or into position; since perpetuating family business is ‘’petratus’’ – achieved by excellent efforts and long continued or ‘’inveterate’’ effect. Talk the statistics!

About three quarter of businesses founded by eponyms in Nigeria do crumble after their death; lamented, the Institute of Directors of Nigeria in 2014. Any surprise!

Petratus is the exact action organ of family business perpetuation, with picking of the successor preceding it.

Perpetuating family business suggests something and substance that is ‘’perdurable’’, long lasting.

So succeeding the eponym is not ‘’per se’’ or ‘’per pro’’; instead it is through an eminently qualified ‘’personage’’ ranked by ‘’competency of performance’’.

Selecting the successor is an act based on technical, commercial and guided world wise and cutting edge wisdom of ‘’specialized picking’’ technically known as ‘’pician-picking’’.

 Pician-picking is understood as picking by ‘’epistatis’’ someone who is well known, important or perhaps the most competent person in the family, in terms of business deeds and feats, commerce, industry and performance.

Epistatis suggests picking one as superior to the rest by epistemology standards and processes.

By all measure, this book is very important for lawyers and notary publics; family life and business counsellors; community heads; wealthy households; researchers; NGO’s etc; as of shared experience and down to earth understudy of how best to encase family businesses heartily as an enterprise and a cohabit entity, in conviviality.