Generational Transition Quotes

According to the Small Business Administration, more than 70 percent of all family businesses do not survive through the second generation, and 8 percent do not make it to a third.

Our mythology tells us so much about fathers and sons. ... What do we know about mothers and daughters? ... Our power is so oblique, so hidden, so ethereal a matter, that we rarely struggle with our daughters over actual kingdoms or corporate shares. On the other hand, our attractiveness dries as theirs blooms, our journey shortens just as theirs begins. We too must be afraid and awed and amazed that we cannot live forever and that our replacements are eager for their turn, indifferent to our wishes, ready to leave us behind.

Are we going to fire the father to hire the son? We want to create jobs for young people, but not at the expense of others.

I brought my sons into the business to extend my working life, so I could keep my hand in the business.

If the children of a group's founder are to take over that group, they need the endorsement of society.

Interestingly, many Indian companies where there's a father-and-son combination are being run as joint CEO organizations because the father has not given up running the company and the son is actively involved in running the company, and there is division of responsibilities.

My last son is leaving to go to college; my grandchildren are being born. My mother is living with me.

I was young myself and reliant on older players to make room for me.

I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else. There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.

When the founders retire, it's always difficult for the second generation and third generation.

Nothing is more incumbent on the old than to know when they should get out of the way and relinquish to younger successors the honors they can no longer earn, and the duties they can no longer perform.

I leave the world and its affairs to the young and energetic, and resign myself to their care, of whom I have endeavored to take care when young.

It feels like now I - you know, I'm almost 80 years old - I can sit back and retire, you know, and say, 'Look, our young people are taking over.' And that's great. That's what I'd like to see.

the boys of the rising generation are to be the men of the next, and the sole guardians of the principles we deliver over to them.