Stop Protecting the Golden Egg—Start Preparing Your Successor
When Adam Hill became CEO of his fourth-generation family business in 2018, he walked straight into chaos. This wasn’t just about spreadsheets and supply chains—it was about nearly 60 family owners with different opinions, a company on the verge of insolvency, and the crushing weight of protecting a century-old legacy that suddenly felt more like a burden than a blessing.
“Legacy shifts when it stops being about creating value and starts being about preservation,” Adam shared on a recent episode of our Business Transition Roadmap podcast. “We want to protect and preserve, and suddenly legacy becomes about preservation, not value creation.”