May 5,2000

Charting Your Succession

It looks like a pizza pie, only with a grid laying across it instead of pepperoni and black olives. But the slices on Stephen Woodworth's  Family Fortune Wheel are potentially much more valuable than a pizza.

Woodworth, a principal at California Business Institute, which works with companies in Phoenix and nationwide, created the diagnostic tool aimed at family business owners and advisers to figure out if the company is ready for succession. Everyone involved in the business answers a questionnaire, sends it back to the CFBI and, in a few days, the company gets the results and an analysis of its participants answers. The questionnaire looks at four areas: family relationships, ownership, management and CEO/founder readiness for retirement.

"We believe those are the four most important criteria, "Woodworth said. The wheel highlights a company's strengths and weaknesses, along with providing universal score with regard to succession readiness." It allows a family business to sit and talk about succession in a non-threatening, no personalized, objective way, " he said.

"It's not meant to do away with business advisors, attorneys or accountants, but the $359 price tag is cheaper that the alternative, Woodworth said.

"The alternative is that the family business hires a lawyer, an accountant or a business consultant, and they spend hundreds of billable hours to go around and interview everybody," he said.

The Family Fortune Wheel is about 89 percent accurate, Woodworth said." That's not 100 percent, but it's close, " he said. "We're  in the right direction."

Anyone interested in taking a test run on the wheel can visit www.cfbi.com,or call the California Family Business Institute at 800-952-2324