New book helps family-owned printing business leaders balance family issues and business issues and make critical transitions successfully

East Rutherford, N.J. - The National Association for Printing Leadership (NAPL) has released Livelihood & Legacy: The NAPL Guide to the Family Owned Business. The trade paperback, developed by the printing industry management experts at NAPL, provides family-owned printing business leaders with insight and information to help them gain a clear understanding and successfully balance family issues and business issues without putting undue stress on either area. 

“The family-owned business is at the heart of our industry,” notes Joseph P. Truncale, Ph.D., NAPL President and Chief Executive Officer, “and many its of best-known and most successful companies have grown over several generations of family leadership. But running a family-owned business is not without its challenges, and this new book will help family business leaders navigate them successfully, helping both their family and their business enterprise prosper.”     

In 2011, 90% of all business enterprises in North America were family owned, accounting for more than half of all wages and salaries paid annually, and half the output of goods and services produced in the U.S. Unfortunately, fewer than 30% of family businesses survive into the second generation, and only 13% into the third. And studies have shown that of those family businesses that fail, about 80% do so at great emotional and financial cost to the owning family.

Success in managing a family-owned business often hinges on applying best business practices to the business and managing the overlap of the family dynamic and the business dynamic. Livelihood & Legacy addresses each in depth, providing specific steps to take and ways to approach family and business leadership issues, particularly in areas where they overlap or clash.

The concepts put forth in the new book are supported with practical details, strategic approaches, and tactical tools, such as checklists, model documents, and additional resources that can be applied in any family-owned business immediately. Following this commonsense guide will help family business leaders advance both the progress of the business and the compatibility of the family, no matter how large or complex either might be. 

Among the topics covered: How family “systems” differ from business systems,” understanding the family/business overlap, managing the critical transitions in a family-owned business, and managing the family/business relationship.

Originally developed in 1992 as an NAPL/Dupont Video Learning Systems workbook by Ernest A. Doud, Jr., of family business specialists Doud/Hausner Associates, Livelihood & Legacy has been updated and rewritten by NAPL experts to meet the new needs of the family business in the changing and challenging graphic communications industry environment of today.

The 122-page trade paperback is essential reading for any family-owned business leader or someone preparing for eventual leadership of a family business.Livelihood & Legacy is available through NAPL. It retails for $29.95 ($24.95 for NAPL/NAQP members). To order, go to www.napl.org, click on the “Store” button and enter “Livelihood” in the search button, or call (800) 642-6275.

The NAPL store has a wide array of books, studies, videos, and other resources for the owner or manager of a graphic communications business.