My Business On Purpose

I’ve heard it said that 96% of businesses will not see their tenth birthday. A study conducted by the Exit Planning Institute reveals 30% of those businesses that survive will make it through their 2nd generation. Of what little remains, only 12% of the very limited 2nd generation businesses will make it through the 3rd generation. Business is hard.  Regardless of product, regardless of industry, regardless of market, leadership, and sustainability; business is hard. A modern refrain among owners and leaders is that “nobody wants to work anymore”. Older generations look down the pathway of a younger lineage and sense a mood of apathy and lack of resolve. We then begin to conjecture as to why “nobody wants to work anymore” and begin unwrapping and applying the band-aids of bygone solutions that worked in the past hoping desperately for the tried-and-true to spur renewed action into the future.  And then they don’t. In a culture of significant fluctuation and innovation, it is the older generation (this author