Successful companies - defined by me as those who systematically empower the next generation of owners from their first day on the job - all share a single characteristic. These companies have managed somehow to instill a sense of shared purpose about the future of the company. Every decision whether personal or business flows from that spirit. When everyone is totally committed to a shared vision of the future - they make decisions most likely to move them all toward that picture.

When successors and their advisors ask me how they can get the old man to delegate more, give them more say in the way things are being done - allow them to implement 21st century strategies, etc. I tell them that frankly I am amazed when the senior generation is willing to do anything at all. Successors and their advocates inside the family and out seem impatient to me and to dad.

The mastermind principle, as originally conceived by Napoleon Hill, is about the power of a “third mind” made possible through regular collaboration. That’s when a small group of co-equal colleagues and contemporaries share experiences and insights that create “Ah ha” moments for each of them. In a real mastermind group there are no profesional organizers. There are no gurus acting as experts. And nobody is paying anybody for advice, group management, or facilitation.