By day, the Duncans are an upstanding family who run a thriving car dealership in Queens. By night, they live a dangerous secret life! Carl Weber and Eric Pete deliver a thrilling underworld drama in The Family Business. L.C. Duncan, patriarch of the family, is at the age when hes starting to think about retirement in sunny Florida. But the recession is taking a bite out of the business and, worrying more, he has to decide which of his children should take over. When his workaholic son Orlando gets the nod, Orlandos siblingsincluding the favorite son Vegas, conniving daughter London, glamorous party girl Paris and flamboyant nightclub owner Rioare up in arms. But so are the Zunigas, a rival family whose fragile business alliance with the Duncans may explode at any moment. When Vegas suddenly breaks away from the family, Londons lawyer husband, Harris, makes a play for the company and all hell breaks loose. Selling cars, it turns out, is only a small part of the Duncans family business. Each member of the family has a secret expertise to reveal. And now, under siege from the Mafia, Mexican drug cartels and the Zunigas, the Duncans will have to stick togetheror die separately!
New York Times bestselling author Carl Weber and Essence bestseller La Jill Hunt return with a story of love, betrayal and racism in the next addition to the wildly popular Family Business series. From the time he was a boy in Georgia, LC Duncan, patriarch and leader of the Duncan clan, has battled racism. Even now that he and his family are truly successful, the racism can still be in-your-face. Maybe it’s the political climate or perhaps it’s just bad timing, but LC and the rest of the Duncans are being challenged by the ultimate power-hungry racist, Sheriff KD Shrugs. Nevada Duncan is at that age when girls and sex are always on his mind. His handsome face and superior intellect attract Kia, the beautiful “Blasian” call girl who tempts him into running away to a place where the Duncans are definitely not wanted—El Paso, Texas, the home of KD Shrugs. What is the worst thing that can happen to a handsome, rich millennial? Rio Duncan would say it’s mistaken identity after being beat down in a nightclub by someone who thinks he’s Roman Johnson, a stickup kid who happens to be Rio’s doppelganger. What happens next will open up the biggest can of worms the Duncans have ever had to deal with. Get ready for another roller coaster ride with the Duncan family.
The challenge faced by family businesses and their stakeholders, is to recognise the issues that they face, understand how to develop strategies to address them and more importantly, to create narratives, or family stories that explain the emotional dimension of the issues to the family. The most intractable family business issues are not the business problems the organisation faces, but the emotional issues that compound them. Applying psychodynamic concepts will help to explain behaviour and will enable the family to prepare for life cycle transitions and other issues that may arise. Here is a new understanding and a broader perspective on the human dynamics of family firms with two complementary frameworks, psychodynamic and family systematic, to help make sense of family-run organisations. Although this book includes a conceptual section, it is first and foremost a practical book about the real world issues faced by business families. The book begins by demonstrating that many years of achievement through generations can be destroyed by the next, if the family fails to address the psychological issues they face. By exploring cases from famous and less well known family businesses across the world, the authors discuss entrepreneurs, the entrepreneurial family and the lifecycles of the individual and the organisation. They go on to show how companies going through change and transition can avoid the pitfalls that endanger both family and company. The authors then apply tools that will help family businesses in transition and offer their analyses and conclusions. Readers should draw their own conclusions from careful examination of the cases, identifying the problems or dilemmas faced and the options for improved business performance and family relationships. They should ask what they might have done in the given situation and what new insight into individual or family behaviour each case offers. The goal is to avoid a bitter ending.
Family business planning has traditionally centered on two issues - estate planning and succession. These goals are far too limited for today's family firm. Business families want to turn the business into not only a tool for profit, but for self-expression, innovation and legacy. The authors introduce the new concept of the Parallel Planning Process, explaining how to integrate the needs and expectations of the family and business systems in order to create an organic and entrepreneurial unit. Planning and decision making templates are included as well as studies of well-known family businesses.
LC Duncan, patriarch and leader of the Duncan clan, is alive and well after being shot by a mysterious gunman. His near-death experience has caused him and his wife, Chippy, to decide that it's time to return to Waycross, Georgia, for a long overdue family reunion. But wherever the Duncans go, trouble follows, and this time it comes in the form of longtime Duncan enemy Vinnie Dash and Orlando Duncan's baby momma, Ruby. They are back to seek revenge on the Duncan family as they continue to deny Orlando the opportunity to meet his only child. -- adapted from jacket.
In his typical jaw-dropping fashion, Carl Weber returns with part two of his New York Times bestselling Family Business series. He's brought along a friend in bestselling author Treasure Hernandez, and together they've added more drama and new family members to the mix. Welcome to the world of Duncans. By day they are upstanding citizens running one of New York's most respected car dealerships; but by night, they're criminals who control most of the East Coast drug traffic. No matter whether they're on their day or night jobs, one thing is true about the Duncans: there is never a dull moment to be found. Baby momma drama takes over the Duncan clan, as there is still uncertainty about who has fathered the Duncan sisters' new babies. Meanwhile, Orlando Duncan, the family's new CEO and a man with his own baby momma problems, has just developed a new product that may make the millionaire Duncans into billionaires. Orlando only has one obstacle in front of him, and it's not law enforcement or one of his family's many rivals. It's his mother, and she may be his most formidable opponent to date, because she's making the family take sides. Can a civil war within the Duncan family be averted before it tears them apart?
A young raccoon forges his own path in this laugh-out-loud read-aloud picture book! Lucky is a racoon who loves to dance, watch TV, and dream of the day he's big enough to join the family business. But when Lucky finally gets his chance, his first day on the job isn't exactly what he expects. And so begins a hilariously rude awakening as Lucky discovers exactly what his family has been up to this entire time. Is there a way to honor his family's expectations while following his heart? Author Lenore Appelhans's well-paced story is full of refrains and builds to a surprising finish and Ken Lamug's adorable artwork brings this special raccoon and his boisterous family to life. Perfect for fans of Gaston and Wolfie the Bunny, Lucky's journey is about the difficulty of balancing family expectations and being true to yourself.
Generation to Generation will help managers understand the special dynamics & challenges that family businesses face as they move through their life cycles. It explains how to handle succession, & the role of non-family professionals.
The first book to tell the story of one of the world’s most influential media businesses, The Family Business draws on more than 70 interviews with company insiders as well as book-industry luminaries to present the Ingram story and how a little-known Nashville-based company grew to play a pivotal role in transforming book publishing around the world. The history of the Ingram Content Group is one of the most important and remarkable business stories that almost no one knows. Launched as a favor to a family friend, it started as a local textbook distributor—one tiny division within a thriving corporation focused on oil, construction supplies, and shipping. It grew into the world’s largest book wholesaler, then into the most influential and innovative supplier of infrastructure and services to publishers around the world. Over the past 50 years, from its headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee, Ingram has played a pivotal role in modernizing the book business. Two members of the founding family have led the way: Bronson Ingram, a tough-minded industrialist who instinctively recognized a golden opportunity to apply modern efficiencies to antiquated logistical systems, and Bronson’s son John Ingram, an “intrapreneur” with a keen understanding of both the opportunities and the risks created by the new digital technologies. Led by these two brilliant managers, Ingram has used its unparalleled industry-wide connections to help transform book publishing from a tradition-bound business into a dynamic, global twenty-first century powerhouse. Now, for the first time, The Family Business captures the whole story. In its pages, readers will learn about: The introduction of the Ingram microfiche reader in 1972 and how it catapulted book retailing into the electronic eraIngram’s network of coast-to-coast distribution centers turning U.S. book publishing into a truly national business for the first timeIngram using fast-growing video, software, magazine, and international wholesaling operations to create a phenomenal record of expansion, growing from a million-dollar company into a billion-dollar giant in just two decadesTwo of book publishing’s most powerful organizations—Ingram and Barnes & Noble—almost coming within a hair’s breadth of merging, and how the deal fell apart at the eleventh hourIngram’s unparalleled ability to rapidly fulfill product orders empowering Amazon’s unique customer service model and enabling its explosive growthLightning Source, a technological marvel spawned by Ingram, converting the “long tail” of niche books from a costly headache for publishers and retailers into a steady source of profitable salesIngram’s transformation of the book supply chain enabling countless booksellers and publishers to survive and even thrive in the disruptive era of Covid-19 Today, with Ingram’s expanding portfolio of service and infrastructure businesses playing an ever-growing role in the world of publishing, the company stands ready to help lead the industry into an era of even more dramatic change. The Family Business is the first book to recount the story of this strategic powerhouse that everyone in the publishing industry does business with, and that practically everyone admires—but that few people really understand. A must-read for people in the book business and the world of media, and anyone else who wants to understand how this vastly influential industry really works, this book fascinates with the story of the ways today’s electronic information technologies are transforming the world.
