Practical Guide: Learning to let go

3. July 2025

The WIFU Foundation has just released the English edition of the practical guide Learning to Let Go: How the Senior Generation Can Proactively Shape the Handover Process and Their Own Transformation (2025), authored by Dr. Simon Caspary, Prof. Dr. Tom A. Rüsen, and Prof. Dr. Heiko Kleve. With a foreword by Prof. Dr. Rudolf Wimmer, this newly translated guide makes its valuable insights accessible to an international audience for the first time.

The publication addresses one of the most profound challenges facing family entrepreneurs: how to step back from operational leadership and ownership while navigating the emotional and identity-related aspects of succession. The guide highlights grief work and the redefinition of personal identity as essential parts of a successful transition.

Through practical exercises, reflective questions, and concrete strategies, senior leaders are empowered to actively shape their own transformation, discover new meaning beyond their business role, and ensure a smooth and sustainable generational transition.

By consciously engaging with this process early on, outgoing leaders strengthen family cohesion and safeguard the long-term future of the family business. With its holistic and reflective approach, the newly available English edition serves as a key resource for family entrepreneurs worldwide who are ready to view succession not as an ending, but as the beginning of a new, fulfilling chapter.