One of the major differences between managing a business and other challenges such as sports is that in most challenges you are honored for what you are able to do.  For instance, you write a great book, or set a world record in sports, or become the champion.

Your goal is to be as much better on it as everybody else.  What matters is what you have accomplished, and what you would like to set is hopefully a record that is rarely equalled.

However, especially if you are finding an organization or a business, your goal is not only how high you can bring it to, but hopefully also how high it will continue to be once you are not there.  Thus, you are not building only something that will serve you, but will continue to serve its function way after you are not there.

That is why one of the cardinal role of a CEO is to train his successor.  I got this after watching the movie Alexander the Great.  The man was a legend, having conquered most of the known world the Greeks know by the time he was 25.  However, the huge empire that he built crumbled as quickly after he died.

Founders of companies who become famous are notorious for not only not knowing when to leave, but also in knowing how to train their successor.  It is almost as if egoistically, you really want to make sure that the next CEO does not do as well as you do, but if youa re the founder the company, what you really want to do is to insure the success of the company even after you have exited gracefully.

One of the things I am talkingto now, is how to work on proper succession on family companies for which there are numerous worldwide, especially in Asia.  IN the 70s, 80s, 90s, and the start of the century, millions of businesses were founded, and many of them are now time to pass to the second generation.

As a patriarch or founder, think that you really want that the business you started will not only endure, it will even become bigger.  And if you are nearing retirement age, spend somet ime to insure that the business will not only be ok for the nextg few years, but try to see how it can build the foundation so that it will continue to succeed in the next 20 or 30 years.

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