While family businesses have existed for millennia all over the world, it is only in the past few decades that professional consultants have been utilized to help them function more effectively. This engaging, up to the minute volume explores the varied and complex world of family enterprises as they now exist in the third decade of the 21st century. Attention is given to the factors unique to family businesses in their attention to perpetuating family values, traditions, loyalties and their legacy to future generations. Consultants may be drawn from law, finance and accounting, organizational psychology, or family psychology (with its special emphasis on understanding the family relationship system). The book describes methods of assessment and how to effectively communicate the results as well as techniques of consulting and provides an invaluable description of what is necessary to be and become a family business consultant