Your family and firm, one document. Inside Succession, Module II — Applied — this lesson names a specific move the steward makes when the situation calls for it. The register is institutional: a working understanding of Capstone: A legacy plan, sized to be reached for in a real conversation, not recited from a slide.
- 01State Capstone: A legacy plan in the disciplined sense used throughout Succession, without softening or slogan.
- 02Recognize the situation in which Capstone: A legacy plan is the right move — and the adjacent situation in which it is the wrong one.
- 03Execute Capstone: A legacy plan in a live case drawn from your own work or a documented case study, and defend the reasoning in one paragraph.
- 04Connect Capstone: A legacy plan to carrying wealth and mission across generations without corrupting either so it strengthens the practice rather than replacing it.
The instrument, stated plainly
Your family and firm, one document. Read the sentence twice. It is not a slogan; it is the compressed form of the lesson. The rest of this module returns to it, so the sentence is worth learning by heart. When the steward grants capstone: a legacy plan, this is what the move actually is — no more, no less.
Where it sits in the family enterprise
Module II exists because . Capstone: A legacy plan is one of the family stewardship moves that lives inside that situation. Notice which earlier lessons this one leans on and which later lessons will lean on it — the sequencing is deliberate, and the module reads differently once you place this piece.
How the steward actually uses it
In practice, the steward does not consult Capstone: A legacy plan the way a novice consults a checklist. The move is trained in until it becomes an available response — something to documents without ceremony when the moment arrives. The mark of understanding is not that you can recite Capstone: A legacy plan; it is that you catch yourself using it, unprompted, and can explain afterward why you did.
The heir's misreading, corrected
The most common misreading is to treat Capstone: A legacy plan as a maneuver you deploy on the other party. It is not. The next generation is more capable than the one that built the fortune — and the professional application of Capstone: A legacy plan sits inside that criterion, not outside it. When the move is used cynically, the results are short-lived and the reputation cost is high. When it is used cleanly, it compounds.
- Capstone: A legacy plan is a working move, not a slogan.
- It belongs to Module II — Applied — because that is the situation it addresses.
- Mastery is unprompted use in the right situation.
- The adjacent lessons in this module are its natural context.
- Used cleanly, Capstone: A legacy plan compounds; used cynically, it does not.
Compose the terminal work for Module II of Succession. Bind every lesson in the module into a single artifact a working practitioner would use. Anchor the piece in Capstone: A legacy plan and let the other lessons play supporting roles.
Deliverables
- — A written thesis of not fewer than 3,000 words arguing a defensible position.
- — An accompanying short presentation suitable for an oral defense.
- — A practical artifact — worksheet, checklist, model, or brief — a peer could act on.
- — A short reflection on what the work taught you that the lessons alone did not.
Rubric
- — Coherence — the pieces reinforce a single argument.
- — Rigor — claims are supported, sources named, limitations declared.
- — Usefulness — a colleague could pick up the artifact and act on it.
- — Voice — the writing has an author; the artifact has a point of view.
- — Durability — the work would remain intelligible in five years.
Oral Defense
- — Restate the thesis in one sentence.
- — Name the strongest counter-argument and address it directly.
- — Point to the single most surprising thing you learned.
- — Identify what you would change if you were doing the capstone again.
- Hughes, J. E. — Family Wealth: Keeping It in the Family. — The canonical text on multi-generational stewardship.
- Gersick, K. et al. — Generation to Generation. — The classical study of the family business through its stages.
- Internal Revenue Code §§ 2001, 2501, 2601 (estate, gift, and GST tax). — The controlling U.S. transfer-tax regime.
- 1306 — Succession, Module II: Applied. The Anabasis Academy. — The parent module. Re-read the module framing after finishing the lesson.