GET the DATA: data measurement and analysis are essential to attaining superior performance in every facet of business This was a busy week. Our Family Business practice took us to small business, a women owned business and a 40 million dollar Family owned business with operations in 5 states. We worked with sales, operations, artists [Continue Reading]
Just Answer a Few Questions
A few weeks back I was at a Family Business, a sporting goods shop, their core business is firearms. This small business is a focused on customer satisfaction. They have a series of key questions for buyers, first time buyers: What is the intended use? Set a budget New or Used Size/type Caliber How does [Continue Reading]
Young Leaders
Young Leaders The Family Business had grown. It grew from one operation to five. The family business had grown from a quick drive from the breakfast table to a plane ride, car rental and overnight in express hotel. The plants away from the breakfast table were all in small rural Middle American towns. We had [Continue Reading]
Family Business — What Starts Here Changes the World
Families plan their summer often is a 4th of July picnic and celebration. Family Business enjoys July as the first days of the second half of the business cycle. Commencements signal the kick-0ff the start for a post academic career. Families treasure commencements, a badge of pride, courage, and honor. The 4th of July marks [Continue Reading]
Open Doors and Unintended Consequences
Family owned businesses need to be cautious of unintended consequences. Often a shoot from the hip great idea has many, many ramifications. In the social sciences, unintended consequences are outcomes that are not the ones foreseen and intended by a purposeful action. The term was popularized in the twentieth century by American sociologist Robert K. Merton Unintended consequences can [Continue Reading]
What’s the Cause? Family Business and Physics share the same laws.
Did you ever consider that some of the laws of physics, thermodynamics apply to Family businesses. Let’s consider a few laws of physics, you remember your quantum physics right? The three that effect Family Businesses: Hawthorne effect, a form of reactivity in which subjects modify an aspect of their behavior, in response to their knowing that [Continue Reading]
Family Business: Generativity Vs. Stagnation
In Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development, generativity is a struggle against stagnation that ascends during adulthood. Generativity in the psychosocial sense refers to the concern for establishing and guiding the next generation and is said to stem from a sense of optimism about humanity. Last week we had another one of those, I [Continue Reading]
Character, Competence and Chemistry in Family Owned Business
Recently the NCAA basketball season ended, both the Men’s and the Women’s champions have legendary coaches. Listening to the stories and the coaches; one had to ask. How do you win so often? What does it take to make a leader? Are there lessons a family business could learn from these two coaches? It takes [Continue Reading]