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This publication may be freely redistributed if copied in its entirety.
In This Issue...
1. Our Managing Director Announces -
2. Business first family...Family first business
New Year's suggestions are in the Tips and Recommendations section below
3. Legacy through Leadership
We'll resume this series with the first issue in 2006.
4. Around the Family Business Experts web sites
1. Our Managing Director Announces -
Dear Friends,
Reflecting on our mission as advisors to families in business together, the strategies we create are often guided by a particular observation of George Bernard Shaw, "We are made wise not by the recollections of the past, but by the responsibility for our future".
Professor Ken Mackenzie, our world-renowned organization and leadership expert, explains that today, for an organization to be successful, the key ingredient is the ability of the organization to adapt to change, rapidly.
One way to measure the scale of "change" in our world is the number of Internet users - in 2005, the number of Internet users reached ONE BILLION! Web usability experts report that it took 36 years to reach that number - and that the second billion number of Internet users will be reached in 10 years!
So as we close the books on 2005 and begin to take on the challenges of 2006, consider how best to connect the knowledge and the experience of the past and the responsibility for the future in a world that is changing at ever increasing velocity.
SPRING BREAK - MARCH SEMINAR - IN ORLANDO
As you make your plans for 2006 - you may want to consider attending a seminar in Orlando March 10-12. As a subscriber to Understanding Family Business you will get a $250.00 dollar discount if you register before January 31st.
Everyone knows that the world is shrinking as a result of the Internet - that is both good news and bad news. The bad news for many family businesses is that having a protected niche market is no longer a "given" - that niche market advantage is at risk. The good news for many family businesses is that the Internet is opening many new opportunities - the question is how prepared are you to meet the new challenges?
The core ingredient of effective business communications in our new age of technology is being able to create effective "copy" - and based on my nearly 40 years of experience as a family business advisor - being a effective copy writer is a skill set that most family businesses do not have - even worse, most family businesses do not understand the importance of writing compelling copy.
In the next edition of Understanding Family Business we will provide the details about this seminar.
To our family business friends and clients, and to the readers of Understanding Family Business, we thank you for being part of our extended family and look forward to providing the highest standard of professional advice available to families in business together.
Best wishes for a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year!
Check out our Tips and Recommendations section... you'll find useful tools there to help you get 2006 off to a great start!
Reminder: We've developed a couple of quick diagnostic assessments to help you. They are both fr*ee [at least for a while] and we try to deliver 48 hour turnaround of our analysis. Try them!
The Holonomic Top Down Assessment asks you about a combination of the 12 Main Enabling Processes that an effective organization has to have operating in order to achieve the 6 Desired Organizational Characteristics of effective organizations. Where your assessment indicates one or more of these are not working in your organization, we'll feed back suggestions as to the underlying Leadership Practices that might not be working.
Take our fr*ee Holonomic Top Down Assessment to see what underlying practices might be at fault and causing problem symptoms in your family business .
Diagnosing from the other direction - Bottom-Up - we ask you to identify which of 29 Leadership Practices aren't present or working. From that, we point you to Enabling Processes and thus Desired Characteristics that probably aren't functioning.
Take our fr*ee assessment on the 29 Leadership Practices to see how they affect your family business.
Whether to contribute, challenge (or hopefully even praise) our newsletter, I encourage you to contact me directly Don, or our editor David.
Enjoy, and here's wishing you, your family, your clients... much success!
Don Schwerzler, Managing Director
Family Business Experts
2. Business first family...Family first business:
New Year's suggestions are in the Tips and Recommendations section below
Our Tips and Recommendations
What makes the FamilyLore Game so special is that it is a family trivia game that is customized for every family. It makes a terrific game - especially for family get togethers. A few months back, the FamilyLore Game was featured in a marketing campaign by ResortQuest, the largest vacation rental company in the country. ResortQuest was promoting their resorts for family reunion - and the FamilyLore Game was included in the package. You may have seen the ads in Good Housekeeping, Redbook and Better Homes and Gardens.
FamilyLore Game
Do your children and grandchildren have entrepreneurial genes in their genetic makeup? Then we recommend Site Build It!. SBI was developed by Ken Evoy and we think it is the best product on the market for developing a web site. If you have every wondered about getting your product or service on line - SBI is the tool for you. We speak from experience as we used SBI to develop our web site - the highest ranked family business resource site on the Internet!
Site Build It!
Is this the year you really come to grips with leadership and organizational development in your family business? We recommend The Practitioners Guide For Organizing An Organization written by our colleague Dr Ken Mackenzie. It is the best book on Leadership and Organizational Development one can find. It is available in print or it can be downloaded if that is more convenient. HALO is the on-line organizational assessment tool based on Professor Mackenzie's book. HALO provides incredible feedback to C-level executives, boards of directors and others who are interested in business governance
The Practitioners Guide For Organizing An Organization
We get a lot of great comments and interest in Chaos Busters - a management guide for family business owners, senior level executives, middle managers and consultants and advisors. Simply put, Chaos Busters is 160 tips or business building blocks that will help you to formalize and systematize a business. One of the biggest stumbling blocks in the growth of a family business and a major problem in the succession process is the lack of systemization of routine business practices. Chaos Busters will help remove the chaos from your business!
Chaos Busters management guide
Time to review and update your business plan? Jian's BizPlanBuilder helps you create your business plan quickly by organizing your thoughts into carefully scripted text. Great spread sheet templates for the financial projections. Includes resources and not just blanks to fill in. Proven, award-winning business-building software.
This time of year is when a lot of planning is being considered and we think one of the best tools for project management is Project KickStart. It's not just for big construction projects... it's for every project that you have to keep track of at home or in your business.
Project KickStart
Family Businesses are complex organizations because of the overlap of business and family issues. The Issue Tracking Software developed by Project Management expert David Jones is a highly effective and easy to use tool that can help you to better organize your family and your family's business. We use this tool as part of our succession management process.
Wizard Publisher's Issue Tracking Software
3. Legacy through Leadership
There are 29 Leadership Practices [LP] that are really the foundation upon which 12 holonomic or enabling processes[HP] are built, and which, in turn, produce 6 desired organizational characteristics [DOC]. We'll look at each in this section.
We'll resume our series on 29 Leadership Practices in the next issue.
Take our fr*ee assessment on the 29 Leadership Practices...
4. Around the Family Business Experts web sites
Search the entire content site
in two different ways
1. A search engine powered by ATOMZ has indexed all the pages on the site and will link you to those relating to any search term you enter.
2. A 'Table of contents' listing that will link you directly to any page / article you select. Use the Site Map Navigation Button from any major page on the site.
Don't forget to subscribe to our Family Business Experts RSS Feed. It keeps you totally updated [NEW and UPDATED] of site changes and saves you time by delivering some of our "Golden Oldies" that need to be looked at again.
If you have previously subscribed - Thanks! But please use the orange XML/RSS button below again - our feed link has changed.
Don't forget that you can complete our Family Business Profile Questionnaire form to have your family business or client profiled.
Background information, testimonials to our service and understanding, and answers to FAQ's [Frequently Asked Questions]. Family Business Experts
There are many articles accessible from this page on the left side navigation bar.
Take our fr*ee assessment on the 29 Leadership Practices to see how they affect your family business.
Take our fr*ee Holonomic Top Down Assessment to see what underlying practices might be at fault and causing problem symptoms in your family business .
And remember about our convenient new online billing with 100% assurance! Another step in our process of starting online business.
Secure online payment
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voice 770-952-4085 fax 770-432-6660
Contact Don Schwerzler
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