Growing The Family Business - Welcome

Book Now


Family businesses face a unique set of management issues. As well as the normal pressures of running a business, the relationship between the various family members creates additional tensions. Parents find that their children, educated at their expense, want to change things in ways they do not agree with. Children see their parent / boss as reactionary and treating them “like children”. Brothers and sisters, and their spouses, may find themselves at odds in the way the business should develop. Cousins with parents who jointly founded the business will all have claims on the future.

It is difficult to remember, when you are up to your neck in alligators, that the job is to drain the swamp. Just so for the family business, why does it exist and how can it achieve its purpose? At a time of crisis when all businesses face real challenges, what must the family business do to ensure it reaches its growth potential?

The Objectives of the Programme

The programme is designed for all those who have an interest in a family business and who are worried about how the business operates at present and how it will grow in the future. The programme will help such people to plan a strategy for the operation of their business in a logical and objective way. It will allow the delegates to take a step back and look at the future of their business through someone else's eyes.
By the end of the programme the delegates will be in a position to:

  1. Understand the human resource factors involved in running and growing a family business
  2. Identify their own personality preferences and how to improve communication with others
  3. Talk calmly with other family members about the problems they face in growing the business
  4. Develop strategies that match what members of the family want from the business with what the business is capable of offering them
  5. Establish mechanisms for planning the growth of the business in a rational way
  6. Create a plan that maximises the potential of the “family” to grow their business

Structure of the Programme

The programme is designed to help business owners grow their business while managing the complex interaction between family and enterprise as they strive to create a more efficient, profitable and harmonious company. Specifically designed to help business owners unleash the growth potential of the family company, the programme is dedicated to helping business owners understand and successfully resolve the myriad issues that arise when a family firm enters the problematic territory of succession planning. It will offer authoritative advice on the human resource aspects of managing a family business.

Target Audience

The programme is aimed at all those who are involved in the ownership or management of businesses that are controlled by a family. It will be especially useful for those facing the transfer of control from one generation to the next, whether in the immediate future or as part of a longer term growth strategy.

Structure of the Programme

Duration
The programme will take place over an elapsed time of one month. In total, each delegate company will share in two days of interactive seminar sessions and one half-day individual discussion with the consultant on their own premises.

Part One - Workshop
The workshop will take place over two days of seven working hours each.
The individual sessions will provide a comprehensive guide that distils the best advice of an array of topflight experts and family business managers, exploring a range of issues facing the modern family business:

  • The nature of leadership, leadership in the business, leadership in the family, selecting the next leaders, developing leaders, different forms of leadership, sibling partnerships and cousin coalitions, leading the top management team, leading change in the organisation, where leaders go for advice and support, and leadership and public image
  • Preparing a new generation of leaders and ensuring the long-range viability of the enterprise while providing for the financial security of the retiring senior generation
  • The human resource implications of the relationship between the generations within a family business and their relationship with non-family executives
  • Ways to exploit the growth potential of family business.

Part Two – Diagnostic Survey
The participants from each delegate company will be given a set of worksheets that they will use to document the current situation in their organisation. These will be sent to the programme leader, who will analyse the content in order to produce a draft action plan for the development of a growth strategy for the family.

Part Three – Formulating the Plan
The programme leader will pay a half-day visit to each of the delegate companies to review the current situation and create a vision for the future.
The visit will include a BRIEF tour of the operation and a discussion between company representatives and the facilitator.

The discussion will result in clarification of the current state of readiness of the company and formulation of a vision for the future. The outcome will be a tailored action plan to help each company develop a strategic plan for the future growth, management and ownership of the business.

Programme Leader
Dr Paul Thomas, Principal of Buckingham Consultancy Limited, will lead the programme. Buckingham Consultancy specialises in maximising the contribution people make to achieving business objectives by applying leading edge Human Resource Development techniques. Dr Thomas has been conducting seminars and carrying out consultancy work in Cyprus since 1992. He has a deep understanding of the Cyprus business reality, developed through his many contacts with businesses in all sectors of the Cyprus economy.

Book Now


Workshop Timetable

Day One

Opening Ceremony – 8.45am to 9.00am
Section 1 – 9.00 -10.45 FAMILY business or family BUSINESS.

It is important to understand the underlying reasons for the existence of YOUR family business. Different objectives and goals will lead to different results, so get them sorted out and AGREED soon.

  • Introduction and ice breaker
    Exercise - Establishing the personal objectives of the delegates – working in pairs
    To focus the delegates on what they are seeking to learn during the programme
  • Every Happy Family Is Alike
  • Fathers & Daughters, Mothers & Sons
  • Lead Differently Depending on Who’s Following
  • The Art of the Board Meeting
    Exercise – Understanding communication and personality; completion of the MBTI assessment

Section 2 – 11.00 – 12.45 Resolving Conflict

  • Understanding the role of personality in communication
  • Turning Conflict into Cooperation
  • Clear Communication: a Key to Unlock Improved Performance
    Exercise - Communication style, blues, red, green, yellow – working in pairs
    To introduce the importance of personal style in both sending and receiving communication and establish the known style of the delegate and the assumed style of the major relations I the business
  • The Power of Positive Criticism
  • In a Good Negotiation, Everybody Wins
    Exercise - Win-Win script – individual exercise
    To practice the way in which a topic can be introduced into a relationship discussion to maximise the likelihood of it being well received
  • Defining Opportunities For Involvement of Younger Family Members
    Exercise - Relationships and Conflict Management – individual worksheet followed by discussion
    To experience the first element of the diagnostic survey to be used in Part Two. It will form a key part of the design of the action plan in Part Three

Section 3 – 13.45 – 15.30 Values and Culture

  • Culture types
  • Preserving company values – rites and rituals
    Exercise - Company values - individual questionnaire followed by group discussion
    To get the delegate to think more closely about the values in their own company and to consider how that will affect relationships, and what they can do as individuals to manage the outcomes
  • Support for senior managers
  • How to avoid losing executives
    Exercise - The Pygmalion Effect – Motivating high performance with high expectations scenario
    To give the delegate an insight into the benefits of setting high expectations and the dangers of failure where expectations arte low
  • How values affect decision making
    Exercise - Theory X or Theory Y – analytical questionnaire
    To enable delegates to compare their own beliefs about people at work with McGregor’s theory and to develop strategies to achieve good results with people who lean towards different styles of management

Section 4 – 16.45 – 17.30 Innovation

  • Resistance to change
  • Understanding the process of implementing change
    Exercise - Leadership style - individual questionnaire followed by group discussion
    To help the delegates to identify their own natural preferred leadership style and to compare that with the styles required to match different states of readiness so that they can develop an approach to maximise their effectiveness with people in different states of readiness
  • The loser trap
    Exercise - Strategic thinking and managing change – individual questionnaire followed by discussion
    To experience the second part of the diagnostic survey to be used in Part Two. It will form a key part of the design of the action plan in Part Three

Day Two

Registration – 8.45am to 9.00am
Section 5 – 9.00 -10.45 Motivation and Reward

  • What to pay yourself, family, and non-family
  • Fair pay for family members
    Exercise - Motivation to lead- individual exercise
    Becoming an effective leader takes hard work. This assessment helps you assess whether you are motivated to lead
  • Motivating family joiners
    Exercise - Empowerment – individual exercise followed by group discussion
    Working in a family business creates great pressures upon the players. This self-assessment exercise will help to reveal the current attitude to the job and the discussion will revolve around how to take a more positive and contented approach
  • Expectancy Theory
  • Recruiting, Retaining, and Rewarding non-family employees and managers
    Exercise - Motivating the family business employee – individual questionnaire
    To experience the third part of the diagnostic survey to be used in Part Two. It will form a key part of the design of the action plan in Part Three

Section 6 – 11.00 – 12.45 Successful Succession

  • Wanted: Hard Working, Responsible Son or Daughter of the Boss
  • Transferring key knowledge, skills and abilities
    Exercise - Gold, silver and bronze goal setting – individual exercise
    Achieving targets requires aiming high but not becoming too disheartened when you fall a little short. The three medal goal means that you can set higher targets sure in the knowledge that slight underachievement will not be felt as complete failure. Practice in the process will enable delegates to adopt this as a key technique in an arena where parents often express disappointment in their children’s achievements
  • Plan Now for the Cousin Generation
  • Identifying training and development needs
    Exercise - Competency analysis – individual exercise
    Knowing what you are good at, and what leaves a little to be desired, enables you to make good choices about when you should tackle new responsibilities on your own, and when you should look for help
  • Are you ready to transfer control?
    Exercise - Human Resource Policy – individual questionnaire (30 minutes)
    To experience the fourth and last element of the diagnostic survey to be used in Part Two. It will form a key part of the design of the action plan in Part Three.

Section 7 – 13.45 – 15.30 - Business Planning for a Growing Family Business

  • Values and Mission Statements
    Exercise - Personal values – individual followed by group exercise
    Creating a group values statement by collating the inputs of several people is a way to gain buy-in to a corporate mission statement. This exercise (should) demonstrate the ease with which people can agree when each of them has a contribution to the process
  • BCG matrix
  • Ansoff matrix
  • Porter’s growth strategies
    Exercise – Windows of Opportunity
    Identifying opportunities for growth using a proven methodology that optimises the strength of the family business

Section 8 – Action Planning – 15.45 – 17.30

The key to making a real difference is a commitment to taking action. This session will focus on what delegates need to do over the next few weeks to ensure that the lessons learnt during the seminar are put into action.

  • Reinforcement of lessons learned
  • Company visit
  • Action plan
  • Summary

Certificate ceremony!

RESERVE YOUR PLACE - LIMITED PLACES AVAILABLE!

Please complete the short form below to reserve your place on the 'Growing Your Family Business' workshop, please complete the short form below and we will be in touch to confirm your reservation shortly:

First Name:
Last Name:
Phone:
Email:
Company:
Preferred Format:
Security code: