A new study by researchers at Steelcase, the office furniture company, uncovers six dimensions of workplace culture that shape an office's social dynamics.
General Micro Electronics (GME) designed, assembled, and tested semiconductors for wireless, memory management, wire line telecommunications, and networking applications. In January it purchased a new wire-bonder machine to support its growing contract assembly business. For the first couple of months the new machine performed well, but then its performance became more erratic and eventually was no longer meeting its internal standard for wire-bond strength. The strength of the wire-bond was an important quality dimension of semiconductor chips. With the use of overtime on the existing wire-bonding equipment being very close to full utilization, the need to improve the performance of the new wire-bonding machine was becoming critical. GME's operations personnel were continuously tweaking the new machine in an effort to find a combination of process parameters that would improve the machine's performance. Unfortunately, the performance of the machine continued to deteriorate.
This article identifies and explores 13 analytical tools and techniques to understand the unique dilemmas and paradoxes faced by family firms. They are presented here as tools to better analyze family business cases and develop effective responses to family business situations. However, they are equally useful for families in business and advisors to family businesses as they seek to deal with the complex issues created by the conflict of family and business systems in family enterprises. Tools focused on understanding the family business system as a whole are separated from family-focused and business-focused ones. The six dual systems-focused techniques aid understanding of the key stakeholders, current status, past history, and desired future of the firm. The three family-focused techniques in the tool kit aim to better understand the relationships between and the perspectives of the key stakeholders, and the overall health of the family system. The four business system-focused conceptual techniques enable understanding of the nature and extent of the family's involvement in the business, its key directions, performance, and continuity. Careful application of appropriate tools will deepen understanding of the core issues being faced by a decision maker and assist in the development of effective and actionable recommendations.
One of the most complex challenges for a family business is when an in-law joins the firm. In-laws are part of the family through marriage; but they form a group of unique stakeholders in the family firm as marriage can be severed but blood cannot be changed. Consequently, in-laws are not always viewed as full-fledged family members. While the firm's founder and family members face challenges as they consider integrating in-laws into the family firm, the in-laws face many challenges in joining a family firm as well. This case illustrates these tensions by tracing John Malone's involvement working as an in-law for Aurum Furniture, a small family business located in a large Midwestern city in the U.S. Issues that would have been straightforward in a non-family firm were anything but that in the non-professionalized family firm. The case provides considerable flexibility with instructors having opportunity to discuss the dynamics among members of a small family business. While we emphasize the challenges faced by in-laws, the case is particularly well-suited to facilitate a more general discussion on the challenges that an individual encounters as he or she joins a non-professionalized family firm. As such, it can be used with family business owners as they reflect on their concept of family and the roles of individual members-especially, in-laws-and the firm's decisions to professionalize. The case can be used with graduate and undergraduate students and workshops in family business or small business management.
Breezy Plains Acres began in 1927 as a small farming operation in Minnesota consisting of a section of land with a homestead. Now run by fourth and fifth generations of the Richter family, it was a five million dollar, complex agri-business that included both owned and rented cropland and pasture, five sites, several hog finishing units, and cattle. This was no simple farm with a cow in the pen, a pig in the sty, and a few acres as depicted in "Little House on the Prairie." Chuck Richter was in his early sixties and had begun to consider transitioning away from the day-to-day operations of the farm/ranch toward retirement. He realized that with increased complexity came increased challenges in relation to how to sustain the operation within the family for future generations. He had one farming son, seven off-farm children and fifteen grandchildren. He was concerned about who would sustain the farm, and how many of the non-farming children had the interest, and, equally important, the financial resources, to buy-in to the operation. As he considered estate planning, he recalled examples of farm families torn apart and farms being sold to strangers because of the children fighting due to how the estate was divided. Being fair to his children was of central importance. As he reviewed the challenges, he thought, "What can I do to help assure that future generations of Richters will still own and manage Breezy Plains Acres?"
This case describes the founding and growth of a commercial real estate business by a father-son partnership up to the point of deciding whether to stay private or take the company public (IPO) in light of an economic downturn. It focuses attention on the analysis of the two alternatives through their effect on financial and non-financial risks and rewards. Consideration of how to address the possible changes in ownership, leadership, and management in light of the decision is brought into play. Descriptions of the evolution of a father-son relationship are used to foster a conversation about the "uniqueness" of this relationship as it pertains to the company's value and the value of the company to its investors.
Andrea Ruma has worked for three years at Ruma's Fruit and Gift Basket (Ruma's), a 112- year- old family business in Massachusetts. Andrea is trying to decide whether she will stay in the business or leave to go back to teaching. The problem for Andrea is that her father, Jim Ruma, will not share any information on the company strategy, finances, estate planning, or succession planning, nor provide her with any feedback on whether she is doing a good job. Although Jim is 72 years old, he is an active and opportunistic businessman. In the last twenty years, he has gotten out of the wholesale fruit business and has entered five new business areas, all without any planning. Although the company is profitable and provides good income to four family members, Andrea has doubts as to whether she should commit to the company with the idea of possibly taking over the business as the only viable fourth generation family member.
The case relates the history of an Australian family transport firm from its foundation, through its expansion and diversification into agriculture and tourism, to a business and succession crisis nearly 90 years later. Rita Buchanan, youngest daughter of Noel Buchanan, the third generation owner, gave her father an ultimatum about the transfer of firm ownership. Noel's response, that he would sell the firm provided Rita remained the majority shareholder, brings interlinked family and business problems into focus: the owner's failure to plan for succession following a dispute seven years earlier with his son, who then left the firm; the discontent of his three daughters about how this lack of succession planning affects their futures; the owner's estrangement from his wife, Cherie, over the owner's ongoing extramarital relationship; Cherie's resentment of Rita's strategic role in the firm; and the firm's falling profitability, especially after a cyclone [hurricane] destroyed its farm and left many trucks idle. The case requires a decision about whether the youngest daughter should accept her father's offer, and what actions are needed to safeguard the interests of the other stakeholders and ensure the future of the firm.
Andy Lewis was the fourth-generation publisher and editor of a small family- owned newspaper in rural Mississippi. Lewis faced the challenges of operating a weekly newspaper in a changing industry amid concerns that members of the next generation of the Lewis family did not want to take on operation of either the 133-year-old newspaper or the family-owned insurance agency. The family firm leader is conflicted because he sees himself as both a steward of a family business as well as a steward of an important community asset. Although Andy had successfully managed the paper and the insurance agency and earned a good living for himself and provided for the needs of his family, he believed that he had paid a high price in the sacrifice of his time to achieve these results. The case examines alternative successors to Andy Lewis as editor and publisher of the newspaper; the economic, organizational, and logistical challenges associated with operating a rural weekly newspaper; and the role that an ancillary business played in generating revenue.
This case presents organizational challenges facing a physician champion of the Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH). Dr. Julian Kuffler, working with his employer, the Mount Desert Island Hospital System (MDI), hoped to persuade the primary care physicians in the system to embrace the PCMH care model. Physician resistance was strongly opposed to some of the key principles of PCMH, such as managing the health of a defined population, standardizing chronic care management protocols, delegating patient care tasks to non-physician members of a care team, and to having strong physician leadership at the system level. At the same time, MDI was a small rural "critical access hospital" with declining admissions, predominantly outpatient-based revenues, and deteriorating finances. MDI leadership viewed high quality primary care to be essential for MDI to be able to attract the best health system partner with which it could affiliate to become part of a larger, more financially viable organization. MDI leadership also hoped to find a partner that could also support its participation in new population health arrangements such as accountable care organizations.
High-performers, whether they be star CEOs, world-class salespeople, great product developers or professional services rainmakers, exist at the tail end of the distribution in terms of ability and impact. They have high aptitude, sought-after skills and the ability to ply their trade almost anywhere around the globe. How can leaders engage these brilliant, talented individuals and bring out their very best, sustained performance? Two veteran leaders - Roger Martin in business and Bob Brett in the realm of championship tennis - provide their expertise in this interview.
Over the next two decades, one of the fiercest battles in business will be for the billions of people joining the middle class in emerging markets-a group that will make up 30 per cent of the global population by 2020. Yet even many multinational companies who are already active in emerging markets are not prepared to tap into this new stream of revenue growth because, the authors argue, their business models were not designed to reach the new middle. They describe four steps to business model innovation that can help a company capture this critical emerging market.
Why did United Airline's TED and Delta's Song fail while Southwest's similar model for low-cost air travel thrived? According to the author, it all comes down to company culture. Culture is one of those fuzzy terms that makes business analysts roll their eyes, he says, but its true power lies in the fact that, unlike other competitive advantages, it is nearly impossible to copy. He defines culture as 'the things that people in an organization do without thinking, often because of a precedent set by management'. As he shows, the roots of culture go very deep, and they lead companies like Southwest, Costco and IBM to the top of their industries.
David Rock, founder of the NeuroLeadership Institute, believes that the secrets to high performance lie in our ability to master humankind's greatest asset: the brain. In this interview, he argues that the brain requires three things to function optimally: moderate stress, positive affect (i.e. emotion) and a good night's sleep. He also shows that workplace engagement and productivity are closely related to the brain's primal 'threat and reward' function, which has repercussions for manaaqgers.
Waiting in line is a ubiquitous consumer experience, but it doesn't have to be a negative one. The author argues that service providers can foster positive experiences in several ways, by paying attention to the psychology involved in waiting. The 'psychology of time' includes three key factors: the important of progress; social comparisons; and the desire for social justice. When a service is designed with these in mind, the waiting doesn't have to be the hardest part.
Social media has created widespread confusion in many organizations. Some all but beg people to 'like' them on Facebook, while others badger consumers to follow them on Twitter. The fact is, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each year on social media marketing strategies, and most of it achieves very little in the way of creating a sustained following. Successful social movements, by contrast, have long managed to capture and sustain followers over long periods of time-for a tiny fraction of what private companies spend on marketing. The authors describe five lessons business can we learn from social movements and their organizers.
At the world's most innovative companies, 'Skunk Works' has become the standard approach for running top secret projects with elite special teams. The hallmarks of a Skunk Works project include high-quality designs in a short time frame with limited resources. The author describes how it all started, at Lockheed Martin in the 1940s, and how the approach has evolved to inspire Apple and other modern innovators.
Big data' is hailed as the next mega-problem for business, and rightly so, says the author. He argues that business has to solve two different sets of problems here: prediction problems (what will happen if we do this?) and optimization problems (what is the best way to get this to happen?) Intelligence is not enough to tackle these issues, he says: big data requires ingenuity. He defines 'the ingenuity effect' and shows that it entails three key skills: modeling, coding and sensing.
From Asia to the Americas, populations are getting older, and so far, business and policy leaders have done little to prepare for it. The authors -- from Accenture's Institute for High Performance -- describe some of the key myths that are standing in the way of leaders' understanding of this demographic certainty. For example, one myth is that 'Older consumers are an unattractive demographic for marketers.' The authors debunk this and six other myths and show how to embrace this burgeoning market.