One of the worse case scenario of family members working for a company that I’ve come across was that of a business I called one day. This company was both a client and a customer. As the new account manager of the organization I represented, I needed to meet their account manager who was also the owner, since we would be crossing paths many times and would be working together on a lot of projects.
After identifying myself to the receptionist who answered the phone, I asked to speak to our account manager. She said that she didn’t know who that would be and asked what I wanted. I told her and she said that she could help me. Respecting the fact that she may have been more than a receptionist – we have a lot of that now with the corporate downsizing of the last decades, people sharing the telephone answering — I began to relay some information and then asked pertinent questions about equipment used in our mutual business.
After giving a couple of foolish responses and comments, I realized she was the wrong person to talk to. She got all excited and speaking of my organization she said, “Oh not again, they keep getting new people and we have to start to train them all over again, and went on and on.
I patiently said to her that she didn’t have to train me, because I had been in my own graphics business for several years and was perfectly in tune with the operation. She replied, “Yea, that’s what they all say”. I politely asked again if I could speak to the person who looks after our account. She said she was that person. Subsequently I found out that she did the billing and thus, to her, “account” meant accounting.
I tried re-wording to “sales account”, “account executive”, “the sales representative who looks after this company”, but it didn’t do any good. To make a long story short, finally, one day I had to call on another matter and she said I would have to “talk to John”. I asked her who John was and she got excited again and said, “Well, he’s just John, he’s John”.
Since John wasn’t there, I left a message for him to call me. When John called me back, that’s when I found out he was our sales representative, account manager and production coordinator all rolled into one as well as the owner of the company. And then, the mystery unveiled itself as to why “John was just John” – she was his mother.
It’s nice to have your mother help out but, putting her at the front desk without experience and training is a bit daring. Your whole company is judged there by visitors and callers who connect with a lot of other companies.
In another example, I was operations manager for a small company in the hotel magazine business. The receptionist was the sister of the owner of the company. She would come in late every morning after 9 o’clock. When she was approached on the matter, she would explain that it wasn’t her fault, “the bus didn’t arrive before 8:45. She was a very soft spoken, pleasant young girl, but she didn’t believe that she should have to take the 8:30 bus. But as the sister of the owner, it was a difficult problem to deal with, since he wasn’t bothered with it. In other words, she was his sister and she could come in late every morning.
Working with family members can be very difficult for both the family and non-family members. First, members of a family operation must forget they are family when they step into the business premises. They must give themselves titles with attached responsibilities. Even if they wear various hats — then have various business cards with the various titles/responsibilities. All members should be following regular training programs, even more so than any other businesses. They should treat one another in front of customers and suppliers in such a way that these people wouldn’t even have a clue that they were a family team. That goes for a husband and wife operation or father/son, brother/sister, etc.
Some years ago, I was in the sailboat business with my husband — our first business when we were in our twenties. Having both been working in the corporate world prior, we would always strive to operate in a professional manner, keeping both our areas of responsibilities separate. I looked after finance and administration and my husband looked after sales and service. When visitors, customers and suppliers came in for either of these areas of business, we would take them to the one in charge.
When it comes to business management in a family operation, it is critical to make sure that the people who are placed in their positions are experienced or have been given proper training, because not only will it put stress within the company but it can ruin the total reputation of the company. Constant professional, outside training is the survival key here, more than in non-family organizations. /dmh
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A core business management skill that a manager or executive must learn is the ability to create a working environment that is conducive to effective teamwork. A successful manager is well aware of their own weaknesses and that they cannot do everything. They understand that they have to leverage their time and other peoples time and skill to get the job done. To be able to leverage peoples time and skills effectively requires a manager that can bring people together and work towards a specific goal.
Successful managers have the ability and skill to empower staff to maximise their potential in being productive and to excel at their job. This is achieved by ensuring that team members buy in to the project that needs to be accomplished. An effective manager will define an objective that each team member will accept and agree on. They will ensure that each member has a specific role and that each member fully understands that role and what is expected of them. They will keep each team member motivated by keeping them fully informed of their progress and milestones achieved.
One habit of an effective manager is to devise a to-do list or plan of action for the department or team under their control. Within this to-do list is the tasks that needs to be accomplished and their priority level and time schedules detailing when each task needs to be accomplished. An effective manager will ensure that each team member adopts the same approach to planning their own work.
The team should be fully informed of what the task entails and when each one needs to be accomplished. The responsibility of each specific task should be allocated to one team member only. Agree with them on what needs to be done and the deadlines to get the job done. Each team members to-do list should clearly outline who is responsible for which task and when.
I believe all business is fundamentally the same.
How can all companies be the same? A restaurant is very different from a hydro-electric power station just as a bus service is equally different in essence to an accountancy practice. Aren’t they? I believe there are two key elements to all businesses: “Product or Service” and “Profit” or put another way, provide and survive.
What is the “it”- the essence of a business? Is it electricity from an HEP station, tax returns that save you money from an accountancy firm or the restaurant that serves hot or cold food on time in the manner you requested? The client is only interested in one thing – the end product or service they are buying. How that is produced or brought into being is irrelevant to them; as the producer or supplier that is your issue, not theirs. The company may have to employ specialist skills, knowledge of equipment, language and labour relations or specific motivational or managerial skills. These are of no interest to the client who simply wants product or service ‘X’ on date ‘Y’ for the agreed price.
The other element to any business is profit. A provider of products or services is not in business unless they are making a profit and without profit the company cannot survive. You might debate this point when it comes to loss leader marketing techniques and market share capture initiatives. At the end of the day the business must make a profit in some form or other in order to survive.
The combination of all the elements that go on behind the scenes cost money: manufacturing, learning, training, marketing, building, teaching and developing all take place to differing degrees prior to the product or service being delivered. Knowing the sum of all these costs and charging them to the client is the process of doing business.
Adding a mark-up on that cost is the principle of running a profitable business. The final price will be driven by what the external market forces allow, competition, cost of raw materials, costs of staff and the clients’ ability to pay. Fundamentally business is the supply of a product or a service to a client at a given price that will allow the business to continue to trade. All companies must provide and survive.
Why then, when looking at external advice and coaching, do clients demand or request specialists in their particular field? A consultant or coach working in a specific project in a key area of a business naturally will have specialist knowledge, be that IT Integration systems or HR Law. The more specific the remit and project the more specialised the consultant or coach needs to be. However when driving business growth in conjunction with motivation, strategy, communication and planning, an in-depth knowledge or experience of one particular area can hamper progress.
For example a consultant or coach working in the health and fitness industry might focus primarily on the day-to-day running of the health centre – areas such as staff recruitment, management, pool ph and chlorine levels, health and safety, cleaners, and class schedule. In contrast a non-specialist coach or consultant will focus more closely on the two fundamentals of business – provide and survive – member numbers, retention of members, quality of service, consistency of service and other sources of income. The pH levels in the pool are details that the client is not concerned about unless it goes wrong, so the process needs to be in place in the background, but the focus should be elsewhere on growing the business.
I appreciate the example is very general and includes a number of sweeping generalisations of both consultants and coaches and the health and fitness industry, so apologies to those who disagree.
This does not change the key point that a non-industry specialist’s objective view point will take the bigger picture view of the business without being constrained by the small details that do not affect the overall goal, which is to provide and survive.
Many years ago I started working for a large group of companies. On the first day I was given a thesaurus of jargon terms used by the company, it was several pages long. I realised that the focus was very much on the details rather than on the doing. This reinforces my argument that in order to provide and survive the business has to be made simple. If company staff need a dictionary to understand what is being said internally, how will the clients feel? The client simply wants product or service ‘X’ on date ‘Y’ for the agreed price. If the producers complicate that system and make it difficult for the client there will be always be a competitor elsewhere more than willing to take over.
Third party outside advice can be crucial to a business. I believe an objective, unbiased opinion can give a far greater return in the grander scheme; for that reason I work with all of the above. Give the client the product or service at a price that brings you the level of profit that will enable the company to survive to fight again another day. Provide and survive.