The 4 Cs of Conflict-Free Family Businesses
Focusing on growth is harder when your co-owners are your relatives
by Fred Pidsadny for ProfitGuide.com
Family-run businesses are like elastic bands—they can be stretched only so far, in different directions, before tensions cause them to snap. Those who run family businesses know that stress can often be elevated by forces that don’t exist in non-family firms, from hiring obligations and bloodline silos to next-generation financial demands to under-performing family members. It’s one thing to discipline or even fire a stranger, quite another to turf a brother or daughter. For such businesses, finding a successful balance is an ongoing challenge.
So how can family-owned businesses avoid conflict and focus on growth? For a number of years I’ve been working with a company run by three brothers, each with their own family and their own unique take on strategy and succession planning. They have benefited tremendously by learning and practicing what I call the four Cs of strategy execution for owner-managed businesses:
Is it Time for your Insurance Audit?
Has it been awhile since you last looked at your insurance portfolio? Are you a little sketchy in your recollection of all the coverage you have and why you have it? Are you uncertain as to whether or not your portfolio reflects your current situation? If this is the case, this might be the ideal time to have an audit of your insurance policies. Circumstances can change over time and making sure your protection keeps pace is a worthwhile exercise.
A comprehensive audit should review the following:
- Is the total death benefit of your life insurance appropriate to your needs? A current capital needs analysis can help to determine this.
Q2 Portfolio Commentary
Was that really 15 years?
Hard to believe, but it was fully a decade and a half ago that we launched Dixon Mitchell Investment Counsel, just as tech stocks were melting down and mere weeks before Nortel would being its fateful demise.
Click here to read more: DM-Portfolio-Commentary-Q2-15
Five great reasons to leave your desk at lunch
by Katherine Janson for Participaction
My brother lived and worked in Switzerland for a decade, and we would often compare notes on what working life was like over there, versus here in Canada. When he told his boss that his sister ate her lunch at her desk every day, she laughed. She thought he was joking! In his office, a coffee break meant leaving the office with colleagues to walk down to the harbour for a quick espresso at a café, and a stroll back. In mine, it meant making sure I could knock back my morning coffee without knocking it over into my keyboard. Read more 
