There are many opinions about the top strengths of family business leaders.
One of my recent projects answers that question.
We (Kent Rhodes, Ed.D) and I recently developed and validated a 360 assessment process for next generation family business leaders. See www.AssessNextGen.com for details. We determined the top 50 items.
Our recent research found that the number 1, top strength, or Career Catalyst for family business leaders is Item 13: “Keeps confidences about family business wealth.”
Hmmm. On a scales of 1-10 how well does your family business keep confidences about family wealth? Here are some quick thoughts about how to apply this finding to your family enterprise or family business consulting.
For more details contact Doug Gray, Ph.D. at Gray@theFBCG.com or Kent Rhodes (Ed.D.) at Rhodes@theFBCG.com
Here is the transcript for your reference and sharing:
Title: What is the most important strength for Family Business leaders?
Description on YouTube post: A quick research update from www.AssessNextGen.com. We can now answer that ancient question, “What is the most important strength of Family Business leaders?” Here are some tips for your family enterprise or consulting.
Transcript of video:
Sometimes people wonder, “what are the top competencies that family business leaders need?” And I’m happy to report some early results from the Assess Next Gen Family Business Leadership 360 assessment. This data is from 163 responses in the last few months. Here is the top score, in other words, the Career Catalyst, the behavior that is number one. I’ll give it to you and then I’m going to ask you to reflect on it.
The top score, the thing that our raters said others ought to do, is item number 13: “Keep confidences about the family business wealth.” To repeat, the most important strength of Family Business leaders is to “keep confidences about family business wealth.” What does that mean for you and your family or your enterprise?
I recently asked that question of a friend of mine, John Broons, who’s in Australia, who is pretty brilliant. And he said, “family wealth needs to be part of the conversation. It’s too often not discussed.”
I agree. We need to prepare for risks, like a transition or a succession or continuity or another line of business. And too often family members don’t have any idea of what’s next. There’s the core business. Perhaps there might be other lines of business, but family wealth conversations should definitely stay within the family.
Many of my clients have a charter or clause which states, “This is what we will say, and to whom.” They may have a conversation with the wealth advisor and estate attorney, and they may not have that conversation with somebody like me, a business consultant. The family members are the only ones who have access to that information. This is to protect them from journalists or politicians or inappropriate people seeking to learn something about that wealth. And often this confidentiality clause is written in an agreement. So we’re really talking about the two first words here…
Keep confidences. The most important strength of Family Business leaders is to keep confidences.
How do we keep confidences? I think we need to reinforce some useful guidelines. My clients require trust guidelines. Let me give you a quick example. One of my clients has eight G4 children on this side and four children on this other side. Potential conflicts, right? So they made an agreement in writing, and verbally reinforced it in every one of their meetings, about what could be shared with Doug as the family business consultant working with that G4 generation. My focus is on leadership development. Part of my job is to reinforce for them what’s confidential and what they need to keep confidential.
It’s a bit like driving a car when you’re driving down an unfamiliar road. You’ve got the white lines on the right side, the yellow lines on the left side. Like a good driver, we need to keep confidences. We don’t want to go to the edge of those lines. We don’t want to go off the center of the road. We certainly don’t want to go in the dirt or the gravel on the side.
So, my invitation is to keep confidences about family business wealth. Keep that conversation sacred. There you go. Tip of the moment.
For more details on the Assess Next Gen Leadership 360 process, see www.AssessNextGen.com
Practice leadership. Just as attorneys practice law, leaders need to practice leadership. Great leaders influence others toward a better future. Leadership requires public optimism. Narcissism. Confidence. Practice, and more practice. Every day I identify the top 8-10 people I need to influence. They may be clients, colleagues, prospects, friends, loved ones. Then I write their names on my list and practice leadership. Some require a phone call, others need a direct meeting. All on my daily target list need to know that they are important to me and my business. When I practice leadership daily, then I stay focused on my objective of being a leading provider of outcome-based leadership development solutions. You can practice leadership daily.
Doug Gray, PhD, author of Objectives and Key Results (OKR) Leadership, CEO of Action Learning Associates, has worked with over 10,000 leaders in multiple sectors since 1997.
For a print or digital copy of Objectives + Key Results (OKR) Leadership; How to Apply Silicon Valley’s Secret Sauce to Your Career, Team or Organization, click here. This book is a great read during the holidays, as you prepare for a New Year, a New You or New Decade in 2020.
Then write a review in your favorite social media platform. Mention my title: Objectives + Key Results (OKR) Leadership; How to apply Silicon Valley’s secret sauce to your career, team or organization.
Please share these testimonials with your team or organization:
“Doug Gray makes the complex understandable. More important, he makes it doable.”
Craig E. Aronoff, Ph.D., author, Chairman and co-founder, The Family Business Consulting Group, Inc.
“Doug builds on the OKR approach with practical and valuable guidance for individuals, teams and organizations. If you plan on implementing OKRs for your organization, you need this book.”
John Mattox, PhD, author, Head of Talent Research, Metrics that Matter, Explorance
“Introducing the OKR framework has not only allowed us to align our company goals throughout the organization, but it has also provided an easy mechanism to give visibility into how we drive operational accountability.”
Justin Jude, Acting President, LKQ Corp, North America
“Finally, a much needed leadership focus on the importance of clear objectives and specific, measurable results. This book will be useful not just for the present but throughout a practitioner’s career.“
Dave Vance, PhD, author, Executive Director, Center for Talent Reporting
My new Objectives and Key Results (OKR) Leadership book (2019)
Please help me promote my new leadership book! The editing is nearly completed… Yeah!
Title: Objectives + Key Results (OKR) Leadership; How to apply Silicon Valley’s secret sauce to your career, team or organization.
1. The e-book digital release is available now. Pre-order here.
2. The paper and audible book releases will be available after 11.14.19. Please forward this page to your friends and colleagues today.
3. Share these testimonials:
“Doug’s leadership training of the OKR process has been received positively by my sales team due to the coaching being simple, engaging and very effective.” Terry Fortner, VP Sales and Marketing, North America LKQ Corporation.
“Doug Gray makes the complex understandable. More important, he makes it doable.” Craig E. Aronoff, Ph.D., author, Chairman and co-founder, The Family Business Consulting Group, Inc.
“John Doerr’s book “Measure What Matters” describes how OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) transformed Silicon Valley. With this new book, Doug builds on the OKR approach with practical and valuable guidance for individuals, teams and organizations. If you plan on implementing OKRs for your organization, you need this book.” John Mattox, PhD, author, Head of Talent Research, Metrics that Matter, Explorance
“The top five companies in Silicon Valley have an economic value as great as the United Kingdom. They must know something. Doug has uncovered their secrets in his OKR Leadership approach.” Jac Fitzenz, PhD, author, Founder Saratoga Institute and Human Capital Source
“Doug Gray provides readers with a ‘moment of truth’ concerning how we can transform lofty objectives into down-to-earth results.” James Dillon, co-Founder, Emerging Step
“Introducing the OKR framework has not only allowed us to align our company goals throughout the organization, but it has also provided an easy mechanism to give visibility into how we drive operational accountability. That visibility now exists for both our employees and supervisors. OKR Leadership has encouraged broader and more in-depth conversations about the right key results to drive individual or team objectives.” Justin Jude, Acting President, LKQ Corp, North America
“Doug’s new book challenges me to be a leader and to practice leadership. This book provides a practical framework that will make you a more successful leader.“ David Cardwell, SVP, IT Operations, F100 company
“Finally, a much needed leadership focus on the importance of clear objectives and specific, measurable results. This book will be useful not just for the present but throughout a practitioner’s career.“ Dave Vance, PhD, author, Executive Director, Center for Talent Reporting
“In his new and exciting book, OKR Leadership, Doug Gray shares how his proven techniques can help you move the needle to achieve the business outcomes you’ve been striving for. If you’re ready for a transformation, then OKR Leadership is a must read!” Sheri Bankston, VP, Alliance Safety Council
“History is littered with the graves of organizations who had the right strategy but were unable to execute. Lack of execution is a very real threat to every organization’s survival. This is a very practical look at the OKR system to accomplishing results. Written incredibly clearly, Doug Gray has brought OKR Leadership to life in a way that would benefit any organization.” Brian Underhill, Ph.D., author, Founder and CEO, CoachSource
4. Share this back cover:
Leaders practice leadership, just as physicians practice medicine and attorneys practice law. Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are the secret sauce that drives the largest migration of financial assets and technological innovation ever recorded in human history to Silicon Valley, California, USA, since the 1970s. OKR Leadership — the process for managers and leaders to practice what matters – is the secret sauce that drives transformational leadership, employee engagement and the next generation of management consulting. Join the OKR Leadership movement. See details at www.Action-Learning.com or www.OKRLeadership.com. This practical and valuable book will help you practice OKR Leadership in your career, team or organization immediately.
7. Download Chapter 1 as my gift to you (below.) Then write a review in your favorite social media platform. Then forward this page to your friends and colleagues.
How to make your next proposal better than your last one.
Let’s face it, of all the skills you can bring to bear to help your clients, the limiting factor is your ability to get proposals signed. You need to make money. You want to share your genius with the world world. You need to get your proposal written and sold. You need to deliver value at each step of the sales process. Here are three great ways to write coaching proposals that sell. You can be smarter than your competitors.
Less fluff, more value. Your job is to add value and solve your client’s problems. Nothing else matters. Your model, framework, tactic or magical gifts do NOT provide value to your client. Your solution is the value. Stay focused on the results you can deliver.
2. Fewer credentials, more results. Congratulations, your certification/ degree is a huge accomplishment. But nobody understands what it means. Make sure more space is devoted to results than credentials.
3. Make it easy to understand. If your buyer has to exercise their brain to realize how good your proposal is, then you haven’t done the work required to make it great. Keep the structure simple.
The Feedback Process
EXPERT CONTRIBUTOR: Tom Stone
We all talk about feedback a lot. Most leaders think they do it well. But my opinion is that we simply don’t know how to give feedback well. The problem is our inability to give good feedback creates problems down the road.
A lack of feedback gives people unspoken approval for unacceptable behavior. This false approval encourages people to continue patterns of behavior that don’t help them or anyone else.
But it gets worse. Everyone in an organization is constantly evaluating competency. So a lack of feedback not only affects the person who needs to receive, but it also affects everybody else who knows that feedback should be given.
A leader is never out from under the microscope. Giving good feedback is one of the surest ways to encourage effective behavior and to demonstrate leadership competency. It is a skill that can be learned, and we can learn to teach it and demand it as part of our culture.
Feedback leads to learning.
The Leadership Wisdom of Dogs
EXPERT CONTRIBUTOR: Krissi Barr
The attributes, traits and characteristics that separate leaders from the rest of the pack can be clearly seen in the behavior of dogs: loyalty, perseverance, friendship, teamwork, honesty, bravery, ingenuity, playfulness, curiosity and an unflagging desire for more information.I call it the Fido Factor.
Faithful leaders earn the trust of their team and their customers by doing the right things and living up to their word.
Inspirational leaders move people to do the meaningful and the extraordinary.
Determined leaders combine perseverance with a dose of fearlessness to keep moving toward goals.
Observant leaders are committed to taking in as much information as possible in order to make the best decisions.
Our Credo: (if you like these beliefs, then you’ll love us)
1. Chaos in the marketplace for “professional coaching” can be reduced with outcome-based protocols.
2. The strengths of professional coaches (e.g., integrity, fairness, collaboration, leadership, bravery) can be leveraged to co-create the future of professional coaching.
3. Teams are stronger than individuals. Collaborative projects reduce individual risk and yield higher rewards.
4. Expert leadership coaches and authors will contribute best practices and attract more users or followers.
FACT:
There are over 50,000 “professional coaches” in a $7B global industry that lacks professionalism. Literally anyone with a business card can self-declare that they are a “professional coach.”
OPINION:
The result is chaos in the marketplace, unethical practices, and a market ripe for disruption and consolidation.
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