Family Business and CFFB

Managers outnumber leaders in business, by orders of magnitude. Managers outnumber leaders in families, my orders of magnitude. So, of course, managers…

Father-to-Son Business Lesson #19 Below is a note sent by me to my son, over 5 years ago. This note was #19 in a long series of father-to-son Business…

Each person in a family business has an opinion about the value of his or her services. Put another way, each person has an opinion on how much he or she…

...creating simple tools to help expand the use of SWOT . For example, the following simple table helps focus thinking and discussion on S & W & O & T while…

Shame on the people who admonish, “Curiosity kills the cat”. How many spirits have those people confined? How much motivation have those people stifled? How…

Excerpts from a Son-Father Chat Robots do tasks. Robots do processes, step-by-step, moving in a straight line. Unlike People, Robots are linear 'doers'…

Rely on indulgences to feel better T ry to change other people Blame others Show up to prove, instead they show up to improve

Our habit of ‘focusing on weaknesses’ may have started in our family homes when we were infants or toddlers. Or, our habit of ‘focusing on weaknesses’ may…

Bosses can easily be lured into the Parent Trap...I mean the trap where they treat the people who report to them like Children. I have heard bosses say they…

Some day you and your business will part company. Based on our Spirited Leaders’ experience, it appears about 2/3 of small-business owners do not realize…

Regardless of what you are trying to build in your business, you will need the effort and results of other people. If you mention that to business people…

Thought Tweet #812 Money can separate people. Money can separate family members. And the damage can be deep and broad. The Thinking Behind The Tweet That's…

Our skin is about a millimetre thick. That's thick enough to protect our soft and vulnerable internal things from most damage. Yet, far too often, it is not…

When it comes to repairing damaged relationships, three simple tools provide a great deal of value. Here's an introduction to the 3 tools... Tool #1 - from…

When Emotional work gets too heavy, we cry out for help. Using the Transactional Analysis “Parent- Adult -Child Model”…and some facts-of-life thinking: when…

Isn't it tough to argue with a success rate like that! And, that's just the introduction to the Knapp Fasteners' family-business success story. Jenny Knapp…

A related article… Do Family Businesses Have Better Values? The @GKWCC #P2P series of thought tweets contains ideas, quotes, & suggestions provided by local…

Larry Smith is an economist at UW. About Canada's economy: we face rising competitive pressures millions of Latin American people are not our competitors…

Jim Beretta spoke at our last CFFB breakfast...at The Hub. The topic of the day was " Customer Attraction in the Google Era ". Here's a summary of some of…

As always, Mark educated and energized the 100+ folks who attended CFFB's 2012-2013 kick-off breakfast event. Mark, a social psychologist, talked about…

Geordie Raine serves as Montana Consulting Group's Director, Corporate Learning. He traveled from Montreal to speak at CFFB's breakfast event on April 27 th…

According to a recent poll 1 of small-business owners, 24% have a succession plan for their retirement. When asked about how the business would be handled at…

" To Gift or Not To Gift ", that was the question...at CFFB' s March breakfast. At our breakfast event, Tom Deans explained why gifting a family business is…

As soon as you enter the offices of Menno S. Martin Contractor Limited, you will notice it is a comfortable place. That was my first impression, the first…

Flanagan Foodservice Inc. is another local family business success story. The members of our Centre For Family Business, CFFB , got to learn some of the…

Mark Weber is a 'regular' guest speaker at CFFB ...he has spent time with us once a year for a number of years now. At this year's February breakfast…

Here is the thought behind that Question... Recently, I read Jim Estill's CEO blog 1 about work ethic. It reminded me of the stinging little Thought Post I…

"Family business is intertwined with our community." That's one of the first things Iain Klugman, Communitech 's CEO, said when he spoke at CFFB's October…

When babies learn how to walk they make all kinds of mistakes. I don't remember making mistakes when I learned how to walk but I do remember our boys making…

Robin Todd, President/CEO of Marks Supply Inc., was the special-guest speaker at CFFB’s October breakfast. Robin shared her family-business story and she…