It is invariably true, that whenever I meet a family business owner or leader that grumbles about everything under the sun, including how his or her managers are not doing enough to push the company forward, the end result is that more than his or her managers or colleagues, the main problem is himself or …
Author: Silvan Mifsud
Burned out Family Business Owners & Leaders
The external environments has been challenging in recent years between COVID, supply chain issues, inflation, changing consumer trends, ever tight labour markets and the list goes on. Add to that the fact that many family business owners and leaders are still stuck too an operational way of doing things whereby they would want to be …
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Operator’s Mindset and Fatherhood
It could be that what I am going to say in this Blog Article is the result of having had time to reflect as I was rather sick in the past 48 hours. It could also be because last Sunday was father's day. However, what is a rather common occurrence that I come across, is …
Start with WHY
I was recently reminded of the 1st Simon Sinek book I read a while ago, entitled "Start with Why". The discussion was about how to revitalise an organisation and give it a new sense of direction. This all led me down memory land and the strength of the perspective presented by Simon Sinek, that I …
Strategic Planning: Where to start from?
As presented during the family business conference last week, one about one third of family businesses in Malta have a written strategic plan which is regularly reviewed. This statistic then changes depending on the level of corporate governance found in family businesses. Those family businesses with a board of directors that include independent non-executive directors, …
An epidemic killing family businesses
I have spent most of my life preaching to various family businesses, that they are killing themselves by sticking to just an operator's mindset. Recently I came across this video of Andrea Pontremoli - CLICK HERE to view this short video (Andrea Pontremoli is the CEO and partner in Dallara Automobili since 2007. He began …
Conflicts in Family Business
One of the common challenges Family Businesses face is that of dealing with Conflict. Research on conflict in family businesses shows that that are many times common patterns that cover the vast majority of conflicts. This is important as it could help family business owners and leaders understand how they can be proactive in preventing …
The Foundations of a successful family business transition
Research from the world acclaimed US family business researcher, Joe Astrachan, points out that the success of a generational transition of family business rests first and foremost on a mixture of good corporate governance and proper family governance. Hence the three main key and foundational aspects on which a successful generational family business transition needs …
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A Family or Non-Family CEO?
I believe it does not take much to realise that I am passionate about the subject of Family Business and that helping family businesses is more of a life mission than just a job for me. This leads me to constantly reading the latest research on family businesses from across the globe. One of these …
Data-Driven Decision Making
Many family business owners have a romanticised and over positive view about the value of business decisions based on intuition. It is a common occurrence that when I simple ask family business owners on what basis they take their decision, they reply with a smirk on their face that they can rely on their “gut” …
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