I was reading a recent Harvard research article, that was just published, on why employees are quitting their job. Obviously in a tight labour market this topic is of great interest. As we all know high employee turnover is expensive. Studies estimate that on average, the cost of losing an employee ranges from six to …
The Writing is on the Wall
In recent years Malta has been getting some 20,000 foreign workers annually. It is now becoming evident that this is unsustainable. The Prime Minister last Sunday spoke about the upcoming new labour migration policy and was quoted as saying that "We are going to undertake a study that is calibrated to the needs of our …
How to manage low performers?
This is a question that family business owners and leaders ask me all the time. When delving deeper the reality is normally that low performance is the result of a missing performance measurement, feedback and support framework. Let me try to explain. Providing an underperforming employee a chance to improve rather than firing them, seems …
Budget 2025
Below please find an overview of the Budget 2025 just presented this evening. (A) Macroeconomic Overview Malta's real GDP growth is expected to be 4.9% for 2024 and 4.3% for 2025, with domestic demand remaining the main contributor to economic growth in 2025. Inflation is projected to be 2.5% in 2024 and to ease to …
The Effect of Short Termism – Strategic Myopia
One of the things that impressed me from EY's attractiveness survey from 2024 was the following. The below shows that the top 3 reactions of FDI companies in Malta to make up for the tight labour market, was increasing wages, recruiting more people and recruiting third country nationals. I believe such response is because most …
Continue reading The Effect of Short Termism – Strategic Myopia
Operational Excellence
For those that read this Blog regularly, you know how much I keep harping on the importance of business leaders to have a strategic mindset. For Business Leaders not to be stuck dealing just with all those matters that are 'URGENT & IMPORTANT" but also those matters that are "IMPORTANT but not immediately URGENT". This …
Blood, Sweat and Tears
This week we started the 2nd cohort of the Award in leading a Family Business Course. In the first lesson we outlined the usefulness of one of the core models in setting the right mindset for family businesses - The Three Circle Model by Taguiri and Davis During this first session I presented the participants …
What I learnt as a family business advisor
I must say that being a family business advisor has taught me so much as to how to go about conquering insurmountable challenges and trying to help deliver win-win solutions, which are sustainable for the longer term and deliver value. So below are a few of the things I learnt to expect from most family …
Culture Change
Culture change is hard. The conventional wisdom is that it takes years to change a culture, defined as the assumed beliefs and norms that govern “the way we do things around here.” This may be true. However in most family businesses and business organisations I meet, few if ever come to realise that it is …
Succession Planning – Research
I must say that I never get tired or bored reading research on succession planning in family business. Succession is the main challenge for Family businesses for various reasons, including the need to address the question of transfer between generations, this being an adjustment of the mutual function between founder and the next generation of …
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