On the 18th and 19th November 2016 I had the privilege to facilitate a DISCiverY Process for a company that manufactures copper cabling.

For those reading this and not knowing what a DISCoverY Process is, it is a two day strategic session, conducted in line with the 7 Stages of Small Business Success methodology, as developed by Carl Gould.

Thie Process is a great way for businesses to gain an understanding of where they are currently in 11 areas of their buisness. In this particular session the company involved all of its management team. The 9 participants were all enaging and started the session with enthusiasm. The more engaged the participants the more ideas flow. This was also an opportunity for new management to gain an understanding of their management team.

This company has amazing staff loyalty. They are really a family in business. The company, as with many companies in our economy is going through a period of low to no growth, shrinking customer base and price pressure. In many companies this would result in high staff turnover, yet this company, due to its family nature, with no common family members, has a low staff turnover.

This is got me thinking, the current trend of employees is to move jobs as much as 2 or 3 times in a 2 to 4 year period, depending on which literature you read. So what makes a business able to maintain such loyalty? The key seems to be family thinking in a buisness.

Employees in Family thinking businesses;
– work for the group, there is no I or me in the family thinking business;
– realize that their contribution is not only making a diffierence to themselves;
– consider their own families as an extension of their business life;
– help each other to “get the job done” regardless of their own finuction in the business; and
– are able to hold each other accountable.

I am sure there are many more but these five resonate the most with my experiences too.

In conclusion, I believe, Family thinking businesses, are more likely to weather tough times as in our current economic conditions than businesses who do not employ this type of thinking.