Why do businesses insist on opening the door everyday, do whatever it is they do, finish up at the end of the day – and then not measure whatever it is they do?

Last Friday evening, Trish and I headed into Barangaroo, the newly redeveloped part of Sydney to take a look and indulge in some fine food and wine. The taking a look bit was pretty quick – the Antarctic blast that hovered around late last week meant standing beside Sydney Harbour was akin to being in the middle of the Canadian prairies in winter. We quickly headed for shelter.

In the work that I do helping family business owners build better family businesses, one of the most fascinating things to observe is the impact of emotion and mindset on outlook. When people communicate an issue, be it from a positive or negative standpoint, it shows through in terms of:

A client phoned me earlier this week. He was looking for a referral to a professional colleague for a friend of his wife’s. The friend’s relative had not felt well early last week and headed off to the doctor. He went home to rest up – and never woke up. In his early 60’s, pneumonia took him in the night, at home, on his own.

For over 30 years, I’ve observed a lot of behaviours inside of family business. Given the work I do and the length of the relationships I maintain, one of the most interesting observations is around change.

It’s interesting the conversations I have with various family business owners. What’s even more interesting is the trends that tend to weave through those conversations at different times.

“Stay where you are!”

The loudspeaker from the beach echoed through the gum trees and stirred me from my reading.

“Don’t panic. We’re coming to get you.”

Last week, at a big business forum in Canberra, some of the individuals at the upper echelons of corporate Australia discussed, amongst other things, how they all needed to improve their behaviour. This comes off the back of the Royal Commission into the Banking and Financial Sector, when a number of the big 4 banks were targeted for their actions and their ethics.

The world of family business is full of technically brilliant people. Be they tradespeople or professionals, most of them step into the ownership of family business as a result of that technical brilliance.

Remember the cafe I mentioned that undercharged me in Growth Edition 147 (It’s only $1.50)? Well, it seems they’ve got other issues as well.