Four Frameworks For Family Businesses
- Business Model Canvas
The Business Model Canvas (BMC) is a compartmentalized, graphic representation of the many aspects involved in running a modern business. BMC is infinitely flexible, can represent virtually any business on earth, is easily shared between far-flung departments and can guide the company on a day-to-day basis from the boardroom. This canvas has also been modified for everything from the Lean Canvas to the Agile Strategy Canvas and the Family Canvas.
- Undercurrent’s Operating Model
Aaron Dignan former founder of Undercurrent (now The Ready ), believes that businesses run best when they have good operating systems. The suggested operating model consists of five nested domains: Purpose, Process, People, Product and right at the core Platform.
According to Undercurrent, "This manifests in a visionary (not commercial) Purpose that guides an agile (not linear) Process that enables People who make (not manage) Products built to evolve (not built to last) which become Platforms for the world (not just your company) to build upon."
For more about this theory, see this article or Dignan's Medium profile.
- Start with Why
Simon Sinek believes that by having a clearly defined purpose, businesses can flourish. Think of the old saying, “If you know your ‘why’, you can survive a thousand ‘how’s’.” To get started thinking down the right lines watch this TED video.
- Primal
Primal works on the idea that vibrant social and business communities exist when there’s a clearly defined belief system in place to which all parties subscribe. To explain this, Patrick Hanlon developed the Primal Code, the 7 parts of which are: The Creation Story, The Creed, The Icons, The Rituals, The Sacred Words, The Non-Believers and The Leader. Defining and understanding these iconic (and some would say archetypal) components allows businesses to become marketplace cults. To get started the book, Primalbranding is available on Amazon or here are Hanlon’s own cliff notes from his Medium profile.
Each of these frameworks could be used on their own or be combined to form a more holistic view. Primal's structure for example naturally lends itself to how families already operate. Says Hanlon,
Primal is the root code for human beings. We are hard-wired to collect in groups and the seven pieces of primal code are the triggers for that engagement. When you think about families, they are the fundamental unit for us as human beings. From the time we are born, we are told that we are a brother, a sister, a son or daughter, a cousin, grandchild and we are told that this is a home, this is our neighborhood, these are our people. Without family, we are lost.
Create Your Own Cult
Happily or unhappily, there's no single tool to fix everything. So mix it up—explore the options, communicate with your family members and management about their reactions and feelings to the various models and platforms and select tools that resonate with your crowd. And if they begin calling you Fearless Leader, just nod and smile.
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