
Strictly Professional
For the next generation, family-business survival rests squarely on formalized governance
There’s an old saying about family businesses: Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations. Grandpa hustles and creates the business,Dad takes the baton and then Junior goes down with the ship. According to the Family Firm Institute, just 30 percent of family businesses survive into their second generation, and only 10 percent make it to their third. Why do these firms fail?

How to Implement Yearly Reviews
Your company doesn’t need to have a formal process for you to have documented performance reviews
I work for a small, established company, and we don’t have policies in place for employee reviews. Actually, we don’t really do reviews at all. I find this odd. Is there a reason a company wouldn’t ask for or provide formal feedback? If I wanted to put a procedure in place for the people I manage in my department, what would I need?

Go Slow to Go Fast
Winging it won’t work in today’s business landscape
Have you ever walked into a semi-dried lake bed? You start out on firm sand, and little by little the ground gets softer and stickier and deeper until finally the mud pulls your boots straight off your feet. That’s the position of many companies battling today’s marketplace, particularly small-business owners set in their ways and family businesses unable to overcome Dad’s unwavering march into the ground.

Five Clues That Profit Sharing May Work for You
As wages rise, profit-sharing plans could help small businesses compete for workers.
Competing with big-league firms for employees is tough — average pay at small businesses runs about two-thirds that offered at other companies. Not keeping up with pay hikes elsewhere can create staff turnover, eating into morale and creating operational problems. Enter profit-sharing plans.

Is Your “Be Like Me” Mentality Hurting Your Team?
It takes both introverts and extroverts to keep the office humming
We are all born with preferences for introversion and extraversion. Some of us sit in the middle of the continuum (ambiverts), but people typically fall into one of these two categories. And you might be surprised by how the two different groups perceive one another.

Book Review: The Business of Time, Money and Significance
‘Making Money Is Killing Your Business' asks us to rethink how we define success
Time, money and significance: These are the three desires that every entrepreneur strives for in a business. Unfortunately, most find themselves caught in the never-ending pursuit of money, squelching the essence of true business ownership and personal freedom. As a result, the enterprise never delivers time back for the things we enjoy doing or the opportunity to make a significant impact on the world around us.

How to Avoid Falling Asleep at Your Next Conference
3 ways to make business travel more fun — and more lucrative
While travel for business always sounds more exciting than it usually is, you still want the trip to be worthwhile. Whether you’re a seasoned business traveler or just an office escapee, making the most of your trips is not only good for the company but for you as well.

Better Pay for Better Profits
How increased wages and operational improvements can help your bottom line
Among the counterintuitive gems economists have excavated in recent years is this curious insight: When the economy is humming along and unemployment is low, the U.S. death rate rises. Many in the field have tried to fathom why. And now, UC Davis Graduate School of Management interim dean Ann Huff Stevens and three of her colleagues think they know.

The Branding Bamboozle
For authentic city building, Sacramento must look across the river
For eons, the construction and government sectors drove Sacramento’s economic engine. You either worked in one of these two areas or you knew someone who did. It was that simple. Remember 2005?

4 Tips for Profitable Management
Save money with better systems
Large retail chains like Costco, Trader Joe’s, QuikTrip and Mercadona pay wages and benefits considered high for their industries. They also use four key operational strategies:

#CleansePlease
How to detox your social media strategy for increased engagement and better outcomes
Some of social media’s best qualities are also the very elements that contribute to its complexity: It is immediate, constantly updated, flexible and inclusive. Connecting with audiences in real-time is great — so long as you have the ability to monitor and respond in real time.

The Hard Truth on Trust
Leaders, trust starts at the top
Trust is often at the heart of what goes right and what goes wrong. Strong trust leads to constructive conflict while poor trust invites elephants into the room. When a company has a culture of trust, people keep their commitments. In its absence, team members become unreliable and productivity drops.

Be Careful How You Classify
How to avoid wage litigation in the age of the $10 hour
For California labor lawyers, the 2012 Brinker v. Superior Court ruling was something akin to Brown v. Board or Roe v. Wade. In a case involving meal and rest breaks for hourly employees, the court ruled that businesses must have a policy giving workers those breaks — but they don’t have to ensure that staff actually take them. It seemed like near-total victory for business.

Book Review: Hard-Hitting Consulting How-To
‘Million Dollar Consulting: The Professional's Guide To Growing A Practice’ is not for the faint of heart
So-called expert consultants abound, but Alan Weiss’ Million Dollar Consulting: A Professional Guide To Building A Practice offers what many other how-tos don’t: modern, actionable tools for building a highly profitable enterprise.

Is Your Client a Problem Child?
3 steps for setting boundaries and knowing when to say goodbye
Every service business has had one: the dreaded problem client. These clients seem to bring more trouble than their business is worth, and dealing with them can quickly become a time sink. When dealing with a problem child, you need to implement solutions and be prepared to sever the relationship if those solutions don’t pan out. Here’s how:

The Art of the Long View
What if an executive’s pay was dependent on the performance of his successors?
Economists refer to it as the agency problem: The incentives of executives are misaligned with the incentives of the company. If you have stock options that vest in five months, who cares what happens in five years?

Swim Above the Sharks
What negative publicity taught me about my narrative — and my community
A calm and graceful response to any negative publicity is the best way to maintain control over your own narrative.

Living the Brand
Why it’s important for new hires to fit your company’s culture
From your customer service representatives to your sales team, your staff’s day-to-day decisions on the job quite literally make or break your brand experience. Which means, at the end of the day, your brand is only as strong as the crew you’re letting run the ship. So how do you hire a cultural fit?

Let’s Get Functional
3 tips for better board performance
Most board members join an organization for the right reasons, but many fail to make a meaningful impact. Meanwhile, executive directors complain their board lacks engagement and makes unreasonable demands. Obviously, a disconnect exists, but this scenario has a solution and can be fixed. Here’s how:

Directing versus Informing: The Dual-Language Quagmire
Successful communication hinges on the ability to meet in the middle
Scenario: You open the refrigerator to find a near-empty milk carton. What would you tell your partner or roommate? Whether you would say, “Get milk when you go out,” or something more like, “Hey, we’re out of milk,” can tell you a lot about your communication style.