Tags |
|
|
Links |
|
|
Hub You - Sharing the Reins: 10 Reasons To Sell Your Company To Your Employees
Michael Gerber, in his book the e-Myth, talks about the importance of working ON your business, rather than IN your business. In one case you're doing the planning, creating the vision, leading your organization (regardless of the size). In the other, you're doing the actual work of the business - the details.As entrepreneurs our tendency is to take on all the detailed work in our business. Primarily because it's what we know how to do. And secondarily because we're sure no one else can it as well as we can.But what role should you be playing in your online business?There are three major functional areas in online success:- Decision making - things that o
7. Legacy. Employee ownership is the ticket to good legacy and smooth transitions. By sharing ownership early on, the difficult question that comes when founders are ready to retire - what to do with this business - is avoided.
8. Justice. The inherent injustice of our current economic system (all wealth goes to the shareholders) can be tackled, through employee ownership, by shifting wealth to the real stakeholders, those who actually create it.
9. Productivity. A democratic workplace gives meaning to our work lives and encourages good performance. A happy workforce is a productive one.
10. Accountability. If the people who make the decisions are the people who will also bear the consequences of those decisions, better decisions are likely to result.
In thi
By attending to an effective, well-structured Business Improvement Program (BIP), business owners are able to learn elaborate, reliable marketing and business management techniques with minimal time and effort. A solid, coherent Business Improvement Program can easily make the difference between a poorly managed, low-rewarding, average business and a prosperous, lucrative, well-run business with long-term prospects and well-established goals and objectives. Business Improvement Programs are appropriate for both small and extended business owners, providing program attendants with a set of comprehensive materials that account for all the relevant aspects of a prosperous, successful b
Shared ownership and control is our method at South Mountain. “Every employee, an owner” is our intention. More than half of our thirty employees are full owners. Each time another comes in, and each time a new management invention encourages more voices to be heard, we move steadily toward the goals of democracy, fairness, and transparency. This is not about a sense of ownership or a sense of control. Corey Rosen of the National Center for Employee Ownership once said that giving employees a "sense" of ownership is like giving them a "sense" of dinner. This is the whole meal.
I first contemplated the conversion to find a way to retain long-time valued employees, who wanted to stay in the company but felt they needed more stake than working for an hourly wage. At the time it was both frightening and exciting. I had the power, and the greatest financial and emotional investment; therefore, I had the most to lose. Under my ownership the company had become a viable, profitable entity with a strong reputation. Sometimes, during the early discussions, it felt like control was slipping away, like I was tugging on the reins of a runaway horse. But it occurred to me that perhaps I had the most to gain. Aside from the lure of clearing this new path and seeing where it led, the possibility of shared responsibility and ownership promised new freedoms for me and new achievements for the company. But the full implications of what I was doing were not yet clear to me.
Our ownership system has indeed turned out to be an important aspect of the stability of the company. People do tend to stay. But there are other reasons why we are lucky to have made this change. Nearly 20 years later, I am fully convinced that the conversion to employee ownership has been a critical factor in the long-term success of our company and an important reason why I think I have the best job in the world. Here are ten reasons why you may wish to consider, sometime soon, sharing the ownership of your business with your employees:
1. Maturity. Once the entrepreneurial leap of starting a new business has been achieved without constraints, and a viable company has been established, restructuring to employee ownership can be a natural part of the maturation process.
2. Commitment. Employee ownership encourages a sense of empowerment and promises deeper connections and greater commitment (and length of employment) among the employee owners.
3. Freedom. The potential loss of control for the founder is more than balanced by the new-found freedom that comes with shared responsibility.
4. Participation. If you keep the entry fee low enough (we keep ours to "the price of a good used car") full participation will be encouraged.
5. Equity. By using a system of internal capital accounts through which the profit is shared and equity is measured, employee owners can track their stake in the company and accumulate a nest egg that they take with them when they depart.
6. Effectiveness. Over 11,000 companies nationally, with 8.5 million employees (and $400 billion in assets held by these employees) have some form of employee ownership. Maybe these companies know something.
7. Legacy. Employee ownership is the ticket to good legacy and smooth transitions. By sharing ownership early on, the difficult question that comes when founders are ready to retire - what to do with this business - is avoided.
8. Justice. The inherent injustice of our current economic system (all wealth goes to the shareholders) can be tackled, through employee ownership, by shifting wealth to the real stakeholders, those who actually create it.
9. Productivity. A democratic workplace gives meaning to our work lives and encourages good performance. A happy workforce is a productive one.
10. Accountability. If the people who make the decisions are the people who will also bear the consequences of those decisions, better decisions are likely to result.
In thin
The easiest way to avoid long term contracts is to realize first of all, that there are other options available that may better suit your payment needs. Like different pricing models. Detailed below...Pricing ModelsThis is a very important topic because there are TWO ways in which you need to look at the cost structure of businesses that provide Custom on Hold Messaging.The first is a "contract" model: This where the company signs you up for a “term contract” in which you are locked in for a certain amount of time. Most are 2,3, even 5 year contracts. You are obligated to pay a monthly fee for the term of the contract. Month after month, even if you do no
I first contemplated the conversion to find a way to retain long-time valued employees, who wanted to stay in the company but felt they needed more stake than working for an hourly wage. At the time it was both frightening and exciting. I had the power, and the greatest financial and emotional investment; therefore, I had the most to lose. Under my ownership the company had become a viable, profitable entity with a strong reputation. Sometimes, during the early discussions, it felt like control was slipping away, like I was tugging on the reins of a runaway horse. But it occurred to me that perhaps I had the most to gain. Aside from the lure of clearing this new path and seeing where it led, the possibility of shared responsibility and ownership promised new freedoms for me and new achievements for the company. But the full implications of what I was doing were not yet clear to me.
Our ownership system has indeed turned out to be an important aspect of the stability of the company. People do tend to stay. But there are other reasons why we are lucky to have made this change. Nearly 20 years later, I am fully convinced that the conversion to employee ownership has been a critical factor in the long-term success of our company and an important reason why I think I have the best job in the world. Here are ten reasons why you may wish to consider, sometime soon, sharing the ownership of your business with your employees:
1. Maturity. Once the entrepreneurial leap of starting a new business has been achieved without constraints, and a viable company has been established, restructuring to employee ownership can be a natural part of the maturation process.
2. Commitment. Employee ownership encourages a sense of empowerment and promises deeper connections and greater commitment (and length of employment) among the employee owners.
3. Freedom. The potential loss of control for the founder is more than balanced by the new-found freedom that comes with shared responsibility.
4. Participation. If you keep the entry fee low enough (we keep ours to "the price of a good used car") full participation will be encouraged.
5. Equity. By using a system of internal capital accounts through which the profit is shared and equity is measured, employee owners can track their stake in the company and accumulate a nest egg that they take with them when they depart.
6. Effectiveness. Over 11,000 companies nationally, with 8.5 million employees (and $400 billion in assets held by these employees) have some form of employee ownership. Maybe these companies know something.
7. Legacy. Employee ownership is the ticket to good legacy and smooth transitions. By sharing ownership early on, the difficult question that comes when founders are ready to retire - what to do with this business - is avoided.
8. Justice. The inherent injustice of our current economic system (all wealth goes to the shareholders) can be tackled, through employee ownership, by shifting wealth to the real stakeholders, those who actually create it.
9. Productivity. A democratic workplace gives meaning to our work lives and encourages good performance. A happy workforce is a productive one.
10. Accountability. If the people who make the decisions are the people who will also bear the consequences of those decisions, better decisions are likely to result.
In thi
Should we be looking at a 100-year plan to unite the Human Colonies in Space? What if we set up the Federation Colonies or the Space Franchise System (SFS)? Would that be a plan? Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Ben Bova and many well known SciFi authors have indeed written about such things over the years.Indeed as a Franchisor Founder I too have considered this way-out idea and the thought of setting up Franchises in Space. I have considered the Space Colony Franchise System, as it does make sense. Franchising a business on Earth is simple and I wonder why everyone else can't see it, it is so obvious to me really. A franchising of space colonies makes sense. In Fact a Global
Our ownership system has indeed turned out to be an important aspect of the stability of the company. People do tend to stay. But there are other reasons why we are lucky to have made this change. Nearly 20 years later, I am fully convinced that the conversion to employee ownership has been a critical factor in the long-term success of our company and an important reason why I think I have the best job in the world. Here are ten reasons why you may wish to consider, sometime soon, sharing the ownership of your business with your employees:
1. Maturity. Once the entrepreneurial leap of starting a new business has been achieved without constraints, and a viable company has been established, restructuring to employee ownership can be a natural part of the maturation process.
2. Commitment. Employee ownership encourages a sense of empowerment and promises deeper connections and greater commitment (and length of employment) among the employee owners.
3. Freedom. The potential loss of control for the founder is more than balanced by the new-found freedom that comes with shared responsibility.
4. Participation. If you keep the entry fee low enough (we keep ours to "the price of a good used car") full participation will be encouraged.
5. Equity. By using a system of internal capital accounts through which the profit is shared and equity is measured, employee owners can track their stake in the company and accumulate a nest egg that they take with them when they depart.
6. Effectiveness. Over 11,000 companies nationally, with 8.5 million employees (and $400 billion in assets held by these employees) have some form of employee ownership. Maybe these companies know something.
7. Legacy. Employee ownership is the ticket to good legacy and smooth transitions. By sharing ownership early on, the difficult question that comes when founders are ready to retire - what to do with this business - is avoided.
8. Justice. The inherent injustice of our current economic system (all wealth goes to the shareholders) can be tackled, through employee ownership, by shifting wealth to the real stakeholders, those who actually create it.
9. Productivity. A democratic workplace gives meaning to our work lives and encourages good performance. A happy workforce is a productive one.
10. Accountability. If the people who make the decisions are the people who will also bear the consequences of those decisions, better decisions are likely to result.
In thi
The defintion of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) that I favor is "CRM is the business strategy that aims to understand, anticipate, manage and personalize the needs of an organization's current and potential customers"From this we can learn that CRM is more than just a piece of software; CRM is a business strategy, one that puts the customer at the heart of the business.“That’s nothing new” I hear you say, and you would be right. Good business people have always understood the relationship between happy customers that come back again and again and creating long term, sustainable profitability.You just have to think of the local shop owner who knew everyo
2. Commitment. Employee ownership encourages a sense of empowerment and promises deeper connections and greater commitment (and length of employment) among the employee owners.
3. Freedom. The potential loss of control for the founder is more than balanced by the new-found freedom that comes with shared responsibility.
4. Participation. If you keep the entry fee low enough (we keep ours to "the price of a good used car") full participation will be encouraged.
5. Equity. By using a system of internal capital accounts through which the profit is shared and equity is measured, employee owners can track their stake in the company and accumulate a nest egg that they take with them when they depart.
6. Effectiveness. Over 11,000 companies nationally, with 8.5 million employees (and $400 billion in assets held by these employees) have some form of employee ownership. Maybe these companies know something.
7. Legacy. Employee ownership is the ticket to good legacy and smooth transitions. By sharing ownership early on, the difficult question that comes when founders are ready to retire - what to do with this business - is avoided.
8. Justice. The inherent injustice of our current economic system (all wealth goes to the shareholders) can be tackled, through employee ownership, by shifting wealth to the real stakeholders, those who actually create it.
9. Productivity. A democratic workplace gives meaning to our work lives and encourages good performance. A happy workforce is a productive one.
10. Accountability. If the people who make the decisions are the people who will also bear the consequences of those decisions, better decisions are likely to result.
In thi
In this day and age, as job competition has increased, interviewing techniques have also gotten tougher. Larger corporations often adopt multi-layered interview techniques from initial screening until the job offer stage.Interview Styles and How to Handle Them ConfidentlyThe need for different interview styles has evolved with the increasing complexities of jobs and work environments, as a scientific means to testing candidates.Behavioral InterviewThis style of interview uses the premise that past behavioral and performance history reveals enough indicators for a prediction of future performance. This type of interview can begin with conceal
7. Legacy. Employee ownership is the ticket to good legacy and smooth transitions. By sharing ownership early on, the difficult question that comes when founders are ready to retire - what to do with this business - is avoided.
8. Justice. The inherent injustice of our current economic system (all wealth goes to the shareholders) can be tackled, through employee ownership, by shifting wealth to the real stakeholders, those who actually create it.
9. Productivity. A democratic workplace gives meaning to our work lives and encourages good performance. A happy workforce is a productive one.
10. Accountability. If the people who make the decisions are the people who will also bear the consequences of those decisions, better decisions are likely to result.
In thinking about the dynamics of employee ownership, I am reminded of the way the Roman army handled daily rations. Rations were in the form of large loaves of bread, each sufficient to feed two soldiers. This presented a problem, since when the soldiers had little to do, they tended to fight among themselves, particularly over who got the bigger half of the loaf. The Romans developed a nifty solution. They passed a regulation that one soldier had to divide the loaf and the other chose which half to take. Employee ownership is a similarly self-enforcing system. Each owner's actions on behalf of the others, and the company, are actions on his or her own behalf at the same time.
I understand that employee ownership is not the only way to encourage more responsible and more democratic business practices. But it's clear to me that at South Mountain, due to employee ownership, we've become, at once, better problem solvers and better dreamers. There's a lot to be said for ownership and the responsibility it encourages. As someone once observed, “In the history of mankind, nobody has ever washed a rented car.”
HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.iadvice.info/article/23998/iadvice-Sharing-the-Reins-10-Reasons-To-Sell-Your-Company-To-Your-Employees.html">Sharing the Reins: 10 Reasons To Sell Your Company To Your Employees</a>
BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.iadvice.info/article/23998/iadvice-Sharing-the-Reins-10-Reasons-To-Sell-Your-Company-To-Your-Employees.html]Sharing the Reins: 10 Reasons To Sell Your Company To Your Employees[/url]
Related Articles:
On Women Leaving The Canadian Labour Market
Structure + Boundaries = Freedom
Should Quality Controllers be Sacked?
Bookmark it:
|