Outcomes
- Shared understanding of why this work is important for SMEs and the critical work of the owners team
- Explanation of the role of the Owner Mentor
- Understanding of importance of a vision – how aspirations of the owners drive all decisions in the business – and guidance for each owner to begin developing their own
- Begin to induct the team with discussion on importance of trust & psychological safety
Preparation
- Email participants information on venue, timing, logistics
- Include a link to the online module: TBD
- Review this agenda and tweak as appropriate
- If required, create role of Owner Mentor, add yourself and populate the accountabilities, such as:
- Support creation of a clear, detailed vision for guiding the business
- Help each owner and director get clarity on accountabilities
- Help owners and directors with an effective stewardship framework to carry out their responsibilities
- Identify and deal with owner alignment
- Clarify advisor roles to make roles and expectations of advisors clear and efficient
- Strengthen stewardship: Encourage use of the platform to enhance management practices and habits
- Make sure the leader has accepted the Customer Licence Agreement
- Set up room – whiteboard and pens
Note:
Every business you help to do this work will begin from a different stage. Some may already have very high trust and psychological safety and be closely aligned in their vision for the future. Others may be at a totally different stage and unfamiliar with core concepts like autonomy, mastery, purpose, people-first cultures etc. You will need to curate the content of these workshops to move at the right speed for your customer.
This first meeting is also an important opportunity to build your relationship with the owners by being vulnerable yourself and sharing your own journey openly and honestly.
Notes for the Agenda
Explore SME difference
Discuss key concepts behind succession thinking.
Discuss the differences between boards and owners teams. Key points:
- Boards tend to serve shareholders and focus on short-term numbers
- Owner teams serve people and focus on increasing stakeholder value in the long term
- Difference between corporate ROI and long-term thinking (ROV), not just an asset also a set of relationships
- Connection with vision and capital
Remind them of the purpose of this work: Help them to build resilient businesses
Role clarity in SMEs
Introduce your own role and accountabilities as Owner Mentor. Refer to the role you have already set up in embedADAPT.
We believe SMEs need three clear layers of decision making and leadership to be truly effective (deliver on owners’ vision). Ask them: What roles do you hold in your business? You can use the owner cards here although it is likely they will have seen them as part of the Sell process.
Importance of vision
Explain the accountabilities of owners around vision and capital. Discuss the role of an entrepreneur – someone who has a vision and gets access to capital to achieve it (while managing how much risk they are prepared to take). What is their risk appetite? How does it differ from other owners in the room? Explain the connection between owners’ aspirations and business strategy. It is important they can communicate the WHY of their vision to the organisation.
Team purpose & accountabilities
Some examples of the purpose of the owners team might be:
- To provide leadership for vision and capital while complying with the regulatory system
- To deliver a clear vision that becomes the key guidance for the business
- To maintain clear accountabilities for the owners team
- Effective stewardship to deliver on the accountabilities of owners and directors
- Transparency of owner alignment or non-alignment
- To make decisions on capital, vision, remuneration of the leadership team and profit distribution
Ask each owner to write down what they think the purpose of this team is. Let them work individually, share, consolidate their ideas and enter into the team guidance.
Introduce the adapt team model
Introduce adapt team model BRIEFLY and give an overview of the six aspects required for a high-performing team. They should have seen this in the online module.
Depending on the size, complexity and level of discussion, you may get time to go through some of the factors of the team model, especially trust and psychological safety. Don’t rush it though – you will probably only get to this at the second meeting.
Owners Workshop 1 - Plan