What happened to the middle? It seems like it might make headlines these days. Shortly after their election a Republican Congressman from Wisconsin and a Democrat from Idaho became fast friends. When they were first elected 20 years ago it was a different era in American politics. Or was it? Is there a need for a new centrist mandate? What does this week's elections mean for our country and more importantly what does it mean for your family business. Please join in on this interactive session regarding how Washington might tackle health care, taxes, and the budget instead of the 2 parties tackling each other!

Succession. No other issue strips family business owners of more sleep or peace of mind. Balancing the future demands and needs of the business and the family is a strange and beautiful dance that is filled with potential missteps and trip ups. When executed well, succession planning can create a proud and honorable legacy of principles and prosperity. If done poorly, the same can turn a healthy, profitable, growing family business system into a veritable nightmare of irrational decision-making and wealth destruction.

Through the use of real-life case studies, anecdotes and data from years of practical experience working with hundreds of families from 14 different countries, Dana will provide you and your family with knowledge, tools and takeaways that can be applied immediately.

All companies need to generate profitable revenue yet, most leave their future to fate because they don’t know what to do different. No organization can allow necessity to be the mother of invention. Rather, innovation must be a continual process embraced at all levels of the organization.  Existing size and profitability are no guarantee of future success. Innovation is. 

In this session you will learn and experience first-hand, the process of innovation and how to apply the tools that creates a sustainable culture where ideas, big and small, are harvested and transmuted into measurable action plans.

Strategy must often be developed under great uncertainty in an ever changing landscape. This session examines rigidities in the planning process and how they must be managed in the face of uncertainty. It features an exercise where participants work in a team to develop and execute a plan. In so doing, they are asked to anticipate what may go awry and develop contingency plans for these events. We will emphasize the difficulties in anticipating events but, more importantly, the problems recognizing the early warning signals that things are not unfolding as planned.

We all make choices; we read, study, participate, and educate for the betterment of our company, our family, and ourselves.  We are aware of the direct outcomes of the choices we make almost immediately.  But what about the unintended consequences of those same choices?   

There are always unintended consequences of our actions (or reactions). 

What happens when we choose to communicate effectively? What happens when we choose to forgive?  What happens when we choose to take time to work on the company instead of in the company?  What happens when we choose to remember the past and act on it, instead of repeating the same mistakes we made, our parents made, our grandparents made?  What happens when we start with ourselves? 

This interactive session explores the unintended consequences of the choices we make, from communication to forgiveness to next generation education on our leadership, bottom line, and family relationships.  When we start with ourselves, amazing things can happen.