I am a pretty ordinary guy. I have no particular claim to fame other than that I have a passion for working with families in business.

I trained as a Chartered Accountant and practiced for over 30 years. Though running a traditional compliance based practice my focus was always on using my accounting knowledge and skills to help clients run better businesses.

My client base was predominantly family owned and managed businesses and over time I discovered that offering the right technical advice was not always the solution to their problems. This set me on a quest to find better ways of assisting my clients.

In the early 1990’s my search led me to the Mindshop organisation, and introduced me to two key elements of the answer -

Now in my 60’s I have discovered a number of simple insights. There is nothing clever about these and I’m probably a slow learner but for what they are worth here they are -

1. I can only help people who want to help themselves.
   If you are looking to me to solve your problems for you – it isn’t going to happen. If you are ready to take positive action to take control of your business, your life, your family business relationships, then I may well be able to help you.
2. I have no ‘magic bullet’ that will solve all your woes. (If I had I’d have used it long ago for myself)
   I can’t offer you a simple answer that will bring about a 100% improvement in your family business. Working together, we may be able to come up with 100 things that will have a 1% impact, but that’s the best I can offer. It’s amazing though how even small changes can have a significant impact.
3. You own your problem, not me.
   How ever you’ve managed to do it, you have some responsibility for getting yourself into your current situation. You will have to work your own way out. I can help if you are ready to make the necessary change, but only if you take responsibility for doing most of the work. That will take considerable commitment, effort and resolve on your part.
4. Change is not easy
   If you are ready to find a better way then be prepared for some challenging times ahead. We are generally creatures of habit and it’s not easy to change. It’s even harder when various members of your family business are involved in the process at the same time, each with different starting points, perspectives and time lines.
5. Simple is best.
   Though it may seem daunting the process is really quite simple and the rewards well worth the effort. It doesn’t need to be overly complicated particularly if you have a robust process to use as a framework.

So if you are -
contact me and we’ll talk about how we can work together to achieve the outcomes you are looking for.

Accredited Mindshop Facilitator		Accredited Adviser FBA
Accredited DISC Facilitator		Member Institute of the Management Consultants