Implementing Owner Strategy
The process of creating an Owner Strategy should culminate in a written Owner Strategy statement, which documents what value the owners want the business to create. BanyanGlobal’s Ben Francois and Leigh Blank discuss how to think about your Owner Strategy statement, what the process should look like, and how a good Owner Strategy Statement can help put your Owner Strategy into practice.
Time Stamps and Key Takeaways from the video are below.
Time Stamps:
[0:10] Leigh shared examples and guidance of how families put their Owner Strategy into practice.
[1:31] Leigh explains the components of an Owner Strategy statement.
[3:02] Leigh and Ben dive into what the different types of guardrails are, of guardrails that families have included in their Owner Strategy statements, and how to communicate them to stakeholders.
[8:37] Ben shares on the importance of communicating the Owner Strategy statement to the board in order to open up a dialogue between them and the owners.
[9:36] Leigh answers the questions: how do you know when you’re done with your Owner Strategy statement and when is it time to revisit?
Key Takeaways:
- The Owner Strategy is not something that should be created and forgotten. It should be used by the family to direct and create a dialogue with the board and high-level managers of where they want the business to go and as a benchmark to see if the business decisions being made support the Owner Strategy.
- The Owner Strategy statement is typically comprised of a purpose statement, their owner values, and guardrails.
- Guardrails are a very important part of the Owner Strategy statement that provide clarity on what the owners are expecting from the business—both financial and non-financial. Every family and every business should have different guardrails depending on what they value and what they expect.
- It can be hard to put the pen down when writing your Owner Strategy statement, especially when you have a group of owners with individual opinions and preferences, but the work on the Owner Strategy statement should be done when everyone aligns on the core messages. It is a living document that should be tweaked over time and conversations with the board and at big moments of change in the family and the business.