Allan's corporate training, leadership research and empowering books on personal development impact thousands of lives across Africa.

Search This Blog

Featured Post

Research; why we do what we do

  Why we do what we do, why we think the way we think and much more.... In his book, Roots , Alex Haley, descendant of human beings shipped ...

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Leadership is

Leadership is transforming a group of people, in an environment, from where they are to where they need to be using vision, strategy and the prudent use of resources.

Allan Bukusi

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

WHY FAMILY STRATEGY IS A MESSAGE OF HOPE


If you found out that the business you work for has no strategic plan, I doubt you would be happy to spend the rest of your career in that organization. Most people would not be excited to work for a business without a strategic plan, but many people find it “okay” to live in a family without any real plans for the future. This great paradox affects many families around the world.
But what are the benefits of a strategic plan and why should every family have one?  Strategic plans determine business direction, set aside resources, prioritize activity and focus leadership and staff effort to pursue and achieve business goals. It is really no surprise that, barring unpredictable disaster, business goals are actually achieved. Of course, there is the issue of divine favor, but businesses still plan.  However, many families are prepared to pray, but somehow never manage to plan.
Let’s contrast this business success picture with a family (organization) that operates without a plan. Most activities in that home will be routine, while resources will be consumed as they come in because there is no plan to reserve incomes to meet future needs. The family operates an “efficient budget” that pays all the bills and leaves nothing in the bank every month.  Meanwhile the family needs grow as the children grow and parents struggle to meet the rising, tide of life and career expectations.  This situation can become quite desperate- without a plan!
Strategy is not a panacea for all family challenges, but it does help deal with the predictable challenges you face in marriage and family like children growing up, owning a home and facing uncomfortable issues like losing a job. Family Strategy helps you plan for and face the future with a realistic sense of hope and confidence. A good strategy will excite you about the real possibilities you are working on today to make tomorrow a better day. You cannot hope for what you do not expect. You cannot expect what you do not hope for. You really cannot expect what you do not aim for, and neither can you hope for what you do not plan to get. Every family needs a strategy because it needs hope and a future.

Allan Bukusi

The authors of Family Strategy plan to empower 60,000 families around the world with this message of hope. You can help by passing this message on to a friend.
Also see


.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Family Strategy Presentation, Seminar & Workshop


Family Strategy

Presentations, Seminar & Workshop

Why Every Family Needs Strategy
This powerful 30-minute presentation explains to audiences that family has very specific terms of reference (TORs). It moves audiences to realize the folly of not having a plan to address the challenging yet predictable crisis of family life. The presentation helps participants appreciate that many family crises come about not because a couple have “fallen out of love” or that they face “special circumstances”, but rather that crisis is often because couples fail to plan and prepare for the future. The presenter urges audiences to attend to family matters as a God given responsibility and a “growing concern” that needs a focused and well thought-out strategy to be successful.

The Principles of Family Strategy
This 60-minute presentation gives audiences the background to the ideas that give rise to family strategy and explains why each of the eight principles is critical to family success. The audience may get time to fill out and briefly examine their own FamilyTimeLine© (a tool that enables families to assess their status and future needs) to get a feel of what season the family is in and what they need to do (today) to prepare for an acceptable future. The presenter also outlines the sources of frustration of those who neglect the eight principles face in family life. There may be time for a brief question and answer session at the end of the presentation.

Family Strategy Seminar
This 2/3-hour seminar equips participants with the knowledge of the key process steps to complete a Family Strategy Toolkit. Participants examine their FamilyTimeLine© to develop an effective medium-term strategy for the family success. The seminar allows some time for questions and discussion on the core process steps with a large group (50+). But, does NOT allow for core skill development exercises needed to implement an effective strategy. Participants will have to complete the Family Strategy toolkit later on in their own time. The Family Strategy Seminar is an excellent option for breakout/elective or discussion group sessions at major international conferences running for a number of days under the same, similar or related theme. 

The Family Strategy Workshop
(RECOMMENDED FOR COUPLES)
This is ideal for married couples who desire to develop and leave the workshop with a well developed, personalized Family Strategy Toolkit. Participants leave equipped with techniques to implement family strategy a well as with knowledge to manage family/marriage challenges. The modular one-day workshop empowers participants to appreciate personality differences, teamwork, the importance of managing conflict and effective communication alongside financial and wealth creation skills. The workshop helps couples appreciate the purpose of marriage and develop ways of fulfilling ways of working together as marriage partners.   
Also see



WHAT IS THE FAMILY STRATEGY TOOLKIT?



The Family Strategy Toolkit is a template married couples use to develop and determine the medium and long-term development goals they would like to achieve. The full toolkit empowers families to exploit their family gifting, create wealth, positively influence society, transform their environments and leave a legacy. The toolkit is especially useful for both young and mature families seeking a roadmap through the challenging (and sometimes chaotic) seasons of life and working hard to achieve an elusive “work-life balance” formula.  Send for a free toolkit from mdi@mdi.co.ke and read HOW TO USE THE FAMILY STRATEGY TOOLKIT to find out how to make it work for you.

Also see 

HOW TO USE THE FAMILY STRATEGY TOOLKIT


THE FAMILY STRATEGY TOOLKIT
The Family Strategy Toolkit is a template families use to develop and determine the medium and long-term development goals they would like to achieve. The full toolkit empowers families to exploit their family gifting, create wealth, positively influence society, transform their environments and leave a legacy. The toolkit is especially useful for both young and mature families seeking a roadmap through the challenging (and sometimes chaotic) seasons of life and working hard to achieve an elusive “work-life balance” formula. Send for a free toolkit from mdi@mdi.co.ke and read the rest of this document to find out how to make it work for you.
BACKGROUND.
The Family Strategy Toolkit is based on the principles put forward in the book Family Strategy by Allan & Violet Bukusi. The authors draw on Biblical wisdom, the dynamic realities of family life and the concepts of successfully business strategy to create eight principles that help married couples efficiently run the business of family. While other writers focus on the importance of the relational aspects of love, marriage and family, the authors suggest that a sound understanding of the purpose and business of family is critical to sustaining caring marriages and maintaining love in family relations by acknowledging and providing for the fulfillment of all family members life goals, dreams, personal aspirations and destiny.
THE FULL VALUE OF FAMILY STRATEGY
You get the full value of the Family Strategy by, 1) reading the book to obtain a critical and core appreciation of the subject, 2) attending the training workshop to understand how best to apply the success principles in your situation and make them work for you. And, 3) appropriately filling in each section of the Family Strategy Toolkit to enable you to create and commit to realizing practical yet inspiring personalized strategic goals.
However, by thoughtfully completing each section of the Family Strategy Toolkit can give you a quick start to transforming your family in the hope that you will in time obtain a copy of the book and attend the workshop to complete your understanding of family strategy and realize its lifetime benefits. The short section completion notes that follow below will help set you off on the path to successful family strategy.
THE PURPOSE OF THE TOOLKIT
The Toolkit enables married couples to create a personalized strategy to inspire them to realize their dreams, guide the family through life’s predictable crisis, encourage the couple to meet discuss and prepare for future (financial) needs and motivate them to seek out Gods purposes for the family’s unique gifting.
NOTICE
Family strategy is not a prenuptial agreement, but will find application among married couples committed to working together to making a success of their marriage and family life. Family strategy is not a magic wand, panacea or “counseling session”,. Neither does using the tool guarantee users desired success.  family strategy is merely a tool in the hands of committed a couples willing to use all the resources God has placed in their hands and work hard to achieve good success in life.
USERS
Though all family members will benefit from the practice of Family strategy principles at every stage in life, couples between the ages of 30-45 years will quickly grasp its power and importance as a practical tool to successfully navigate, resolve and overcome the predictable crisis and challenges of family life.

FAMILY STRATEGY TOOLKIT SECTION BY SECTION COMPLETION NOTES

OUR FAMILY PHILOSOPHY
In this section, couples are encouraged to define a common understanding of family, marriage and parenting. Some of the major difficulties couples experience in moving the family agenda forward stem from undiscussed understanding and commitment to divergent family values. By agreeing on a primary approach to the core issues of family life, a married couple lays a foundation that prepares the family to reach accelerated agreement and action on secondary matters such as wealth, careers  and family roles. We suggest that the family philosophy be based on godly principles and not just personal opinion.
VISION MISSION & VALUES
You do not have to be in business to have a vision. Having a corporate vision as family is immensely liberating, as partners will benefit from the support of the other in pursuit of the common (combined vision). Individual dreams do NOT have to die for a united vision to be achieved. Indeed the corporate vision benefits from the strength of submitting (combining) the two visions to define the new. Partners will find themselves appropriately stretched by the commitment to the new vision.

GAIT
The family gifting requires a couple to investigate and invest in the gifting of every family member to realize the family’s full potential. Every family has a unique gifting, experience and education that can be harnessed to achieve its most competitive advantage. The exercise to find out the family gifting should not be a “one off” exercise rather it should be continuous process of investigation, exploration and exploitation.

STRATEGIC GOALS
The strategic goals you set for your family should not be simple improvement goals rather they should be goals that will transform your family life for good. If you don’t own a home, set a goal to own one. Such a goal will stretch, challenge and inspire you to commit and engage all your (physical, mental and material) resources to bring it to being. Such goals will mean you will have to make sacrifices, savings and design schemes to help you realize your goals. Good strategic goals will grow you as a person and strengthen your marriage as you commit to work together to achieve a previously impossible goal.

WEALTH CREATION
Every family is a steward to some amount of wealth. The more competent you become at handling the (modest) wealth you have, the more wealth you can handle. The ability to create wealth is a mark of growth and a great blessing. Interestingly, many people are blessed to find jobs because of good stewards who work hard to create wealth for society. Creating wealth need not be just to escape poverty, but to enjoy Gods bounty and bless many in the process. It is also good to intentionally take stock of the wealth you create for your family wellbeing and the inheritance you want to pass on to your children’s children.

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
The model here is based on the fact that there are only four (five, if you add debt) things you can do with money. The proportion in which you allocate and use your money in these areas determines the quality of life you live today and directly determines the quality of life you will have tomorrow. If you want to increase in wealth, you may have to eliminate debt and start saving today. By adjusting your current spending on operational expenses, you release money for investments that pay you dividend in future. This section allows you to create a financial future for your family by modeling your financial allocation today. However, you will have to determine the financial adjustments you will make in the handling of money and income that will allow you to achieve your financial goals.

MY ROLE & RESPONSIBILITY
No matter how gifted or talented or endowed one partner may be, success cannot be enjoyed without equitable participation and equal engagement in the process. While we emphasize corporate effort and teamwork, it vital that both partners take up the full load they are able to bear with the joy and commitment of equal engagement to achieve and enjoy the success of any family initiative.

IMPLEMENTATION FRAMEWORK
Strategic goals can be set for several years ahead, but monthly incomes, operational budgets and action plans need to be broken down into objectives that can be set, implemented, monitored and reviewed against timelines. In other words the family strategy is not in the document, rather it is in the day-to-day action you take as a family to realize your strategic goals. The unique and specific steps you will take cannot fit on the TOOLKIT page. You will need to set specific steps you will take in the short term to realize you long term goals. In this regard, the purpose of the review dates is to create set times when progress of the whole strategy can be reviewed, celebrated, revised and improved as necessary to ensure the family remains on course to its goals.

SIGNING OFF
Signing commitment to the strategy is a good way to record participation in the process and having a friend to hold you accountable shows an even greater commitment to achieving success. The document itself becomes a witness and a testimony of what you are willing to work for and what you can trust God to bring about. Of course, nothing can succeed without the blessing of God and it is always wise to commit the whole project to Gods direction.  
CONCLUSION
Once you have completed filling in the TOOLKIT, read it through to enable you appreciate and take ownership of the strategic focus you have created for you family.   
In drawing up a family strategy, you have taken a leap of faith and shown great courage in your willingness to change, transform and advance your situation in life. Your job is now to follow through with ACTION. Your steps will not be perfect, but you cannot copy anybody else’s strategy to get better results. Your progress may be incremental, but you can rejoice in every step of the way. Every familys’ journey is unique.
However, as stated earlier there is a great deal of knowledge you still need to get the best possible results out of the Family Strategy Toolkit, so get the book and attend the training workshop for greater empowerment to achieve your goals in life.
Allan Bukusi, 2014

Email mdi@mdi.co.ke and

1.       request a free Family Strategy Toolkit to be sent to you,

2.       order a copy of the book (your will receive detail of the cost of the book plus shipping)

3.       esquire when the next workshop will be held near you

Friday, February 7, 2014

HOW TO LEAD BY EXAMPLE

HOW TO LEAD BY EXAMPLE

Leadership can be described in many forms. It can be defined as a principle, a purpose, a position or a process. These all define roles which you, as a leader, are expected to play and fit into. However, leadership is also a personal quality in terms of character, competence, courage and confidence. These later qualities are sometimes summed up as charisma. Though the external definition of leadership can be acquired by appointment, the internal or personal definition of leadership depends on your personal discipline and initiative. When a person exhibits the personal qualities of leadership, they become leaders and people are able to follow them because they lead by example. There is no other way to lead by example other than to be a good example of what you want others to be. What are some of the ways in which a leader can lead by example?

1.       Attend to punctuality, personal organization and the management of time.

2.       Maintain personal ethics, etiquette, good attitude and presentation.

3.       Take due care of what is yours and what belongs to someone else. It costs you less in time.

4.       Accept responsibility for your own success, it will make you better in whatever you do.

5.       Set personal goals and pursue them.

6.       Live with purpose and not without aim.

7.       Mature. Do not rush. Be the calm, more intelligent and strategic mind.

8.       Reason rather than shout; it will make you think.

9.       Developing yourself as a matter of discipline and duty and do not be found among the lazy.

10.   Work with others as first among equals and do not enjoy playing the fool among others.

 

1.       Work to distinction without supervision,

2.       Fight to win without showing off and fail without losing your self-esteem.

3.       Have the courage to lead and keep a good name rather than just seeking fame.

4.       Truth Fairness, faithfulness and justice will make you fearless.

5.       Handle authority with wisdom and power with humility. It was given, it can be taken away.

6.       Complement and do not complain. All gain must come with some pain.

7.       To work and not think of immediate gain is not common sense to men.

8.       Fear God, serve all men and do not keep company with scoffers.

9.       If you do these things, you will be a good example to all men.

10.   On any given day, the things you do will set you apart, but these ten things will set you up as a leader of men.

 

Allan Bukusi