A number of the Capital Region’s most prominent family-owned businesses — like the River Cats — have made social responsibility a core tenet of their companies, employing staff and consultants to help make their programs central to who they are and how they operate.

Call it a disagreement, difference of opinion or power struggle, but family-owned businesses are no less likely to have challenges about how things are run than any other company.

Here are my top three reasons why family businesses need systems:

When an at-will termination is at issue, there are certain steps to take and considerations an employer should evaluate to minimize the risk of later becoming the target of a wrongful termination lawsuit.

On a sunny August afternoon at Selland’s in East Sacramento, I had the pleasure of sharing some French press coffee with Kevin Rahm. You probably know him as Lee McDermott from Desperate Housewives, Ted Chaough on Mad Men or maybe even as your neighbor.

Among the many, many things that the Census Bureau asks in the annual American Community Survey, the 2016 results of which were released last week, is this: How did this person usually get to work last week? 

Pivot. By definition, this means to “turn on or as if on a pivot,” when used as a verb. Synonyms include “rotate” and “turn.” I’ve been experiencing my own pivot recently as I’ve switched gears in my freelance life.

Why is change so difficult? At its core, change is intrinsically personal. While organizations may collectively seek to change, the decision resides at the individual level. As we seek to change behaviors, we need to incorporate three actions to succeed:

What if we’re doing it all wrong? What if instead of trying to do 37 things at once, we just try and do one thing at a time — what some productivity experts call either “mono-tasking,” “mono-focus” or “uni-tasking”— and do the job well?

Stop what you’re doing — which is probably a lot, all at once. As it turns out, experts say multitasking drains your brain power and dilutes the quality of your work.  Luckily there’s a solution: Start mono-focusing. 

Believe it or not, it’s possible to make a living as an artist in Sacramento. All it takes, according to those who’ve succeeded, is a base of communication, community, willingness to treat your work as a business and a good share of bull-headed persistence.