We all know people who started their projects a little too late in life. I’d even dare to suggest that we’ve all waited a little too long before starting some of our own personal projects.
Whether it’s saving money for retirement, quitting smoking, deciding to get back in shape, or planning the succession of your family business, it’s almost never too late to start.
On the other side of the coin, there’s the opposite question: can you start too early? That, in my view, is even rarer.
Take the example of people who think they’re too old to learn how to use a computer. I personally know two octogenarians who illustrate the two possible extremes. “Marc” has become an expert who researches his home region, communicates with his relatives on the other side of the Atlantic, and has become the link between his Canadian family and those who still live in Europe. He’s 86 and has lived in the same bungalow for about fifty years.
“Robert”, for his part, has always believed it was too late for him to learn “to play with that stuff”. Even though he’s younger than Marc, and would have had more budget to equip himself and get someone to teach him how, he never got on board. It’s impossible for his children and grandchildren to communicate with him by email or Skype. He doesn’t know what he’s missing, but with today’s technology, it would still be a possibility, if he decided he wanted to do it.
Let’s look at an opposite example, among young people. Saving money for the future, or even for retirement, doesn’t seem to be something everyone does. Some people get on board because they understand that by starting early, it’s much easier to get the results they hope for over the long term. Others don’t have that reflex, and they’ll pay the price later, literally.
The subject closest to my heart lies between those two extremes, in family businesses. The member or members of the first generation (G1) often have difficulty bringing in those of the next generation (G2), whether in terms of managing the company, or even more so when it comes to becoming shareholders.
Those who know me will already see this coming, but I’m going to get right up on my favourite hobby horse: communication.
If I have one secret to share with you, it’s that it’s never too early to start communicating well with the other generation, and at the same time, it’s never too late either!
I know a family where communication has never been their strong point. The father is now less mentally stable than he was, and the children often act as if it were too late to communicate about the important subjects. I’m trying to convince them that they’re wrong.
As for me, my children are teenagers, and there’s almost no forbidden subject in our house. We often watch TV shows aimed at adults, but we do it together, and their questions are always welcome. And it’s often me who asks them questions to make sure they understood. And of course I’m not just talking about understanding the jokes or the stories, but also the moral questions (“Right” vs. “Wrong”).
At the end of the day, if it’s worth doing, it’s never too early, or too late.
And I believe communication is among the most important subjects, and so it’s never too early, or too late, to start communicating well.
