It has been over three years since I wrote a blog with a title borrowed from a country song, so I hope that nobody will accuse me of going back to the well too soon.
As with Blame it on Cinderella back in March 2013, I was driving when I heard the song, there was a conference involved, and I was on the East Coast. Last time it was a CFA meeting in Boston, and the song that inspired me came on during my drive home.
This time I first heard the song on the way to the Family Business Summit in Halifax, put together by the great folks at the Dalhousie Centre for Family Business and Regional Prosperity.
This time the song was by country star Tim McGraw, and because my radio was still set to HotCountry103.5, I actually heard it again as I was heading back to my cottage in New Brunswick when the summit ended.
I was driving away with a smile on my face, because I met so many great people over the two days, and I was actually trying to figure out what it was about these people that made them so easy to be around and get along with.
Part of me was thinking that it must be the geographic location, because Maritimers are known as some of the friendliest people you will find anywhere in the world.
Whenever someone asks why we have a cottage in New Brunswick (not exactly close to home in Montreal) I never fail to mention that one of the main attractions is the people and their relaxed, easygoing nature.
So the people were nice because they are from Atlantic Canada, right? Yes, but that is only part of it.
These people were also Family Business people, and over the past few years since I got back into the family business game, I had not really thought of this, but there is something about FamBiz types that makes so many of them great people to be around.
And just as I was thinking about all this stuff, still with that smile on my face, Tim McGraw’s latest hit, Humble and Kind, came on my car radio again.
Humble and Kind. Every single person that I had met during the previous 36 hours, from the hotel staff to the speakers, from the summit organizers to the family business people themselves, each one seemed to be truly humble and kind.
When I got back home I listened to the song again, and wouldn’t you know it, I had another A-Ha moment.
When I heard the song in the car, I was focussed on the “humble” and the “kind”, and if you had pressed me on it, I would have sworn that the song was about being humble and kind.
But that would have missed part of the whole lesson. The actuall lyrics that the father is singing to his children are “Always stay humble and kind”. So what’s the big deal about that?
In order to stay, or remain, a certain way, you have to be that way to begin with. Now we know that not everyone scores well on the humility and kindness scales, but is that because they did not stay that way, or because they never were?
And if you do start out humble and kind when you are young, how did you get that way? My guess is that most of it comes from your parents and the example they set.
When family businesses fall apart, it is usually in large part because of family conflict, so what happened to the humility and the kindness?
My theory is that there is a large “self-selection bias” in family business conference attendance. Families who attend are doing well and want to do better, so they come together, as families, and meet other families, and learn from each other.
The ones who do not attend are probably the ones who really should be there, because what they learn from others could really help.
The upcoming CAFÉ Symposium in Calgary will give me another great chance to put this theory to the test.
Steve Legler “gets” business families.
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas. He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
