Meet the New Boss – An Interview with Steve Beauchesne

[:26] Steve Legler welcomes Steve Beauchesne and asks him to share his first experience with Family Enterprise Canada as a former Family Enterprise of the Year Award recipient.

[3:17] Steve talks about MCing and how he has enjoyed connecting with people in the community.

[5:48] From the two constituents of Family Enterprise Canada to the future ahead, Steve shares his vision for getting back to basics and getting some wind into FEC’s sails.

[10:22] The impact stories and venting Steve has heard over the past months are great ways to set guide posts and indicate how truly passionate people are about FEC.

[13:27] New members are looking to find advisors, and FEAs are looking for collaborators; the future is about getting the right people connected.

[16:13] Steve doesn’t see finding opportunities as his challenge as CEO. The opportunities are there!

[18:08] Why Steve applied and how he is expecting to effect change.

[20:48] Steve is taking the full FEA course to attain a few specific goals, he explains how he thinks it will help guide him as CEO.

[23:25] The importance of learning before doing, but also champing at the bit!

[26:36] Steve’s thoughts on the team that surrounds him.

[27:51] Steve asks Steve to share one surprising thing about himself as well as one of his aspirations for the organisation.

[28:49] Steve Legler thanks Steve Beauchesne for sharing his passion and knowledge and closes this episode by reminding listeners to rate and subscribe.

 Let’s talk. Family enterprise explores global ideas, concepts and models that help family enterprise advisors better serve their family clients. Brought to you by family enterprise Canada, all views, Information and opinions expressed during this podcast are solely those of the individuals involved, and do not necessarily represent those of family enterprise

0:26
Canada. Listeners, are you ready to connect, learn and celebrate? Don’t miss the Family Business Symposium taking place in Halifax Bucha in May 2025, early bird pricing is available now, but only while tickets last. Secure your spot today at family enterprise.ca We also have nominations now open with family enterprise of the Year awards featuring four new categories and an amazing grand prize for the winner of the enterprising Family of the Year, all to be announced and celebrated at symposium. If you are part of or know an outstanding business family or a designated FDA that deserves to be recognized, please nominate them before January 10, you can even win a prize for your nomination. Visit family enterprise.ca. For more details.

1:13
Hello and welcome to another episode of The let’s talk family enterprise podcast. My name is Steve Legler, and it’s great being your host. Once again this month we’re going to zag a bit as we’ve got another great guest lined up, but he’s coming at us from a different perspective from most of our previous invitees. Steve Bucha in is the CEO of family enterprise Canada, and has been for almost six months. The organization continues to mature and evolve, so there’s a lot for us to talk about, the FAA advisors, who’ve been the main target of these podcasts from the outset. Are familiar with FEC because FEC runs the family enterprise advisor program. Not everyone is aware the other roles that FEC plays. So we want to use this episode to bring everyone up to speed on what’s been happening and what we can look forward to. There’s plenty to cover, as usual, so let’s jump right in. Steve Bucha and welcome to the let’s talk family enterprise podcast. Hi, Steve. So I want to start with something that maybe a lot of people don’t know, but your new role here is not your first encounter with this group, and so I know that there was a family enterprise of the Year contest or competition through Cafe back in the day that you were involved with Can you share a bit of that experience?

2:29
Yeah, that’s right, Steve, so my first experience with family enterprise Canada was cafe. At the time, we were nominated for family enterprise of the year, which is an award that we’ve been running for quite a while now, but I didn’t know that in 2010 when we got nominated, so we filled out the application, and we had the big ceremony, and we found out at the end that we took home the award. So I was running a family business with my father, and we very quickly decided to hire the rest of our family. So my mom, my brother and my sister, their spouses, few cousins, you name it, we brought them all in, and that actually became sort of one of the things we put in. And actually in our application or nomination form, was a diagram that that showed both the org chart, and then it had all of the family relationships kind of cross over. And in doing that for the application, it kind of blew our minds. We were like, oh my god, we function this way. So it was a pretty eye opening just doing the application. And then I guess folks found myself and my dad entertaining enough that a few years later, I was asked back to be the MC for the symposium and the Fayette awards. So I got to come back again in 2015 to be part of that celebration. And that was a lot of fun too. So

3:54
I was going to mention the part about you also have experience as an emcee of symposium that sounds like a pretty good gig.

4:02
Oh, you know, well, Fe has since found a much better couple of MCs, so I don’t think I’m gonna ever displace those folks, but I did okay. I did it

4:13
right. And so at symposium in Calgary, back in May, I really enjoyed the fact that you were a new face. But we started off the first day with an interview of you, speaking with Keita Deming. And what followed over the next couple of days, I was witnessing all these people coming to talk to you and meet you. And so there’s something about the way you are and your magnetic personality that attracts people, and I want to how does that help you in your new role here as CEO?

4:47
Well family enterprise can is about building community, right? This is a very, very special, very unique community, and we have two constituents in the community, but it is really one community, the way I see it, and I just believe that by connecting with people, it helps other people connect with each other. And then it’s not, I don’t think about, you know, me or my magnetic personality, it’s about opening up the possibilities for people to connect with each other. And I think just being open and curious about what other people have to say is kind of one of my strengths, and so, you know, I do think that that sort of intro into FEC was was the perfect one, because it let me get past my own kind of shyness once you’ve spilled your guts out in front of 350 people, someone wants to come up and say, Hey, how you doing that? You know, they’ve already, like, they know your dark secrets at that point, so it’s okay.

5:50
So you’re talking about the two main constituents, which is back from the cafe days, where it was this was an organization for families in business, and my dad joined Cafe back in the 80s, and I went to my first Cafe things decades ago. And then what was called the Institute of family enterprise advisors that formed because of the FEA program. And then there was the merger, which, I guess took a while digest, and then COVID hit. Now we’re coming out of all that with, you know, 500 feas already and a bunch of families and a bunch of opportunities. Where are we now and what is where is this all going? I think connecting those two communities feels like it’s part of what you’re trying to accomplish.

6:33
I do want to make it so that both our constituents understand each other better, and I’ve been doing a lot of listening over the last five and a bit months, and I’m hearing that families want to understand better what a certified FEA means. They want to have opportunities to ask questions and understand what they’re feeling feas also, one of the principal things of value that they find in this organization is the connection with family, not in the terms of getting new business, but in understanding how families work and those it’s kind of like living case studies for that, right? I’ve also heard from both sides that they also want their time alone. They want private space. So an FEA doesn’t necessarily want to ask, how would you build this particular client issue out with other families in the room? And families quite often have a, you know, sort of a sense of privacy that they’re not always willing to share with kind of feas in the room, I think largely because they don’t understand how much training the feas have gone through and how qualified they are to be in that room, but regardless of the reason why there’s a real desire for both to have their kind of private moments too. So I’m not going to come in and say every single interaction has to have everybody in the room, but I’m also really aware, I guess I would say, that there’s a real desire from sides to have more interaction in a more universal context. So I think the trick to getting this right is getting balance and then kind of the other side to the question you’re asking is, kind of post COVID, post merger, kind of, where do we go from here? And I really think that COVID knocked a lot of wind out of our sails, and the first thing we’ve got to get back to is driving a tremendous amount of value to our members. And there’s a few kind of common themes I’m seeing, I think getting more bang for the buck or more juice for the squeeze, I think, is one thing that we should really be focusing on, as opposed to trying to just run off and do do a meet up. We want to really plan them and make them impactful, get all of our constituents out and make them really noteworthy events. We want to make sure that if you’re in a peer group, the peer group is really working well. You’ve got lots of great conversations and people are engaged. If you’re not in a peer group, we got to get you in line our resource center. We’ve got a lot of comments back where it’s overwhelming. There’s too much,

9:19
too much there. Yes, people go there and they don’t know there’s it’s like walking into the library and say, Okay, I just have to find a book. But there are 1000 books. So

9:28
we’ve got to find a way to make that resource center come to life for members so that they can find what they’re looking for, you know, in a way that, you know, they don’t have to have a research degree to get right and things like that. So a lot of getting back to basics and executing really well is, I think, what’s going to drive sort of the initial stages of coming back and, you know, it’s not the most exciting things to say, maybe, but I don’t think we get to next level stuff until we’re really hammering home our core value, which, if you think about what FEC is offering, if they’re all done really well, it’s incredible. It’s great education. It’s connecting with the people you need to connect with, both professionally and from an emotional support perspective, and great resources, great learning, and the ability to grow and evolve your family business or your family business advisory practice. So that’s, I think, where I’m headed with this. But at the same time, I’m doing a ton of listening right now, so we’ve been doing focus groups across right

10:38
I noticed that that, and I’ve been on some online ones, and I saw that you have some in local areas where people are coming out and you’re doing a lot of listening and hearing from the constituents. And I just worry that, is it everyone just complaining and saying what they don’t like, or are you hearing also about some of the great stuff that you were just talking about that you’re walking in, and there is a good, a great base of things here. It’s just a matter of making everything perform to the level that it can.

11:06
So I’m hearing stories like, if it wasn’t for FEC, my family wouldn’t speak together anymore. Oh, wow. I’m also hearing stories of, I wanted to do this great thing for FEC, and I was told I wasn’t allowed, or I did this thing for FEC once, and they really didn’t, you know, acknowledge my contribution. And so for the positive stories, there’s also some venting. I think the venting is is good one, because people aren’t venting because they’ve left the organization. And I think this is the thing that I’m most excited about, is people who are venting are venting because they believe in the organization so much, they care so much to see us succeed, that really want to let me know, and they want to let me know how we can do better. And it is such a such a gift, and the fact that these folks have stuck around, even though, right, you know, maybe we haven’t lived up to kind of our their expectations from time to time, really, I think, is the strength of this organization. And COVID was tough. There’s been changes that we’ve tried to make. And all great ideas, some ideas work, and some don’t, and so not going to look in the rear view mirror and second guess kind of decisions that were made. But it’s more about understanding how important this organization is to the feas, to the family businesses that that rely on it. And there’s so much optimism I have listening to someone vent about how upset they are that, you know, we let them down, because that means that we’re that important to them,

12:58
right? Because they could have just left, they could and bitch to other people about it, right? But they’ve come because they care enough, like you say, that they want the organization to succeed and thrive, because it’s so interesting the two constituencies, it’s a symbiotic relationship, and that they need each other. And I don’t think in many places around the world they’ve ever even attempted to make an organization for both these groups, right? I remember when they were first introducing the plans of the merger. People say nobody’s ever done this before, and it’s like, wow, maybe that’s why we should be scared of it, and so we shouldn’t be surprised that it’s taken some adjustment. But I think that every time I go to symposium, and the groups are 6040, 4060, families and advisors. Things go Well, I haven’t heard complaints about people, you know, being pitched or whatever. And I think people who’ve gone through the FEA program, sort of, you’ve self acknowledged that you understand this, and that you understand where the families are coming from, and that you’re not going to go and solicit them right there in front of everybody else, and that you respect them for their story, and let’s learn to share the strengths and challenges of both sides.

14:11
Yeah, the funny thing too about that is there’s a real desire, particularly with newer members, to actually find advisors. So I think there’s, there’s something we need to do as an organization to, again, not make it so that if you’re not looking for an advisor, advisors are pitching business to you. We don’t want it. We don’t want to create that scenario. But there are family business members that that really want FEC to help connect them with an FEA. I’m also hearing a lot of feas are trying to find other feas from other professions so that they can work with so that the kind of the the feas are really they’re more interested in finding other feas to provide, to collaborate, to collaborate with. And so as an organization, there’s, there’s more we can do there to kind of help connect feas from one designation to another, so that, you know, we get all the disciplines advising families with an FEA. And that’s the the other thing that I’m hearing a lot from the FEA side of things is, wouldn’t it be nice if everyone that worked or at the executive level in a family business understood the value proposition that an FEA brings, right? Yeah.

15:38
So we talk a lot about how these families don’t know what they don’t know. And I’ve been talking for years about the fact that the kind of work that I do and more in the Family Circle, there’s huge need for it, but there’s not a lot of demand for it, right? Because people don’t know where to find it. So I think that’s part of and the other part that you just mentioned here about the, you know, the multi disciplinary advising, and no no one person can serve all of a family’s needs. And we learn that in the project, in the program, that you know how you can take one person, put them in a team of five, and all of a sudden you’re like, 100 times more powerful than and so when people get that in the program, then they want to live it. And so they need to be they need to find ways to connect with other people that they can trust, that if I have a client and I need to bring someone in with this skill set, I need to know a few people so I can find the right fit, and that trust of other colleagues takes time to build. So that’s where your connection comes in and finding opportunities for people to develop the trust in each other so that they can compliment each other’s business. And if I bring in an accountant for a family I’m working with, and then if they’re working with a family, they might bring me in, and that’s what we’re all going for. And the families need

16:58
Exactly, yeah. So there’s, there’s lots of opportunity. And in fact, I’ve started actually making a list. When we do these focus groups or listening, I write down sort of all the opportunities that are brought up. My list is like, well over 100 at this point. And so my challenge as CEO is not going to be finding the opportunities? No, there are

17:22
plenty of ideas are a dime a dozen. It’s picking the right ones and executing

17:26
exactly and and there’s so much opportunity for us as an organization, because our mission is to support family businesses and the professionals who advise them, and there’s so much need right now, and the need is at a, I would Say, nascent level, where the Families don’t have awareness. You

At the same time, lots of people applied for this CEO job. What made it attractive to you?

22:33
It’s a good question. I was actually in the process of building a business plan for a new startup I was going to do when I came across the advertisement for it, because I’d had the connection with FEC before, kind of gave me pause. I’m like, I remember them that, you know, they’re a good organization, and I was thinking about, sort of my own journey, and starting my own business allows me to have a certain amount of impact, or I could start kind of consulting, I’d maybe have a slightly bigger impact with four or five companies, or I could, as CEO of FEC Canada, impact 1000s of businesses, 1000s and 1000s of people’s lives. And so for me, that the ability to impact on a scale was really interesting. So that was kind of where my interest lay. But I also didn’t want to be working in a sort of dusty, old nonprofit kind of setting. And that’s not to say all nonprofits are dusty and old, but I didn’t want to be kind of in a slow pace environment. I know for myself. I’m not the steady as she goes, kind of steward. I’m a bit of a bulldozer visionary where, you know, I want to create change, and I want it to happen fast, and I want, I want to see the change happen, not the figurehead role of this crusty old person who’s in charge. But let’s, let’s get in there and get our hands dirty and see what’s going on and make things better. Yeah. So that was my principal concern. And when I met with the hiring committee and then with the board afterwards, that was my starting point was, don’t hire me if what you want is, you know, a steady hand and kind of keep things the same. And what I got back was, No, we’re looking for someone that wants to build, someone that wants to grow, and we want to, you know, 10x this thing. So that’s exactly what I was hoping to hear. And from there, it was really just a matter of making sure on, I think, on the board’s end, that I was the right fit, because, as you mentioned, there were, you know, a lot of great candidates, and I feel very fortunate that I got the gig, and hoping I don’t screw it up. Too bad. Well. And so now you have a new side challenge that you’re starting in about an hour, the FEA program, you are enrolled to become a family enterprise advisor. How exciting or scary is that for you? Yeah. So in joining FEC with the family business side, I intuitively got, yeah, I ran a family business for 1617, years with all those family members that you’ve got all those family members do. Genogram understanding, the governance issues, the communications issues, all of that made a ton of sense to me the professional advisory side. Obviously, I’d worked with advisors in my family business, but I really felt that was my weak spot. So for me, taking the FEA course is really about shoring up where I’m weak. And I really want to better understand what our feas have gone through to get their designation, you know, the powerfulness of the course. I hear from feas that, you know, the course was dramatic and life changing and everything else, but I kind of feel like I need to live it myself to truly understand it. And I think at the same time, it will help me with part of the family business side that maybe wasn’t my strongest suit to begin with anyways, which is the back end govern is the stuff that we struggled with as a family business, you know, right? So, and figuring out how the advisors, how tricky it is for us advisors to interact with the family. So what have you heard about that the project, part of the of the program? I’ve heard that it’s the best part and it’s also the most overwhelming part, and I think that makes sense for the two to be the same. Yes, you know, beyond that, I’ve heard how many hours it typically takes to complete, and I have, at this point, been lucky enough to sit in on one of the presentations at the Kia the knowledge and knowledge integration or application. Okay, well, you would pass the test. I might not yes, but so I’ve seen some of the presentation, so I’ve gotten a flavor of kind of the results of the project. So I’d say I know maybe a bit more than the typical FBA coming in, but I’m quite excited to get to find out for myself how it really is. So you’re not even six months in, and now you’re embarking on this whole thing at the same time and guiding this organization as a bulldozer, like you said. So how do you reconcile all this with all the roles that you’re trying to play at the same time? That’s a good question. I have a sense of urgency to make change in the organization. I feel like people have been waiting since COVID, and their patience is low, so there’s a lot of desire within our membership for change, and I’m hearing that loud and clear, and I want to bring that to them. So I’ve got a sense of urgency, because again, six months in, and it’s like, what have you done for me lately? So I’m driving myself hard to get these results in but at the same time, I recognize that for me to be truly effective in my role, I can’t just be doing things. I need to be learning things. And the most important thing for me to learn right now is how to be an FEA. So I see this as being an essential part of me making effective change. And at the same time, I can’t let the organization wait till I’m done. When I was running the family run business, our logo was, it was a tractor, and we always used to talk about how we needed to change the tires while the tractor was still running, right? Yeah. And so I building the plane while you’re flying it. Yeah, yeah. So I feel like I’m in that situation where I don’t have the luxury to take a year figure things out and then slowly start making change. People want to see it now. And I really understand the value of someone’s dollars being put into our organization, they’re giving us money that they had to work hard for. We’ve got to make those dollars work hard for them. People are paying money to be part of something they need that being part of to be something that they’re seeing on a regular basis. Because next year, when that invoice comes in, you don’t want them to hesitate and just, you want them to pay it, to stick around and keep growing, what, what we’ve all been growing so, so kind of driving value is, is really important to me, and kind of getting that value proposition really clear and working well is, is, I think, sort of something that I just don’t feel like I’ve got the luxury of waiting on. I should also say I’ve got a very strong and engaged board of directors who have been able to kind of give me lots of ideas with the focus groups I’m doing, like I’m getting all of the thoughts in so it’s not hard to see where we need to make change. At the same time, I realize that after I do some learning, I will know more that’s interesting. I feel like I’ve forgotten the whole board part in all this, and they are key, right? You’re coming in and you’re absorbing like a sponge. All of this is new, but you have this group of a dozen or so people who’ve been here for a while, who understand things that can help you understand and distill all the stuff that you’re hearing and weed out some of the crap and highlight the important stuff for you to guide you. That’s right. And the board members are the ones that you know, wanted me in here to bring change, and they’ve got lots of great ideas on how to do that. We have our ambassadors, we’ve got our committees. We’ve got our FEA Council, our family council, our philanthropy Council, impact Council, so there’s, there’s no ends to great feedback coming to me, and I, the hard part quite often is figuring out who the right person is to go to, because I could go to any number of them, and they’re all eager to help. Well, that’s good that people are eager to help, and you recognize that you have some urgency, but you don’t want to be a shoot first, ask questions later. So you’re balancing all that. Steve, this has been fun and informative, and informative, and unfortunately, we need to start to wrap up soon. So this is where we usually end with a couple of requests before we go. Normally it’s a book recommendation and a piece of advice. But I wanted to change things up a bit for you, so I want to ask you two questions. One is, what’s one thing about yourself that people might be surprised to learn? And then the other one is, what’s one hope or wish you have for the organization over the next two to three years? So let’s start with something about you that people might not expect to know about you. Well, anyone who is at symposium would already know this, but I’m also a old school punk rocker, so anyone that wants and enjoys the punk rock. You can check out my band. Audio, visceral. Audio, visceral. Okay, we’ll put a link to that. You have a website or a YouTube page, or we’ve got the Facebook and the Instagram. I don’t actually run that stuff, but you can find us if you look us up on iTunes or what’s the other one? Spotify? All right. Well, this, this will be on Spotify as well, so maybe we can link it up. Oh, perfect. All right. So what’s one hope or wish that you have for family enterprise Canada next two to three years, if you look big picture, like to see a couple 1000 more family businesses as members? All right? Steve Bucha, thanks for joining us, sharing your views with our audience, and giving us an idea of what’s ahead for family enterprise Canada. Thanks. Thank you, Steve. All right. Listeners, if you have not already subscribed, please do so make sure you never miss any of these monthly episodes. Thanks again for joining us. I’m Steve Legler, until next time. If you enjoyed today’s episode, you can subscribe to us on Spotify, Apple podcasts or any other podcast app, and don’t forget to share this episode with family, friends and colleagues.