The Best of 2024 (A Retrospective)

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 so this podcast are solely those of the individuals involved, and do not necessarily represent those

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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 so this podcast are solely those of the individuals involved, and do not necessarily represent those

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of family enterprise Canada .

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, it’s time for another annual retrospective episode where we’ll look back at some of our favorite episodes of 2024 I’ve had fun doing these the past two years with Ruth stepherlink, who was the other host I worked with at the outset, and we recorded these recap episodes in 2021 22 and 23 but as we wrap up 2024 I’m joined by our newest host, alien mock and we’re going to look back together at some of the highlights from episodes we each hosted this past year. There’s a lot to get through as usual, so let’s jump in by welcoming my partner, alien maziolik. Welcome to the let’s talk family enterprise podcast as if you need an introduction like that.

1:22
Thank you, Steve, it’s been a real pleasure to co host this podcast with you, and this is my first reflective and I’m very excited, and it’s been a really interesting journey over the last little bit, as I re listen to these episodes, and what really strikes me is how much learning, good learning, there is for both vias and for our family constituents that are listening. So I’m excited to recap them with you. Awesome.

1:55
I always had fun with Ruth doing them, and I know this is going to be fun, too. So you know, you talk about the great learning, I think we would be remiss to not mention that so much of it, most of it, comes from the great guests that have honored us with their participation here, and we’ve had some real unique ones. And I want to start by talking to you about the episode you did with Perry Gladstone, because I met Perry a couple of years ago at ppi purposeful planning Institute, and that’s where you met him. And I just love the fact that he calls himself a purpose and identity coach, because while that’s not something we necessarily hear a lot, it actually seems pretty clear when you talk about it with that title, and when he talks about it.

2:41
First of all, Perry is just an engaging guy. And, you know, I call him a rock star, I think in the episode, because I see him that way, you know. And on top of that, he was a rock star, so he did have a band as part one of his ventures. But the cool thing about Perry is, A, he’s really cool. B, you’re right, the purpose and identity coach in him. When you know him, you know that that’s a perfect career for him, or a perfect way to add value to others. And I think about that in a number of ways. And one of the reasons I really wanted to have him on is because, you know, part of family business is rediscovering and supporting entrepreneurial ship. And entrepreneurship is something that’s not easy to perpetuate in a family business. It has to be nurtured and cared for, and that requires really people to think about identity and what they are bringing to the business and what their ancestors brought to the business. It’s so fascinating, too, even looking at some of the tools we use, like the genogram and whatnot, and thinking about the family history and stories of families that are like, you know, decades old, and what each person brought to the business. And so what I loved about that conversation was really how Perry talked about agency and the importance of nurturing agency, because everything starts with the self, right? Everything starts with our ability to express ourselves, to know ourselves, to know how do we add value? And it’s such an important part of family business. And you know, to that point, actually, one of the things we use as FIAs is in looking at family business is a three circle model. But I really love the fourth circle model, and the fourth circle in that is the individual. So speaking to the individual agency and really underline how important that is to help people get clear on what it is that is their purpose, what drives them, what gives them energy, and how can they participate with that, or add that energy to the family enterprise, and it not just the family business, but to philanthropy and other places where it can show up.

5:11
And you know, you’re actually addressing some of the limitations of the three circle model when people learn about it and they go and apply it with a family. And then we realize that, okay, we’re trying to look at this collective circle here, and a collective circle here another one, and they overlap. But there’s so much that’s driven by individuals, and so often the person who steals the limelight from there is the founder, and everyone is sort of just expected to fall into line, and what about their own identity? And that’s what we’re always trying to deal with when we’re serving families like this is okay. So and So says this is what we should be doing, but there’s all these other disparate family members that have their own views on that, and the identities evolve over time. So those founders, and Perry talked about that, as they go through different stages of their lives and they see their offspring coming and developing their own identities, they need to start to have some conversations around how that’s going to go. And he talked about providing a safe space for those conversations so people can get past fear of them.

6:23
And you know, what I love about that too, is that I always say that the next generation comes just in time, because just in time for that innovation to really grab hold, and just in time that the business needs it. You know, they need the new thinking. They need new blood, they need new talent, and they bring another level, either as professionalization or a new entrepreneurial idea or something, to the business. That’s one thing. The other thing that’s, I think, really important to note about that interview and about what Perry taught us is that we often jump to assessing values and having families get, you know, aligned on their values. And are we doing that too quickly? Is that really the first step? Because what can happen is to squash that identity and almost steal it away by putting this values framework on top. And I think he was really right in saying, let’s look at agency first, and where people want to add value, and then we can talk about our values

7:32
next. Yeah, I think a lot of us talk about doing values work with families, and I’d never heard anyone put it the way Perry did about the danger of doing it too early, and I’ve seen it when you work with a family and you’re doing the family values, and automatically, like the leading generation, sort of sucks up all the air in the room, and once they’ve sort of started to nod their heads around certain values, where is the space for anyone else to say anything different. So this is all part of the little nuances of when we work with families, the things we need to look out for, and creating the safe space, creating the space for the families to have these conversations together, so that everyone can sort of learn to express their own identity, whether they’re part of the next generation of the business, or whether they are inheritors or doing something and benefiting from the fact that the family owns a business and or wealth. Letting everyone sort of have their agency on their own lives, is something that gets overlooked, I think, because it’s not easy to deal with.

8:41
It isn’t and actually, it would be great if Perry worked with lots of new successors. And I recommend people to look for the show notes and find him to do just

8:51
that well, to have those conversations. Like, one of the things I noted when I re listened to it a couple of days ago was his idea of the family dreaming together. Yeah. Yeah. Like, can we co create something together that honors both the past and the legacy of the leading generation and the desires and the talents of the rising generation that’s coming in?

9:16
Yeah? And you know, back to systems theory, you and I both know there are three levels of reality, and dreaming is one of them. We have to be able to when there’s a problem in families. Often, you can look at these three levels and say, do we have our essence? You know? Do we know who we are? And then which, again, speaks to agency, because we’re individuals, but we are also a collective identity as well. And then it’s the dreaming, right? And then we got to make sure we got enough of that dreaming before we get to consensus reality, which is the third level, which is the planning and the rules and the governance and the, you know, the decision making. But so often we’re not dreaming enough. So I really love that too.

10:03
Awesome. So that was episode 55 now we’re going to move to 57 with Peter Vogel on the family office navigator. That was one that I hosted. Yeah.

10:13
So tell me about what you thought the big takeaways from the conversation with Peter work, oh, it’s

10:21
easy that too many people, when they hear about, oh, let’s create a family office, they jump into the details of how it’s going to be structured and who’s going to do this and that, and they never ask the questions about the why and who is this really For the you know these family offices are being created, ostensibly for the family, and yet the family members for whom this is being done are so often just pushed to the side while the leading generation and some advisors get together and put together structures and hire managers to take care of the financial assets, and they don’t do the work that the beginning parts of the family office navigator are imploring them to actually start at the beginning and sit together and involve all the family members once again so that everyone can sort of at least be at the table. I love

11:18
because that, even again, underlies the reason that we need to focus more on dreaming together and have a good process around that before we get to that, the decision making about how it’s going to look right. And

11:31
he talks about, you know, all of the capitals. It’s not just the financial capital. I think so many of us have seen that, where the financial capital drives everything, and all the other stuff is sort of left off to the side. And we know from the work of people like Dennis Jaffee that the families that have succeeded in doing this transition over generations, it’s by not ignoring the family capital, the human capital, intellectual capital, spiritual capital, social capital, all these things need to be tended to. And yet, many people who are in the oh, let’s start a family office that’s not their space. And so they will lead with, you know, I’ve got a hammer, so everything looks like a nail. And this gives them tools and gives advisors tools to sit down with families and help them have these important conversations. Yeah,

12:26
that’s so true. And I wanted to circle back to the fact that, as you know, those different forms of capital are really an opportunity to engage everybody. Because if you imagine, you know, sitting down with lawyers and accountants or whoever, professionals saying that we’re going to start a family office. My goodness, that’s like, how intimidating could that be? What am I supposed to contribute to that? Right? I have an arts degree. How am I, I have an arts degree. How am I going to contribute to that, right? Versus, you know, how do we want to be together? What do we need to support ourselves in getting the resources that support this family and organizing itself so that we are, you know, achieving all our goals, expanding our human capital in our social capital and our, you know, community involvement and engagement, and that is an opportunity for everyone to participate, and

13:31
it really should be. And this tool, hopefully, if advisors bring this book to families and start to look through it, there’s lots of easy tools they can use to help have those conversations that allow the people that don’t traditionally have a seat at the table to at least talk about these things and start to understand them, so they can participate. Because at one point he says, Well, these discussions really should involve most family members, and I think that is not something that most people who are advising on family offices like to be lucky if everyone knows the names of the family members. Never mind it brings them to the table. Yeah,

14:13
for sure. No, I thought that was really important. And I like the way he talks about it as an ecosystem. And he even uses the metaphor of the coral reef, that you know, it is impacted by its environment and everything else. So we do have to look at things. And it also reminds me how important it is to slow down our conversations with our families, to make sure that we’re looking at what’s impacting us now and how that’s changing over time.

14:46
That thing about slowing the families down, that’s something I always I often get. I was having lunch today with someone and I mentioned it again. It’s we, we need to slow the families down. They’re all trying to get to some mythical destination, and it’s really a lot more about the journey. So that was episode 57 we’re going to move on to 58 which was another one that I hosted with pramidi A Sharma, which

15:09
I adored. So I was at our conference in Calgary and heard her speak. And I just first of all was what strikes me is her great balance of wit, and yet her great messaging about the opportunity that family business has in promoting sustainability and ESG and, you know, and making an impact on the world stage, environmentally, socially, it was just so inspiring. She

15:41
is a real powerful woman. I’ve known her for over a decade, and I’ve seen her through FFI and through that case, competition that she started, that we talk about towards the end of that episode, and talk about a woman who can command a space and a room and topic, and have the respect of everyone and the passion that she brings to it, like when she talked about, towards the end, towards the end of the episode, how she was looking at this when she was in her late 50s, and like, what else might I do for the last another chapter of my career? And then she discovered this world, and it almost made her feel younger and rejuvenated, because this space does have so much to offer. And there have been examples all over the world. They’re not necessarily hundreds of them, but there are really good examples from different places that families can hopefully model themselves on, because they are doing the important sustainability work, and it’s actually helping them economically. They’re not suffering because they are doing the right thing. They’re actually doing well because of it.

16:48
Yeah, that’s so true. And you know, what’s fascinating about that is that family businesses that are multi-generational have a much longer runway to make an impact, and generation after generation can build on doing well by doing good, which is a great kind of way to express sustainability. And they have this longer time horizon than a corporate CEO might have, right? And so that patient capital, that’s there is also an important element to that and in the longevity of leadership. So we can family businesses have a real opportunity to define themselves or to express together and collaborate, even with other family businesses, on strategies that really promote sustainability over a long period of

17:47
time. Yeah, and she even talked about the fact that, like, several family members are required. This is not something that one person can do and several members of the family in different generations. And she’s talking about how family members in different generations can work side by side together for 20, 3040, years, and they sort of almost have to sort of be leading the business into different directions, while other family members keep the business going on what it’s doing well, so they can slowly start to get into this, and how the spark can really come from anywhere. She talked about, you know, families that do this because the rising generation had an interest in it, or because their customers were asking for something, or because people said, we’re only going to deal with suppliers who meet these certain norms. It’s really cool that as we were just talking about having lots of family members at the table for the family office conversation, when there’s an operating business and they want to do something more sustainable, there’s so many more opportunities. And for us who learn in the FEA program that you know our client is the family, there’s opportunities for us as advisors to help the families think about things this way.

19:04
You know, what else occurs to me? As we were just talking about this, we were talking about the four circle model and the individual again, and agency, and thinking about how important leading a purpose driven life is to add a value, right to tap into what’s uniquely ours, that we have to give, and when families honor that, they also honor doing that collectively. So actually, the sustainability of a Purpose Driven Life, which she speaks about here, that gives energy for sustainability and sustainable methods. Let’s say that the business engages in can start from that foundation of self to that. How are we all doing that in our business and adding value? And how are we doing that as a family, right? Not just over generations. That’s mind blowing, how

20:04
the family in a new way that so many family members can get behind, as opposed to some instrument that’s just there to make money. And when you talk about the energy Aileen, it reminded me about how when she talked about how she got into this whole interest in this area, and how it made her energize and feel younger to even discover that these families are doing this, and how she considers herself an educator in the family enterprise space, and so that this has driven her to share more and more with families, so that you know, more of these models can be served more of these companies can be serving as models to even more family businesses.

20:45
And I love that it came from her own family, because I think I heard her say that I considered my grandchildren and realized I had no choice but to do this work right, right? And I thought that was pretty cool. Well,

20:58
so that’s Dita Sharma episode 58 now I’m going to move to 59 with Tom deans. And I’ve known Tom for a long time, and he’s a great speaker, and he’s a great thought leader, because he’s not afraid to say things that aren’t necessarily popular. And so he has his latest book out, called the happy inheritor. So how did that all come about? Aileen, well,

21:20
I’ve also known Tom for many, many years, actually, when he wrote his first book, my goodness, and we’ve been in touch periodically, and we’ve always enjoyed a lot of collaboration, because we are both very focused on that family should plan and do their estate planning and whatnot. And this book, really, I think can be thought of as a bit controversial, but it really does speak to the challenge of mental health. And one of the things I did in my research, because, you know, I, I kind of came at this and got really intrigued with this. I’ve been exposed to this kind of personality challenge in multi generational planning, and so when I was doing research, I realized that families have a disproportionate number of people that, for example, have ADHD. Why is that? That’s because, if you think about ADHD and entrepreneurship, a lot of people become entrepreneurs because they can’t fit into the framework of somebody else’s planning, right? And I thought that this topic was such an important one to address, because so often we get stuck in our work with families, right as facilitators, as professionals in this industry. And when we get stuck, we realize that some people are not coachable, and they can’t move forward, and often there is a mindset block here, it’s more than mindset, because mindset is coachable. But sometimes people really have a lot of these mental health disorders. I don’t want to put a big stigma on them, but there’s no stigma here, that this is just a disorder sometimes, and it can prevent families from doing the estate planning that they need to do. We can’t ignore that part. And

23:24
I think any advisor who’s worked with more than a few families has run into some version of some of these issues, and he does a really good job of describing the covert narcissists at who who really encourage friction between family members because they’re pitting them against each other, and they don’t want to have the kinds of discussions amongst family members that you and I are always trying to encourage family members to have, and Sometimes, In some families, it just doesn’t work. And part of the book, he’s warning people in those families to go and find some other way and not to count necessarily on what they’re expecting.

0:18
The whole book is about encouraging families to have family meetings. And if you’re in a family where the person who should be taking the lead on this is instead putting the brakes on them, there’s a lot of information in that, and we should be eating some warnings.

0:31
Exactly true. So I do appreciate that messaging, because I think too many people are just assuming that that can be overcome, and yet we know that sometimes, in some, some instances, it cannot be, it just happens, and because people will block its ability to get resolved. And there’s only so much time that we can do estate planning before incapacity happens, and that is a real challenge that we’ll address a little later again, but I like also the reference he makes, or what he brings to our attention, the cognitive dissonance and the idea that it’s so important to be able to assess that the idea of Being able to have two competing thoughts in our minds, and have to reconcile those you know, like I, you know, a basic one. I care about my children, I love my family, but I may not trust them with the money. You know,

1:35
right? And we see that in families all the time. And what a perfect segue to the next episode we want to talk about is number 60 with Cathy Carroll that I did that’s talking all about polarities and ways advisors can use a tool that she describes in her book hug of war, about how to help families look at their challenges as not a he said, she said, but Put them on the same side of the table and map it out and say it’s two different ways of looking at the same thing. So let’s now try to work our way through it.

2:11
Yeah, I love the polarity tool. Actually, she’s got some great tools in her book. The first time I came across this was actually with Amy Schuman in her book, family businesses, paradox. She’s a colleague of mine, and so I’m very keen on using the polarities to get to a not a either or, but a this and that kind of solution, and to understand how the overuse of anything can cause its downfall, and then the under use of something needs to be rectified. And the balance between overuse and underuse in the tug actually between them right, the rub between them is something that needs to be managed and is not solved. And I think she does a great job in her book. I highly recommend her book, actually, with some great tools, especially towards the later chapters, after she goes through lots of interesting scenarios.

3:09
Well, yeah, that’s what I loved about the book, is there are so many stories in there, and they’re not necessarily long, and they’re not necessarily, you know, all clients that she worked with for a long time and and I started to think about if I tried to tell all the stories of family businesses that I’ve heard of, even if it’s only from one little interview or whatever, and she just weaves a whole bunch of them in. And I think it’s a great way to get people who aren’t necessarily working with lots and lots of families to understand how complex this world is, and how much complexity advisors, when we’re brought in, have to face with different scenarios, and how so often a simple tool like this can help to begin to address all kinds of different problems, not just, you know, the more common ones.

3:59
Yeah, and she does a great job also talking about conflict and how these tools play into resolving conflicts, and gives a lot of great other tools, not just the paradox model, but also other tools around conflict, like the Align strategy and or the Align analogy.

4:20
She has two models for dealing with conflict, whether it’s task conflict or relationship conflict, right? And she has a different tool for each one of those which are great, and it’s a very story driven book, right? So if you like stories of family businesses, and then she ties it together at the end with ways to use the tool we’re running low on time. Let’s switch to Episode 62 which just came out in December, where you had two guests. You had Sandy Pollack, who’s an FDA, and Annie Stoneberg, who you actually worked with. And why don’t you tell us a bit about how that went so

5:01
Sandy and I met actually at ppi as well, and she’s a family enterprise advisor in Ottawa. Wrote a book called don’t Leave a mess. And a really great book about estate planning for family businesses, specifically, which I think needed to be written. So also a very story driven book, but she does a great job at helping people think about estate planning and not leaving a mess. And Annie, I thought, What a great combo, because Annie is an end of life care specialist and a professor of gerontology, I think in that interview, she really helps us understand the benefit of facilitated conversations around end of life and not to avoid these conversations, but the challenges that also families have during these times. I love the way that they play together in this discussion, and it’s not easy having two guests at once. It’s really rewarding, right? You tie them

6:09
together nicely, because there are, you know, families need help figuring out how to draw up their plans so that they don’t leave a mess, and helping to guide families to have those discussions, to make those plans, but then towards the end of life, this whole new set of circumstances that we’ve never faced before, now we have to face them, and once again, it’s a difficulty around families having the important conversations that they want to have and know they should Have, but are it’s not easy for them to do it on their own. So to have someone like a death doula common and help them and normalize the fact that, yes, it’s difficult to have these conversations, and I’m going to help you have them anyway, so that everyone can say what needs to be said despite the difficulty. Yeah,

6:58
and, you know, there’s two things that I want to just bring up in this and number one, it is a nice, real way that we can practice with that multi disciplinary team, right? This is because we have to open up our mindsets, to bring different kinds of professionals to the table and to facilitate these kinds of conversations. Requires courage, but also the mindset of the advisors who are working with families of the US to bring new resources that we may not have a lot of proficiency in, but they’re out there. So Doug, doula, absolutely, I think it’s going to be a really in demand kind of service in the future. Yeah, certainly

7:41
put that on my radar that I was not expecting. And I know another person actually is a recent FBA who hired a death doula to help Virgo through a situation. And so I think this is going to be the way part of this multidisciplinary advising goes. And part of our job, I think, as advisors to families, is to help them bring the resources they need that they might not otherwise know exist or know how to get. And so I think part of this whole podcast series is to open people’s minds to how this work can be. Can go in a lot of different directions.

8:20
Yes, I just wanted to say also that every family has this occur in their families, where we have to deal with end of life. Of course, no family escapes it, where it’s different for family businesses sometimes is that family business owners often are really good at controlling a lot of things in their business and in their environment, but when it comes to end of life, that’s where we don’t have as much control, and that can cause a lot of emotional turmoil and a lot of new patterns in families, or disrupt patterns in families that have been there for a long time. And so recognizing that in family businesses, also, there are responsibilities around estate planning. That’s the responsibility of ownership. And I think it’s equally important to talk about how when we’re not don’t have the capacity to be effective owners or to make effective decisions from a governance perspective, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah. So

9:21
I just want to wrap on two parts of that. So one quote from Sandy is, silence is the root of every mess, and you’re talking about people who have always been in control, who suddenly are in a space of their life where they no longer have control, and if they haven’t put things into place so that someone else can take over the control of what’s still controllable, then they’re going to have a problem. So it’s important for us to help bring these kinds of resources to families. There’s books we’ve talked about, there’s other kinds of professionals that I hope you’ve discovered during this podcast. I hope you’ll go back and listen to some some of these episodes, and even some of the ones we didn’t talk about

10:04
Absolutely, and that’s the thing that I recognized when I went back and reflected on these episodes, that it is really a nice way to continue in our Education as FEAs, and also an important way that families can tap into this information and have some great resources and great topics for discussion in their own families.

10:32
Alright. Aileen, this has been fun and informative, and unfortunately, we need to wind this up. There’s lots of things to look forward to for the 2025 episodes as we get back onto a regular monthly schedule, and maybe even try out some new things,

10:47
yeah. And, you know, one of those new things you did interview Steve Beauchesne in this season as well, right? And so one of the things that he articulated in that interview was, you know, looking at, how do we bring the two constituents, the Thea, the advisors, the family, enterprise advisors, and the families together more often. And so we’re also looking at expanding the focus and the target for our audience as we look to the next year, and think about the guests we want to have next year and the conversations we want to have. So we want to really bring that spirit of both serving the family enterprise advisors and the family. So please share these episodes with your families and let that spread like wildfires through Canadian family businesses circles. Awesome.

11:43
Thanks. Aileen, this has been a lot of fun. Listeners, if you haven’t already subscribed, please do so make sure you never miss any of these monthly episodes. Thanks again. Aileen,

11:53
thank you, Steve. It’s been a pleasure. All right, thanks

11:57
again for joining us. Listeners, feel free to share this with everyone. I’m Steve Legler and until next time.

12:06
If you enjoy 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.

of family enterprise Canada .

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, it’s time for another annual retrospective episode where we’ll look back at some of our favorite episodes of 2024 I’ve had fun doing these the past two years with Ruth stepherlink, who was the other host I worked with at the outset, and we recorded these recap episodes in 2021 22 and 23 but as we wrap up 2024 I’m joined by our newest host, alien mock and we’re going to look back together at some of the highlights from episodes we each hosted this past year. There’s a lot to get through as usual, so let’s jump in by welcoming my partner, alien maziolik. Welcome to the let’s talk family enterprise podcast as if you need an introduction like that.

1:22
Thank you, Steve, it’s been a real pleasure to co host this podcast with you, and this is my first reflective and I’m very excited, and it’s been a really interesting journey over the last little bit, as I re listen to these episodes, and what really strikes me is how much learning, good learning, there is for both vias and for our family constituents that are listening. So I’m excited to recap them with you. Awesome.

1:55
I always had fun with Ruth doing them, and I know this is going to be fun, too. So you know, you talk about the great learning, I think we would be remiss to not mention that so much of it, most of it, comes from the great guests that have honored us with their participation here, and we’ve had some real unique ones. And I want to start by talking to you about the episode you did with Perry Gladstone, because I met Perry a couple of years ago at ppi purposeful planning Institute, and that’s where you met him. And I just love the fact that he calls himself a purpose and identity coach, because while that’s not something we necessarily hear a lot, it actually seems pretty clear when you talk about it with that title, and when he talks about it.

2:41
First of all, Perry is just an engaging guy. And, you know, I call him a rock star, I think in the episode, because I see him that way, you know. And on top of that, he was a rock star, so he did have a band as part one of his ventures. But the cool thing about Perry is, A, he’s really cool. B, you’re right, the purpose and identity coach in him. When you know him, you know that that’s a perfect career for him, or a perfect way to add value to others. And I think about that in a number of ways. And one of the reasons I really wanted to have him on is because, you know, part of family business is rediscovering and supporting entrepreneurial ship. And entrepreneurship is something that’s not easy to perpetuate in a family business. It has to be nurtured and cared for, and that requires really people to think about identity and what they are bringing to the business and what their ancestors brought to the business. It’s so fascinating, too, even looking at some of the tools we use, like the genogram and whatnot, and thinking about the family history and stories of families that are like, you know, decades old, and what each person brought to the business. And so what I loved about that conversation was really how Perry talked about agency and the importance of nurturing agency, because everything starts with the self, right? Everything starts with our ability to express ourselves, to know ourselves, to know how do we add value? And it’s such an important part of family business. And you know, to that point, actually, one of the things we use as FIAs is in looking at family business is a three circle model. But I really love the fourth circle model, and the fourth circle in that is the individual. So speaking to the individual agency and really underline how important that is to help people get clear on what it is that is their purpose, what drives them, what gives them energy, and how can they participate with that, or add that energy to the family enterprise, and it not just the family business, but to philanthropy and other places where it can show up.

5:11
And you know, you’re actually addressing some of the limitations of the three circle model when people learn about it and they go and apply it with a family. And then we realize that, okay, we’re trying to look at this collective circle here, and a collective circle here another one, and they overlap. But there’s so much that’s driven by individuals, and so often the person who steals the limelight from there is the founder, and everyone is sort of just expected to fall into line, and what about their own identity? And that’s what we’re always trying to deal with when we’re serving families like this is okay. So and So says this is what we should be doing, but there’s all these other disparate family members that have their own views on that, and the identities evolve over time. So those founders, and Perry talked about that, as they go through different stages of their lives and they see their offspring coming and developing their own identities, they need to start to have some conversations around how that’s going to go. And he talked about providing a safe space for those conversations so people can get past fear of them.

6:23
And you know, what I love about that too, is that I always say that the next generation comes just in time, because just in time for that innovation to really grab hold, and just in time that the business needs it. You know, they need the new thinking. They need new blood, they need new talent, and they bring another level, either as professionalization or a new entrepreneurial idea or something, to the business. That’s one thing. The other thing that’s, I think, really important to note about that interview and about what Perry taught us is that we often jump to assessing values and having families get, you know, aligned on their values. And are we doing that too quickly? Is that really the first step? Because what can happen is to squash that identity and almost steal it away by putting this values framework on top. And I think he was really right in saying, let’s look at agency first, and where people want to add value, and then we can talk about our values

7:32
next. Yeah, I think a lot of us talk about doing values work with families, and I’d never heard anyone put it the way Perry did about the danger of doing it too early, and I’ve seen it when you work with a family and you’re doing the family values, and automatically, like the leading generation, sort of sucks up all the air in the room, and once they’ve sort of started to nod their heads around certain values, where is the space for anyone else to say anything different. So this is all part of the little nuances of when we work with families, the things we need to look out for, and creating the safe space, creating the space for the families to have these conversations together, so that everyone can sort of learn to express their own identity, whether they’re part of the next generation of the business, or whether they are inheritors or doing something and benefiting from the fact that the family owns a business and or wealth. Letting everyone sort of have their agency on their own lives, is something that gets overlooked, I think, because it’s not easy to deal with.

8:41
It isn’t and actually, it would be great if Perry worked with lots of new successors. And I recommend people to look for the show notes and find him to do just

8:51
that well, to have those conversations. Like, one of the things I noted when I re listened to it a couple of days ago was his idea of the family dreaming together. Yeah. Yeah. Like, can we co create something together that honors both the past and the legacy of the leading generation and the desires and the talents of the rising generation that’s coming in?

9:16
Yeah? And you know, back to systems theory, you and I both know there are three levels of reality, and dreaming is one of them. We have to be able to when there’s a problem in families. Often, you can look at these three levels and say, do we have our essence? You know? Do we know who we are? And then which, again, speaks to agency, because we’re individuals, but we are also a collective identity as well. And then it’s the dreaming, right? And then we got to make sure we got enough of that dreaming before we get to consensus reality, which is the third level, which is the planning and the rules and the governance and the, you know, the decision making. But so often we’re not dreaming enough. So I really love that too.

10:03
Awesome. So that was episode 55 now we’re going to move to 57 with Peter Vogel on the family office navigator. That was one that I hosted. Yeah.

10:13
So tell me about what you thought the big takeaways from the conversation with Peter work, oh, it’s

10:21
easy that too many people, when they hear about, oh, let’s create a family office, they jump into the details of how it’s going to be structured and who’s going to do this and that, and they never ask the questions about the why and who is this really For the you know these family offices are being created, ostensibly for the family, and yet the family members for whom this is being done are so often just pushed to the side while the leading generation and some advisors get together and put together structures and hire managers to take care of the financial assets, and they don’t do the work that the beginning parts of the family office navigator are imploring them to actually start at the beginning and sit together and involve all the family members once again so that everyone can sort of at least be at the table. I love

11:18
because that, even again, underlies the reason that we need to focus more on dreaming together and have a good process around that before we get to that, the decision making about how it’s going to look right. And

11:31
he talks about, you know, all of the capitals. It’s not just the financial capital. I think so many of us have seen that, where the financial capital drives everything, and all the other stuff is sort of left off to the side. And we know from the work of people like Dennis Jaffee that the families that have succeeded in doing this transition over generations, it’s by not ignoring the family capital, the human capital, intellectual capital, spiritual capital, social capital, all these things need to be tended to. And yet, many people who are in the oh, let’s start a family office that’s not their space. And so they will lead with, you know, I’ve got a hammer, so everything looks like a nail. And this gives them tools and gives advisors tools to sit down with families and help them have these important conversations. Yeah,

12:26
that’s so true. And I wanted to circle back to the fact that, as you know, those different forms of capital are really an opportunity to engage everybody. Because if you imagine, you know, sitting down with lawyers and accountants or whoever, professionals saying that we’re going to start a family office. My goodness, that’s like, how intimidating could that be? What am I supposed to contribute to that? Right? I have an arts degree. How am I, I have an arts degree. How am I going to contribute to that, right? Versus, you know, how do we want to be together? What do we need to support ourselves in getting the resources that support this family and organizing itself so that we are, you know, achieving all our goals, expanding our human capital in our social capital and our, you know, community involvement and engagement, and that is an opportunity for everyone to participate, and

13:31
it really should be. And this tool, hopefully, if advisors bring this book to families and start to look through it, there’s lots of easy tools they can use to help have those conversations that allow the people that don’t traditionally have a seat at the table to at least talk about these things and start to understand them, so they can participate. Because at one point he says, Well, these discussions really should involve most family members, and I think that is not something that most people who are advising on family offices like to be lucky if everyone knows the names of the family members. Never mind it brings them to the table. Yeah,

14:13
for sure. No, I thought that was really important. And I like the way he talks about it as an ecosystem. And he even uses the metaphor of the coral reef, that you know, it is impacted by its environment and everything else. So we do have to look at things. And it also reminds me how important it is to slow down our conversations with our families, to make sure that we’re looking at what’s impacting us now and how that’s changing over time.

14:46
That thing about slowing the families down, that’s something I always I often get. I was having lunch today with someone and I mentioned it again. It’s we, we need to slow the families down. They’re all trying to get to some mythical destination, and it’s really a lot more about the journey. So that was episode 57 we’re going to move on to 58 which was another one that I hosted with pramidi A Sharma, which

15:09
I adored. So I was at our conference in Calgary and heard her speak. And I just first of all was what strikes me is her great balance of wit, and yet her great messaging about the opportunity that family business has in promoting sustainability and ESG and, you know, and making an impact on the world stage, environmentally, socially, it was just so inspiring. She

15:41
is a real powerful woman. I’ve known her for over a decade, and I’ve seen her through FFI and through that case, competition that she started, that we talk about towards the end of that episode, and talk about a woman who can command a space and a room and topic, and have the respect of everyone and the passion that she brings to it, like when she talked about, towards the end, towards the end of the episode, how she was looking at this when she was in her late 50s, and like, what else might I do for the last another chapter of my career? And then she discovered this world, and it almost made her feel younger and rejuvenated, because this space does have so much to offer. And there have been examples all over the world. They’re not necessarily hundreds of them, but there are really good examples from different places that families can hopefully model themselves on, because they are doing the important sustainability work, and it’s actually helping them economically. They’re not suffering because they are doing the right thing. They’re actually doing well because of it.

16:48
Yeah, that’s so true. And you know, what’s fascinating about that is that family businesses that are multi-generational have a much longer runway to make an impact, and generation after generation can build on doing well by doing good, which is a great kind of way to express sustainability. And they have this longer time horizon than a corporate CEO might have, right? And so that patient capital, that’s there is also an important element to that and in the longevity of leadership. So we can family businesses have a real opportunity to define themselves or to express together and collaborate, even with other family businesses, on strategies that really promote sustainability over a long period of

17:47
time. Yeah, and she even talked about the fact that, like, several family members are required. This is not something that one person can do and several members of the family in different generations. And she’s talking about how family members in different generations can work side by side together for 20, 3040, years, and they sort of almost have to sort of be leading the business into different directions, while other family members keep the business going on what it’s doing well, so they can slowly start to get into this, and how the spark can really come from anywhere. She talked about, you know, families that do this because the rising generation had an interest in it, or because their customers were asking for something, or because people said, we’re only going to deal with suppliers who meet these certain norms. It’s really cool that as we were just talking about having lots of family members at the table for the family office conversation, when there’s an operating business and they want to do something more sustainable, there’s so many more opportunities. And for us who learn in the FEA program that you know our client is the family, there’s opportunities for us as advisors to help the families think about things this way.

19:04
You know, what else occurs to me? As we were just talking about this, we were talking about the four circle model and the individual again, and agency, and thinking about how important leading a purpose driven life is to add a value, right to tap into what’s uniquely ours, that we have to give, and when families honor that, they also honor doing that collectively. So actually, the sustainability of a Purpose Driven Life, which she speaks about here, that gives energy for sustainability and sustainable methods. Let’s say that the business engages in can start from that foundation of self to that. How are we all doing that in our business and adding value? And how are we doing that as a family, right? Not just over generations. That’s mind blowing, how

20:04
the family in a new way that so many family members can get behind, as opposed to some instrument that’s just there to make money. And when you talk about the energy Aileen, it reminded me about how when she talked about how she got into this whole interest in this area, and how it made her energize and feel younger to even discover that these families are doing this, and how she considers herself an educator in the family enterprise space, and so that this has driven her to share more and more with families, so that you know, more of these models can be served more of these companies can be serving as models to even more family businesses.

20:45
And I love that it came from her own family, because I think I heard her say that I considered my grandchildren and realized I had no choice but to do this work right, right? And I thought that was pretty cool. Well,

20:58
so that’s Dita Sharma episode 58 now I’m going to move to 59 with Tom deans. And I’ve known Tom for a long time, and he’s a great speaker, and he’s a great thought leader, because he’s not afraid to say things that aren’t necessarily popular. And so he has his latest book out, called the happy inheritor. So how did that all come about? Aileen, well,

21:20
I’ve also known Tom for many, many years, actually, when he wrote his first book, my goodness, and we’ve been in touch periodically, and we’ve always enjoyed a lot of collaboration, because we are both very focused on that family should plan and do their estate planning and whatnot. And this book, really, I think can be thought of as a bit controversial, but it really does speak to the challenge of mental health. And one of the things I did in my research, because, you know, I, I kind of came at this and got really intrigued with this. I’ve been exposed to this kind of personality challenge in multi generational planning, and so when I was doing research, I realized that families have a disproportionate number of people that, for example, have ADHD. Why is that? That’s because, if you think about ADHD and entrepreneurship, a lot of people become entrepreneurs because they can’t fit into the framework of somebody else’s planning, right? And I thought that this topic was such an important one to address, because so often we get stuck in our work with families, right as facilitators, as professionals in this industry. And when we get stuck, we realize that some people are not coachable, and they can’t move forward, and often there is a mindset block here, it’s more than mindset, because mindset is coachable. But sometimes people really have a lot of these mental health disorders. I don’t want to put a big stigma on them, but there’s no stigma here, that this is just a disorder sometimes, and it can prevent families from doing the estate planning that they need to do. We can’t ignore that part. And

23:24
I think any advisor who’s worked with more than a few families has run into some version of some of these issues, and he does a really good job of describing the covert narcissists at who who really encourage friction between family members because they’re pitting them against each other, and they don’t want to have the kinds of discussions amongst family members that you and I are always trying to encourage family members to have, and Sometimes, In some families, it just doesn’t work. And part of the book, he’s warning people in those families to go and find some other way and not to count necessarily on what they’re expecting.

0:18
The whole book is about encouraging families to have family meetings. And if you’re in a family where the person who should be taking the lead on this is instead putting the brakes on them, there’s a lot of information in that, and we should be eating some warnings.

0:31
Exactly true. So I do appreciate that messaging, because I think too many people are just assuming that that can be overcome, and yet we know that sometimes, in some, some instances, it cannot be, it just happens, and because people will block its ability to get resolved. And there’s only so much time that we can do estate planning before incapacity happens, and that is a real challenge that we’ll address a little later again, but I like also the reference he makes, or what he brings to our attention, the cognitive dissonance and the idea that it’s so important to be able to assess that the idea of Being able to have two competing thoughts in our minds, and have to reconcile those you know, like I, you know, a basic one. I care about my children, I love my family, but I may not trust them with the money. You know,

1:35
right? And we see that in families all the time. And what a perfect segue to the next episode we want to talk about is number 60 with Cathy Carroll that I did that’s talking all about polarities and ways advisors can use a tool that she describes in her book hug of war, about how to help families look at their challenges as not a he said, she said, but Put them on the same side of the table and map it out and say it’s two different ways of looking at the same thing. So let’s now try to work our way through it.

2:11
Yeah, I love the polarity tool. Actually, she’s got some great tools in her book. The first time I came across this was actually with Amy Schuman in her book, family businesses, paradox. She’s a colleague of mine, and so I’m very keen on using the polarities to get to a not a either or, but a this and that kind of solution, and to understand how the overuse of anything can cause its downfall, and then the under use of something needs to be rectified. And the balance between overuse and underuse in the tug actually between them right, the rub between them is something that needs to be managed and is not solved. And I think she does a great job in her book. I highly recommend her book, actually, with some great tools, especially towards the later chapters, after she goes through lots of interesting scenarios.

3:09
Well, yeah, that’s what I loved about the book, is there are so many stories in there, and they’re not necessarily long, and they’re not necessarily, you know, all clients that she worked with for a long time and and I started to think about if I tried to tell all the stories of family businesses that I’ve heard of, even if it’s only from one little interview or whatever, and she just weaves a whole bunch of them in. And I think it’s a great way to get people who aren’t necessarily working with lots and lots of families to understand how complex this world is, and how much complexity advisors, when we’re brought in, have to face with different scenarios, and how so often a simple tool like this can help to begin to address all kinds of different problems, not just, you know, the more common ones.

3:59
Yeah, and she does a great job also talking about conflict and how these tools play into resolving conflicts, and gives a lot of great other tools, not just the paradox model, but also other tools around conflict, like the Align strategy and or the Align analogy.

4:20
She has two models for dealing with conflict, whether it’s task conflict or relationship conflict, right? And she has a different tool for each one of those which are great, and it’s a very story driven book, right? So if you like stories of family businesses, and then she ties it together at the end with ways to use the tool we’re running low on time. Let’s switch to Episode 62 which just came out in December, where you had two guests. You had Sandy Pollack, who’s an FDA, and Annie Stoneberg, who you actually worked with. And why don’t you tell us a bit about how that went so

5:01
Sandy and I met actually at ppi as well, and she’s a family enterprise advisor in Ottawa. Wrote a book called don’t Leave a mess. And a really great book about estate planning for family businesses, specifically, which I think needed to be written. So also a very story driven book, but she does a great job at helping people think about estate planning and not leaving a mess. And Annie, I thought, What a great combo, because Annie is an end of life care specialist and a professor of gerontology, I think in that interview, she really helps us understand the benefit of facilitated conversations around end of life and not to avoid these conversations, but the challenges that also families have during these times. I love the way that they play together in this discussion, and it’s not easy having two guests at once. It’s really rewarding, right? You tie them

6:09
together nicely, because there are, you know, families need help figuring out how to draw up their plans so that they don’t leave a mess, and helping to guide families to have those discussions, to make those plans, but then towards the end of life, this whole new set of circumstances that we’ve never faced before, now we have to face them, and once again, it’s a difficulty around families having the important conversations that they want to have and know they should Have, but are it’s not easy for them to do it on their own. So to have someone like a death doula common and help them and normalize the fact that, yes, it’s difficult to have these conversations, and I’m going to help you have them anyway, so that everyone can say what needs to be said despite the difficulty. Yeah,

6:58
and, you know, there’s two things that I want to just bring up in this and number one, it is a nice, real way that we can practice with that multi disciplinary team, right? This is because we have to open up our mindsets, to bring different kinds of professionals to the table and to facilitate these kinds of conversations. Requires courage, but also the mindset of the advisors who are working with families of the US to bring new resources that we may not have a lot of proficiency in, but they’re out there. So Doug, doula, absolutely, I think it’s going to be a really in demand kind of service in the future. Yeah, certainly

7:41
put that on my radar that I was not expecting. And I know another person actually is a recent FBA who hired a death doula to help Virgo through a situation. And so I think this is going to be the way part of this multidisciplinary advising goes. And part of our job, I think, as advisors to families, is to help them bring the resources they need that they might not otherwise know exist or know how to get. And so I think part of this whole podcast series is to open people’s minds to how this work can be. Can go in a lot of different directions.

8:20
Yes, I just wanted to say also that every family has this occur in their families, where we have to deal with end of life. Of course, no family escapes it, where it’s different for family businesses sometimes is that family business owners often are really good at controlling a lot of things in their business and in their environment, but when it comes to end of life, that’s where we don’t have as much control, and that can cause a lot of emotional turmoil and a lot of new patterns in families, or disrupt patterns in families that have been there for a long time. And so recognizing that in family businesses, also, there are responsibilities around estate planning. That’s the responsibility of ownership. And I think it’s equally important to talk about how when we’re not don’t have the capacity to be effective owners or to make effective decisions from a governance perspective, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah. So

9:21
I just want to wrap on two parts of that. So one quote from Sandy is, silence is the root of every mess, and you’re talking about people who have always been in control, who suddenly are in a space of their life where they no longer have control, and if they haven’t put things into place so that someone else can take over the control of what’s still controllable, then they’re going to have a problem. So it’s important for us to help bring these kinds of resources to families. There’s books we’ve talked about, there’s other kinds of professionals that I hope you’ve discovered during this podcast. I hope you’ll go back and listen to some some of these episodes, and even some of the ones we didn’t talk about

10:04
Absolutely, and that’s the thing that I recognized when I went back and reflected on these episodes, that it is really a nice way to continue in our Education as FEAs, and also an important way that families can tap into this information and have some great resources and great topics for discussion in their own families.

10:32
Alright. Aileen, this has been fun and informative, and unfortunately, we need to wind this up. There’s lots of things to look forward to for the 2025 episodes as we get back onto a regular monthly schedule, and maybe even try out some new things,

10:47
yeah. And, you know, one of those new things you did interview Steve Beauchesne in this season as well, right? And so one of the things that he articulated in that interview was, you know, looking at, how do we bring the two constituents, the Thea, the advisors, the family, enterprise advisors, and the families together more often. And so we’re also looking at expanding the focus and the target for our audience as we look to the next year, and think about the guests we want to have next year and the conversations we want to have. So we want to really bring that spirit of both serving the family enterprise advisors and the family. So please share these episodes with your families and let that spread like wildfires through Canadian family businesses circles. Awesome.

11:43
Thanks. Aileen, this has been a lot of fun. Listeners, if you haven’t already subscribed, please do so make sure you never miss any of these monthly episodes. Thanks again. Aileen,

11:53
thank you, Steve. It’s been a pleasure. All right, thanks

11:57
again for joining us. Listeners, feel free to share this with everyone. I’m Steve Legler and until next time.

12:06
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