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Do Differences Make a Difference in Family Business?

In any Family Business, and in any Business Family, there will always be a lot of agreement and “sameness” but also a great deal of difference. One of the keys to success is to make sure that any difference of opinion does not result in “irreconcilable differences”.

This topic came to me this week as I checked the discussion board of the Governance course that I am currently taking through the Family Firm Institute. There are about a dozen of us enrolled, as part of their Advanced Certificate in Family Business Advising (ACFBA) accreditation program.

Our instructor, Dennis Jaffe, asked us to share some thoughts on whatever topics we wanted to discuss, and I found a post from Krishnan Natarajan from India to be quite interesting. Now the fact that I met Krishnan a few months ago might have had something to do with the fact that his post grabbed my attention, but not necessarily.

Here is an edited version of what he posted:

Some of the family challenges that we face are as follows:

Addressing differences at an early stage. (Non-Alignment if not addressed leads to Differences; if not addressed leads to Conflict; if not addressed leads to Incompatibility)

I took the “extra” repeated words out to simplify it into a better visual, and came up with this:

Non-Alignement => Differences => Conflict => Incompatibility

I thought that it was a good representation of a spectrum, showing how things can flow from small issues, into much bigger ones, if they are not addressed early.

Rather than re-writing my thoughts, here is the cut’n’paste of what I wrote back to Krishnan on the discussion board:

“If you can align people, they will have less difference, less conflict and more compatibility.”

“Conversely, if you have incompatibility, it is likely rooted in some conflict, which, in order to sort through, you need to figure out where the differences come from. Once you find the root of the differences, hopefully you can re-align the people.”

“This is clearly a case of “an ounce of prevention” being far better than “a pound of cure”.”

“If you know you have differences, you can explain to the family the importance of resolving these before they become conflict, and where you have conflict, you can explain to the family the importance of figuring out their differences.”

After writing this on the board, it struck me that this model seemed so well thought out, that perhaps Krishnan had seen it or read it somewhere, and since I planned to write a blog about it, I figured I needed to verify this with him.

It seems that it just came to him during a discussion with a client, as he was attempting to convince them of the importance of dealing with their differences early on.

Allow me to add my customary advice here, about the importance of communication. If you are looking to get everyone aligned, and keep them aligned, it is imperative to keep them “in the loop”, so that they at least have the opportunity to hear what is going on, and why.

It helps, of course, if this communication is truly two-way communication, with the opportunity for questions and clarifications. People can become mis-aligned due to lack of communication about what is going on in the family and the business, but it can be just as bad if there is communication but it only flows in one direction.

If you find yourself in a situation where a family is not getting along, I think that this model at least gives the advisor a way of talking about the situation with the family in a way that clarifies just how far along the spectrum they are, and what areas they need to look into to find a resolution.

I know that I expect to refer to it again, and I will have my friend Krishnan to thank for it. Please feel free to use it yourself with your family or your clients.

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Gray Is My Favourite Colour

I had lunch with a friend a couple of weeks ago, and it turned out that we had a mutual acquaintance. “Bryan” told me that he and “Larry” had recently had a long discussion about things that are actually truly “black and white”. I wish I had been there, because to me, “everything is gray” as I told him.

There is a folder in my email account in which I keep blog ideas, and I have had the idea for this blog about “grayness” in there for the longest time, so I figured it was now time to give it a go.

The title of today’s installment is a line from the 1998 Counting Crows song, “Mr. Jones”, which has long been one of my favourites. The song mentions “all of the beautiful colours are very very meaningful” and the singer continues, “Gray is my favourite colour”.

I have always loved gray, and not just because you can spell it gray or grey, it goes with everything too!

But let’s get back to gray versus black and white. I believe that between black and white there are over 49 different shades of gray. I have not read the famous book, nor have I spotted it on my wife’s nightstand.

But seriously, very few things are 100% in life, either black or white. As part of my former life when I personally managed the portfolios of our family office, I had printed out a copy of some newsletter writer’s “Twenty Rules for Traders”.

The list, which included one rule that said something like “You must always follow the rules”, later concluded that you needed “To know when you should ignore the rules and break them.” OK then.

Many people really like things to be black or white, because it actualy makes things a lot simpler when  making decisions is clear and rules-based. But there are inevitably exceptions that come up, and that is when you need to exercise judgement. As you may have noticed, not everyone has sound judgement, which can be problematic.

In the family business realm, some advisors learn to rely on certain practices that have worked well with a few clients and then assume that these should be applied as hard and fast rules for all their clients. Yikes, I always worry when advisors are so sure of the solutions before they understand the client.

I don’t have too many non-negotiables, because there are almost always some exceptions that will come up in some situation with some client.

If I did have one such “rule” it would be that before hiring their children to work full time in the family business, parents should insist that the children work for someone else for a few years.

But even though I highly recommend this practice, I am positive that it is not always necessary, and I could point to many cases where it was not done and there were no detrimental effects.

I still remember when I was just about to graduate from McGill and my Dad told me that he had heard from some people at a CAFÉ meeting (Canadian Association for Family Enterprise) about this idea of getting the kids to “go find a real job first”, I was quite excited by it, until he completed his sentence and said “But we’re not gonna do that”.

If you pushed me to find something that is not gray, I guess I would have go to the subject of integrity, because that is where there is no room for any gray.

And I just googled the word “integrity” to find an awesome ending to this post, and look what I found, an entry with two definitions of the word:

  1. The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.
  2. The state of being whole and undivided.

I can buy that. But gray is still my favourite colour!

 

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L’harmonie et l’héritage vont de paire

Je crois que la plupart des gens qui mènent des entreprises familiales veulent laisser un héritage à leurs enfants et petits-enfants. Mais je crois aussi que la plupart de ceux-ci ne comprennent pas assez bien l’importance que l’harmonie familiale jouera dans le succès du transfert de cet héritage.

Quand je regarde le mot “héritage” dans mon Petit Larousse, je trouve, juste en dessous d’un petit dessin d’un hérisson: “1. Ensemble des biens acquis ou transmis par voie de succession. 2. Ce que l’on tient de ses parents, des générations précédentes.”

Je suis présentement en train d’écrire mon premier livre sur le sujet des familles en affaires, et j’arrive vers la fin. En même temps, je travaille aussi sur mon nouveau site web, pour clarifier mon offre comme conseiller pour ces familles. Avec toutes les pensées qui me passent par la tête sur ces sujet dernièrement, cette semaine j’ai vécu ce qu’on appelle en anglais un “A-Ha Moment”, où, tout d’un coup, je venais de réaliser quelque chose pour la première fois.

Dans mon livre, je passe beaucoup de temps sur l’importance de la communication dans une famille, sur les conversations qui sont parfois difficiles, mais qui sont absolument nécessaires pour que chaque personne dans la famille se sent incluse dans ce qui se passe.

Dans le dévelopement de mon site web, ma conseillière m’a forcé à travailler sur mes valeurs personnelles, afin que je démontre bien qui je suis, et ce que je trouve le plus important pour que mes clients potentiels comprennent ma personalité, et peuvent comprendre comment je travaillerai avec eux.

Sur la question de ce que les familles cherchent, le mot “héritage” revenait souvent. Je suis convaincu que la grande majorité des gens dans la génération senior dans une famille en affaires veulent laisser un bel héritage à leurs successeurs.

Sur la question de ce que j’offre à ces familles, et des besoins et lacunes parmi ces familles, je revenait souvent sur le mot “harmonie”. Je suis également convaincu que dans une grande partie de ces familles, le niveau d’harmonie parmi les gens n’est pas assez élevé pour supporter l’héritage à long terme.

Voilà, mon “A-Ha”. Pour avoir un héritage qui durera, il est absolument nécessaire que l’harmonie familiale soit assez forte pour supporter l‘héritage.

J’adore les analogies, et j’essaye de trouver quelque chose qu’on peut visualiser pour mieux expliquer mon point. Jusqu’à date, la meilleure que j’ai trouvée est celle d’une tente de camping.

Quand on traverse un parc de camping, on voit beaucoup de tentes, mais ce qu’on voit est seulement le tissu des tentes. Ce qu’on voit, le tissu, l’extérieur, pour moi, c’est comme l’héritage.

Mais imaginez pour un moment comment le parc paraîtrait si quelqu’un enlevait les supports intérieurs qui font que les tentes se tiennent debout. Ou si on enlevait les ancrages qui sont très pratiques quand le vent se met à souffler.

Le système de support, les tiges de métal ou en fibre de verre que nous devons assembler et connecter, est essentiel au bon fonctionnement de la tente. Les ancrages sont aussi quelque chose qu’on ne devrait pas oublier.

Pour moi, tout ces éléments sont comme l’harmonie familiale.

Si on ne prend pas le temps, et si on ne fait pas l’effort de bien monter le système de support, la tente ne servira pas à grand chose.

Ceux qui se concentrent sur la grosseur de leur héritage, et qui négligent l’harmonie dans leur famille, risquent d’avoir des résultats décevants. Si vous ne faites pas les efforts requis sur le côté familial, les biens et l’argent que vous avez accummulés risquent de s’éparpiller assez rapidement après votre décès.

Votre héritage dépandrera sur le support que votre harmonie familiale pourra offrir comme appui.

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.
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Pre-Mediated Planning? Sounds Good to Me

Sometimes when you hear a new term it takes a bit of time to let its true meaning sink in. It happened to me this week, but the more that I think about the term, the better I like it.

About six months ago, I joined a group called the Purposeful Planning Institute, in large part because the term “Purposeful” really resonnated with me. If we are going to make plans (usually a good idea) why shouldn’t we do so with a true and well-thought-out purpose?

The PPI holds an annual Rendez-Vous in Colorado every summer, and I have already made plans to attend, because I really love the idea of exchanging stories and ideas with like-minded people. There will surely be at least one blog post as a result of that trip.

But one of the coolest features of the PPI is the weekly conference call every Tuesday at noon. The quality of the speakers is exceptional, and this week we got to hear from Dean Fowler, who has been working with business families for about 30 years. Most of his clients are third- and fourth-generation, because he has consciously chosen to work with successful families.

Fowler’s early career had him working with dysfunctional families, usually in cases where a will and estate plan were contested after the wealthy parents passed away. As he explained in the preamble to his talk, those estate plans did not fail because they were created by bad lawyers, bad accountants, and bad life insurance people. There was something else going on (or NOT going on) among the family members.

Having worked with both dysfunctional and successful families, he was able to see what worked and what did not. I realize that I will not be doing his entire talk justice here, but there were two key take-aways that I got from it.

The first is Pre-Mediated Planning and the second is a Proactive Next Generation. Proactive is a word that took some time to grow on me, and I will surely pick up the subject of the next generation taking on a more active role in a future blog, but the Pre-Mediated Planning was what stood out for me, and what I really want to zero in on today.

By definition, Fowler’s work as a mediator was required because there was a disagreement AFTER the fact. Plans were put into place, the person responsible for the plans passed away, and the successors disagreed with the plans, so a mediator is needed.

Pre-mediated planning, on the other hand, makes sure that the plans are understood BEFORE the person passes away, which allows the plans to be re-worked. Taking the time to explain, assess the reaction, accept some feedback, revise the plans, explain them again, discuss them with the family, etc. will always be time well spent in advance, which will avoid the need for costly, gut-wrenching, family-destroying fights afterwards.

So why don’t more families do this kind of planning? My guess is that the major reason is that so many of the senior generation believe that they know best, and they still view their children as just that, children. Fowler also mentioned that he refers to adult offspring as “former children”, to force the parents to accept that they are now adults, capable of their own independent thoughts without being told what to do by Mommy and Daddy.

Of course the greatest challenge here comes down to communication, as it usually does. You really “gotta wanna” do this, to do it right. It is much easier to do nothing and fight it out after. But that is so much uglier, so sad and so unnecessary too.

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.
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How to Kill a 20-Year Business Relationship (1 of 2)

Part 1: The Snowman, but not the Iceman

Look at the business relationships that you have, and I bet that that those you have been in for 20 years can be counted on one hand.

I have had a couple of such relationships come to an end recently, and I think there are some good teaching points that we can all learn from my stories.

We will start with the easier one, easier because the person who killed the realtionship was the other guy, not me. Next week, I will fess up to a huge mea culpa, and explain that I now understand the proverb about the bird in the hand, because I screwed up by imagining more birds in the bush.

Let’s start with the snowman.

Snow is just part of the reality of every winter where I live. In my suburban neighbourhood, every house has a double garage and a driveway that is simply too long to shovel. Most of my neighbours pay a few hundred bucks every winter, to one of a half dozen or so contractors, who each have several tractors with huge snowblowers, just to be able to get their cars in and out of their garage and onto the city streets.

We have lived in our current house since 2001, and before that, we lived in the next town over. As such, we had used the same snow removal contractor for about 20 years. Notice the past tense, we “had used”. Up until a few months ago, I would have said that we “have used” the same contractor, but something happened to change that.

Just before Christmas, we headed to our cottage for a week, and for the first time we left our house without a housesitter. Given the weather that occured over the seven days we were away, not having anyone in the house turned out to be a problem.

The precipitation included a mix of snow, wind, freezing rain, more snow, more wind, and more rain. The result, upon our return, was a nice frozen ramp of ice in front of my garage door. A snowdrift became an ice drift, and this ice drift was clearly a problem, because it was a couple of feet high right in front of the door.

I recognized the problem, and concluded that although I was clearly the one who had to live with it, a large part of the blame for the problem lay clearly in the lap of my snow removal contractor, who had not properly cleared the snow before it turned to ice.

When I tried to explain this over the phone, my explanation fell on deaf ears. They blamed me for not having cleared the snow from the first few feet in front of the door, which normally we would have done if we were around.

“Sorry, we remove snow, not ice. It is ice now, and it is your fault, so you have to solve it” was essentially the woman’s refrain when I called. I asked to speak to the owner, she said she would call him, and I said “please ask him to call me.”

When the same lady called me back, I knew that it was over. I checked with some neighbours and now use the same contractor as most of the others on my street.

Why did the owner not call me himself? In twenty years I always paid my bill early and in full, and I have called once or twice to ask when they were going to clear my driveway. Did I not warrant a phone call, so that he could hear my side of the story, about the accummulated snow that they had not removed?

Oh well, I think that the snowman blew it, but he still has plenty of other clients, and likely won’t miss my business.

Next week, look for Part 2: The Patent, but not the Trade Mark.

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.
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C’est pas juste l’argent

Les gens parlent de l’argent et y pensent souvent. C’est normal puisque c’est perçu comme la source de bien des problèmes, et surtout de leurs solutions. Mais souvent ça serait préférable de regarder plus loin, et on verra que ce n’est pas juste l’argent qui est en cause.

Quelques exemples pour illustrer: Les premières fois que je faisais du bénévolat dans une banque alimentaire, je voulais souvent plonger ma main dans ma poche pour sortir un $1 ou un $2 pour dépanner quelqu’un, mais il a fallu que je me retienne. Les clients sont obligés de débourser $1 par adulte pour avoir droit à leur boîte de nourriture. Les règles sont là pour de bonnes raisons et en intervenant comme tel, j’aurais pu nuire à celles-ci. La première fois que la directrice m’a vu sortir mon portefeuille, le regard qu’elle m’a donné me l’a tout de suite expliqué.

J’ai une soeur qui travaille dans le système de la santé et ma conjointe travaille avec des OSBL. Elles sont tous les deux témoins de manques de budgets, et ce sur une base quotidienne. Mais les deux sont aussi d’accord que ce n’est pas l’argent qui manque le plus. C’est toujours facile de dire qu’avec plus d’argent, tout irait mieux, mais ce n’est pas toujours la vérité. De meilleures structures, de la gouvernance, de l’organisation, un coup de pouce dans la bonne direction, ce sont tous des façons pour améliorer les choses sans ajouter plus d’argent.

Prenons maintenant l’un de mes sujets préférés, l’héritage que nous voulons laisser à nos enfants et petit-enfants. Est-ce que c’est simplement de l’argent qu’on voudrait leur laisser? Est-ce que c’est juste de l’argent qu’ils veulent recevoir? J’espère que ça ne sera pas le cas pour moi et mes enfants.

Quand je dis que ce n’est pas juste de l’argent, vous pourrez croire que j’oublie d’autres actifs tangibles qui ont une valeur monétaire, comme des bijoux, de l’art, l’immobilier, mais ce n’est même pas ça mon point. Je parle ici, par contre, d’intangibles.

J’espère ne pas avoir perdu trop de monde. J’espère que vous n’allez pas tous penser que je parle de l’amour. Mais oui, l’amour en fait partie; peut-être une très grande partie. J’aime mes enfants, vous aimez vos enfants, nous le savons tous. Mais comme parents, comment est-ce que cet amour se manifeste chez nos enfants?

Une lacune que je vois trop souvent chez les parents, c’est qu’ils ne prennent pas le temps d’éduquer leurs enfants sur ce qui est important dans la vie. Je parle des valeurs de la famille, d’où ils viennent, où ils sont, et où ils s’en vont. Nous sommes très loin de parler d’argent, n’est-ce pas?

Mais dans les familles dynastiques que nous connaissons tous, avez-vous déjà pensé ce qu’ils ont tous en commun? Ils ont tous eu la chance de partir du bon pied, souvent grâce à un entrepreneur dans leur arbre généologique, mais quels sont les atouts qui leur ont ménés où ils sont, plusieurs générations plus tard?

Ils se sont tous organisés pour comprendre ce qui est important dans leur famille avec les responsabilités, les structures, la vision familiale à long terme, et l’esprit de rester en famille, en sachant d’où ils viennent et où il sent vont, en famille.

Je crois que comme parents, nous devons ces leçons à nos enfants, pour qu’ils puissent ensuite les transmettre à leurs enfants. Parce que si c’est “juste l’argent” qu’on leur laisse, bien, ça risque de durer moins longtemps, et on risque d’avoir raté un peu notre coup.

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.
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Independent and Dependable Advisors

The adjectives “dependable” and “independent” have more in common than those 6 letters in a row. They also happen to be two of the most important requirements people should insist upon when looking for people to advise them on important issues.

Let’s start with dependable, since it seems more obvious that you would naturally look for that quality in anyone you deal with, especially someone that will be sending you an invoice.

Of course everyone will claim to be dependable, but you will only really know after enough interactions with them. If you have dependable people that you can rely on, hopefully you recognize this quality in them, and appreciate it too, because it seems like it is becoming less common these days.

If you are an advisor, hopefully you recognize how important your dependability is to your clients, because it can take a long time to build up, but with one slip, a whole lot of goodwill can be wiped away very quickly.

Personally, I find it very disappointing when someone upon whom I have relied for many years all of a sudden lets me down. I will usually give anyone a second chance, but eventually you often have to move on. Sometimes I think I might be a little too demanding, but I generally just use the golden rule, I expect others to treat me the way that I would treat them if the roles were reversed.

Let’s move over to the independence question. Why is it important, and what am I getting at? Well I mentioned something about an invoice earlier, and it was not an accident, because it is a big part of what makes an advisor independent.

There are many different business models at play in the world of professional services, and it is easy to become confused or to be misled. I usually prefer to get a bill directly and know what I am paying for, than to eventually learn that the person who gave me the advice got a huge reward that I was not aware of in advance.

Accountants, lawyers, and coaches all work in a relatively straightforward way, we pay them for their time. We might think the bill is too high, but it is usually pretty clear. When financial products are involved, things can get very murky. But we seldom ask the questions that would clarify things for us, because we don’t want to look stupid, or to come across as an a-hole, or make people feel like we don’t trust them.

A good friend of mine who makes his living selling insurance products once told me that he has an advantage over lawyers and accountants in getting to know his clients, because he doesn’t bill them for his time, so they open up more. I had not thought of that, but it makes sense to me.

But I hate to think about those clients and the type of advice they are getting from those advisors who invoice them, if their main criterion is to minimize the size of the bill.

I am not saying that if there is no invoice, they cannot be independent. I am saying that it is important to understand how people are compensated, and to ask questions until you do understand.

Better yet, find a dependable and independent person who understands your situation, and get them to ask the questions for you. They can then help you make sure that you are doing the right things, in the right way, for all the right reasons.

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.
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The Long and the Short of It

Most people spend so much time looking at the short term, they end up ignoring the long term. I usually have the opposite problem.

That is often a good thing, though, if only because focussing on the future usually helps guide your shorter term decisions. Let’s look at some examples of this issue.

I am relatively new to the field of family business consulting, and anxious to learn as much as I can from those who have been at it for years. I recently came across the Purposeful Planning Institute, which is a group of like-minded people who help others with their planning (in a purposeful way!).

For the past couple of months I have been listening in on their weekly calls and I have realized that the majority of the speakers seem to be far ahead of where I am, which is not that surprising. But not only that, they also seem to be looking so much further into the future on behalf of their clients.

Maybe I notice this because my typical preferred client is just starting to look more at their family, rather than simply their business. I identify most easily with my own family and that of my in-laws, both of which were lead by founders who focussed a great deal on their businesses, possibly at the expense of their families, despite the best of intentions.

Looking at the long term has many advantages, but can you look too far ahead? Maybe yes, but I find that it is better to look ahead too often, and too far, than the reverse. So many people are so busy putting out day-to-day fires in their business, making the long-term view suffer.

A great example of the long versus short question came from an unexpected source recently. I was considering having laser eye surgery to correct a problem with my vision. I wear glasses for driving and going to sports events, as they help me see clearly at longer distances. I don’t need glasses for reading, although my arms seem to be getting a bit too short when dealing with very fine print.

The woman who tested my eyes suggested I delay any surgery for a few years. I was not too surprised, because my eyesight is generally better than most people’s my age, and I have been told in the past that I was not an ideal candidate for laser surgery.

But then she really explained it to me in a way that I could understand, which I really appreciated, because I pride myself in being able to clarify confusing things for others.

She told me that everyone has a certain range of vision over which they have the ability to focus clearly without glasses or contacts. For some it is on the far end, for others, it is up close. Here is where it got really interesting. If you have surgery to alter the range, in my case to improve my distance viewing, then you will also affect the other end, adversely.

The surgery just moves the range in one direction or the other, it doesn’t make the range any longer. You cannot extend the range, you can just move it closer or farther.

Getting back to my family business analogy, let me attempt to put it in the proverbial nutshell.

If you want to start looking at the long term, you actually MUST stop spending time on the short term. You CANNOT do it all.

You have to make a conscious shift in you thinking. And that is the long and the short of it.

 

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.
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How May I Sell You Today? #FAIL (2 of 2)

Last week we looked at selling versus helping, from Zig Ziglar’s viewpoint that you should just stop selling and start helping, to getting paid to help in a field where clients are not accustomed to paying for it.

In addition to all that stuff, something that has thrown me for a bit of a loop recently was a twitter post from a business coach.

I have been following Leanne Hoagland-Smith (a.k.a. Coach Lee) for several months and she posts lots of great stuff. But then a couple of weeks ago, I was surprised that she was telling people to stop pushing the fact that they wanted to help.

She was encouraging people to stop saying that they were there to help, since so many clients, when they hear the word “help”, now actually mentally substitute the word “sell”.

What? Was Zig wrong? Or is his messge now out of date?

So I started thinking about it, and I realize that maybe the word “help” does get overused, and maybe it isn’t much “softer on the ears”. Maybe Coach Lee is right. But then where does that leave us?

Maybe we should no longer emphasize that we want to help, maybe we need to say that we want to “work with” people to achieve certain results.

After all, much of what we offer in business family consulting isn’t content (a product) but much more assistance with process issues, the “how” more than the “what”. We don’t really want to do things FOR clients as much as work through things WITH them, to the point where they can do these things on their own, without our “help”.

So perhaps the real answer is that while we should still start helping (à la Zig) we shouldn’t SAY that we want to help (à la Coach Lee). The key might be to show some help, do some helping, just help, but not use the word, talk about it, or ever say out loud that we are helping.

In the process of receiving our help, clients will soon feel like we have become “indespensible”, to the point where we don’t have to sell them anything, because they will be so ready to buy from us.

Maybe what Zig was really getting at was that we should just start to make things easier for people. This reminds me of the word “facilitator”, as in “facile”, which is the closest translation into French that I can think of for the word “easy”.

But if I am actually making things easier, am I not helping? Well yes, but saying you want to help may be about as poorly received as saying that you want to facilitate. Very few people wake up in the morning and decide that they are going to find themselves a facilitator, even if that may be just what they need.
When speaking to classmates and colleagues in this area, I often make the distinction that while there is a great deal of need for our services, there is not necessarily a lot of demand.

Many potential clients do not know that they could use our services. A large part of the reason stems from the fact that they do not know who we are, what we do, and how we can help, without them feeling like we sold them anything.

As we mature as an industry, we need to do a better job of explaining how much of a diffference we can make with family businesses, and more importantly, with business families.

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.
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Say Goodbye to Succession Planning

So many advisors spend so much time talking to their family business clients about the importance of succession planning. Many of us are guilty of over-using the term to the point of rendering it nearly meaningless.

I hereby implore everyone to just STOP. I am not saying that we should not talk about how to get the business, the family, and the ownership from where they are today, to where they will need to be some time in the future, because those are are still very relevant and important. But can we please stop using the term “succession planning”?

My feeling is that when clients hear anyone talk about the importance of succession planning, what goes on in their minds is some sort of replay of their mother telling them to eat their vegetables. Yes, Mom, I know I should eat my vegetables, thanks for the reminder. But I’m an adult now with kids of my own, so please back off. There is only so much you can take.

Then there are the advisors who use the term succession planning in their own way, turning it into something that they will help their clients get through painlessly, with very clear benefits. Just put together this little tax-minimizing strategy now, and then you can go on doing what you were doing before, knowing that your succession plan has been taken care of.

These advisors have hijacked the fact that clients realize that they must do something that can be called succession planning so that they can check that box off and tell everyone, “don’t bother me with that, I already did it”, as if “it” is a one-shot deal.

But it feels good to do that, because not only have your advisors shown you exactly how much you will save in taxes with their plan (down to the penny!) but you can get on with your life knowing that you have taken care of this important issue. This is like your Aunt Bea, who shows you how to drown your broccoli in a thick cheese sauce so that eating your vegetables is somehow palatable, despite the fact that the overall benefit is questionable at best.
I think that the main reason people hesitate to open themselves to discussing succession is that it focuses on change, and it is the kind of change that has them moving from a good position now, to a worse position later. Most people will try to delay dealing with questions about when THEY will retire, and when THEY will die. And if Grandpa hated to talk about it, and Dad hated to talk about it, why should I enjoy talking about it?

So if I am suggesting that you say goodbye to talking about succession planning, what I am I offering instead? Welcome to the world of Continuity Planning. Now I understand that you may be sceptical about the benefits of changing one single word, but let’s look at some of the ways that continuity is a better label.

Rather than focussing on change, like succession does, continuity focusses instead on what remains the same. I want my business to continue, I want my family to continue, and I need to figure out the best way for the ownership to allow the other two to continue.

In essence, the continuity plan is the long-range plan, the overarching plan, the big picture plan. Within the continuity plan, there are indeed a number of succession issues that need to be dealt with,

But when we start by stepping back, and concentrate on all of the things that we want to have continue, long after we are out of the picture, the succession issues become a lot smaller in that context.

When people can better grasp WHY they are doing something, as part of a larger whole, better results are almost assured.

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.
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