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On Infections and Inflection Points

These past couple of weeks have been anything but “business as usual”, and so I’ve decided to break from my usual pre-set blog calendar and venture into the many discussions that are taking place in society and in the family enterprise space, on the many impacts the sudden uncertainty has us all facing.

I still have plenty of blog subjects that I want to get to about business families and their challenges in transitioning their wealth to the next generation, and we’ll get back to those in due time. 

But lately, as I’ve come across “regular” content in my inbox or on social media that seemed to act as if we were all still in the “same old, same old”, I’ve had an almost visceral reaction to some of it, as it struck me as tone deaf or just a little too oblivious for me to spend any time on, you know, right now.

 

Inflection Points – No Going Back

This past week, I was speaking with my coach, Melissa, about the new realities we are facing because of Covid19.  I was pleased and not too surprised when she told me that I am by far her calmest client right now, as most others are freaking out.

I shared with her my belief that we will be learning a LOT over the next few months; about the world we live in, about people, and about leadership.

We’ve hit a number of inflection points, and while it’s way too soon to predict how this will all shake out, I can state with great confidence that many things will never be the same again.  

But most of us will be just fine.

Family Timemathematical graph

One of the unexpected changes many of us are being confronted with is more family time.  

My wife and I have been “empty nesters” for almost five years (thanks in large part to boarding school) but we are now back into “full house” mode with both of our college undergraduates at home, likely finishing up their school years “online”.

It’s too early to tell how it will all work out, but so far, so good, everyone seems to have the right attitude, even with the “self quarantine for 14 days” part that they’re expected to respect after returning from the US.

 

Isolation and Distancing

This call for social distancing and isolation is being received better in some places and by some demographics than others, which is not unexpected either.

What it will do to the economy is still unknowable, but the variety of  timelines we’ve been hearing as people make their guesses as to how long until we’re back to normal is causing tremendous market turbulence.

In the future it will be easy to see where we should have been buying back in, but for now, it’s anybody’s guess.

 

Leadership – Good, Bad, Ugly

The leadership that we’ve been seeing on our TV every day has varied tremendously, from good, to bad, to downright ugly.

I won’t weigh in on who I think fits into each category, suffice it to say that I’ve seen a few in each category from politicians.

But I guarantee you that there will be some people that nobody knew before this crisis who will end up being heroes, and others who will get rich, and still others whose reputations will never recover.

But the jury is still out on all of that, and may be for a few months more.

 

Technology and Connection

Some of the good news is that technology now makes remaining connected so much easier than ever before.

As I wrote a few months back in Who’s Zooming Who?, I’ve become a huge fan of using the Zoom platform for online face-to-face meetings, both for 1-on-1 and group meetings.mathematical graph

More and more people are slowly learning about the benefits of such meetings, because they really don’t have much choice.

 

Reach Out, Just to Check In

One thing I’ve been doing (and promise to do more of) is to reach out to people, including clients and colleagues, from the past and present (and future?).

Reaching out without any particular angle or purpose, but simply to check in.

Connection is always important, and when times are filled with uncertainty, it becomes even more clear.

See you next week. Excuse me now, I’m going to call my mother. 

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Dropping the “Second Person” Mode

Off the top, I realize that my title this week is a little less clear about my topic than it normally is, so thanks for getting past it and reading anyway.

We’re going back to some grammar school stuff, and then we’ll move pretty quickly into more advanced topics. It should be an interesting ride.

 

La Conjugaison des Verbes

My elementary schooling was in French, unlike my older sisters who attended English school. (They weren’t expected to take over Dad’s business, I was; but that’s another topic for another day).

During class, and for homework, we spent a LOT of time conjugating every verb we encountered, always following the same sequence: 

                                          Je, tu, il;     Nous, vous, ils.

We started with singular, first person, second person, third person; and we continue through them again in plural, first, second, third person.

So for “le verbe avoir” it was: J’ai, tu as, il a, nous avons, vous avez, ils ont.  

For « aimer » it was J’aime, tu aimes, il aime, nous aimons, vous aimez, ils aiment.

 

Comparing Homework Among Siblings

My sisters were sometimes curious about my homework, as their English school did not seem to obsess over conjugating verbs nearly as much as my French school did.

But of course you never know when this might come in handy, say 45 years later when writing a blog about business families.

Somehow I never imagined any of this in my future.

What this repetitive work did give me, was an appreciation for the whole concept of “First person”, i.e. me, “second person”, i.e. you, and “third person”, i.e. he/she, along with the corresponding plural versions of “we”, “you” and “they”.

 

Cultivating Better Interpersonal Relations

Much more recently, having done more than my share of training in coaching, facilitation, mediation, and family systems, some common themes have emerged within my mind.

One of those themes is the importance we should place on how we direct comments to others, in ways that are more conducive to harmonious relationships, compared to other, less skilled ways that may produce sub-optimal results.

You guessed it, thinking about all this in terms of “first person”, “second person”, and “third person” can be helpful.

 

Feeling “Accused” Prompts Reactivity

I’ll start with a basic principle that most of us can vouch for from personal experience.

When you feel like you are being accused of something, you will typically react in some way, and in many cases, that reaction will be less than friendly or positive.

We don’t necessarily do this in a thoughtful, conscious way, it just happens, as our emotions get triggered. I touched on some of this a couple of years ago in Your Response Is Your Responsibility.

And when do we typically feel like we’re being accused? 

I think that when someone starts with the word “You”, that’s often a huge part of it.

 

Dropping “You”, Using “I” and “He” or “She”

So how hard would it be to drop the habit of using “You”? 

My take is that it’s something you can learn to do, with time and practice, like other speech habits.

I know lots of people who’ve learned to substitute “and” in place of “but” in many instances, with positive results.

I’ve seen suggestions to talk about one’s own reaction to things as a way to lessen the blow of the “you” accusation, for example, “When I hear the word _____, I feel _____”, as opposed to “When you say ____, you _____”.

My favourite example of the plural version was use of “you people” and its negative effect on Ross Perot during his Presidential bid in 1992, when he continually said “You people should….” during a speech to a room full of African Americans.  It did not go over well.

 

What About He or She?

As for using the third person, this naturally fits with situations when more people are in the room, and is something a good facilitator or mediator would commonly do.

Having the people tell the story to the third party, while the person in question is present, can really allow that person to “hear” the story in a way that they can respond, instead of reacting.

In any case, just learning to drop the second person mode will be a huge improvement.

Learning to state things from an “I position” can also help, as can using a trained neutral third party.

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Intangible Deliverables and the Family Circle

As part of my work with business families, I get to interact with other professionals who also serve these families. 

There are usually plenty of complexities to be managed, so it’s normal for them to employ the services of a variety of experts in different fields at various times.

My specialty is working in what I call the “family circle”, which comes from the ubiquitous Three-Circle Model (Taguiri & Davis) that highlights the overlaps in the Business, Ownership, and Family circles.

While most of the work in the other two circles is largely “content-based”, i.e. tangible, most of what I do is much more about process, and therefore intangible. 

This brings with it a number of interesting side-effects.

 

Making Promises

The first difference that becomes apparent when meeting a family is what kind of promises I can make to them.  

If I were an accountant or a lawyer, it would be easy for me to promise that I could create whatever structure or agreement they might need, now or in the future.

But, alas, I am neither an accountant nor a lawyer, in fact my business card and email signature both say that I’m a Family Legacy Advisor, which has been known to raise an eyebrow from time to time.

I certainly can’t promise anyone that I can provide them with the legacy that they hope for.  I can only promise that I will do my utmost to guide them and their family members in their creation of that legacy. 

In fact, it’ll be the family members themselves who’ll be doing most of the work.

 

Recycling Work Product

Another area where I sometimes feel a bit jealous of my colleagues who work in the more “technical” specialty professions is that of what I like to call “recycling”.

Now I realize that it’s often a gross oversimplification of what’s involved in most of the complex cases, but at the end of the day, that legal structure or agreement that they just completed for the Jones family will have a lot of the same content as the one they did last month for the Smiths.

In contrast, the work that I do with the Brown family rarely looks anything at all like the work I did last month with the Johnsons.

I suppose that’s part of why I really like this work, because no two families are the same.  They face many of the same challenges, but the circumstances and the way issues come up are as varied as you could ever imagine.

 

Content Deliverables vs. Process ______________

Those who are fortunate enough to be in a business where they are providing “content solutions” have an easier time figuring out what their true “deliverables” are, which is a huge advantage when making the promises we were talking about earlier.

It also helps you know how far along you are in your work, when the work is done, and, even more importantly sometimes, how to price the services that you’re providing.

In fact, I often struggle to find the best corresponding word for “deliverable” for this process work. How do you qualify what you bring to the table when it’s more about process and relationships between people than about a “finished product”?

 

Coaching, “En Français” ???

Regular readers know that I love to look at how terms are translated into different languages to see if we can learn something from that. 

Sometimes the word in one language offers a much more vivid or accurate description than the English word.

“Coaching” is such a word. It’s true that some simply add a “le” to the front of it to get “le coaching”, like “le parking”, but I’ve heard a much better word used here in Quebec.

That word is “accompagnement” which you may have already figured out translates to “accompaniment”.  It has a bit of an awkward ring to it in English, I admit, but it really describes the situation well.

 

Advisor, Coach, Guide…

The deliverables in the family circle are essentially intangible. 

But I bet most people can still judge the value that they’re getting from an advisor, or coach, or guide.

It’s just a bit tougher to put it into words sometimes, but that’s okay.

The good news is that families know when they’re being served well, once the relationship takes off.

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When You Like What You Do….

This week we’re going to look at something that came up in a non-family business context, and apply it to our usual domain of businesses that are run by multiple generations of the same family.

It goes back a couple of months to a luncheon I attended that was hosted by a successful local private wealth advisory firm. 

I’ve attended a few of their events over the past few years, and it’s always nice to stay plugged into the financial asset world, even though my work with families is now almost exclusively on the family side of things, as opposed to how they invest their liquid assets.

 

Successful Succession

The company in question is now owned by a number of their “second generation” partners, who bought into the firm over the years, and the original founders now no longer own any shares.

As I sat there and listened to them share this part of their story with the audience, which included mostly clients and potential investors, I couldn’t help thinking that some business families I know would be envious of their successful succession.

But my favourite part of the story was about one of those founders, now in his 80’s, who still comes to the office every day, and acts as “wise counsel” to the others.

 

When You Like What You Do

Apparently he likes to come in and be with his peers and friends, “without the pressure of performance”.

But the real money quote was this, which is what that man added, 

                  “When you like what you do, you do it 

                       long after you still need to do it”.

Hmmmm. I began to think about how this whole situation might apply nicely to some of the business families I know.

So many of the senior leaders of family businesses still really like what they do, yet they often feel like they still need to do it, even long after their successors have shown that they are more than capable of handling the work.

If only there were a way for them to keep doing some parts of what they love, while allowing others to take over other responsibilities.

 

An Opportunity to Co-Create Something

Handing over the reins of a business is almost never a simple exercise.  It takes lots of planning and the execution is rarely as easy as expected or hoped for.

However, with lots of dialogue and sharing of ideas, a great training program to ensure that the rising leaders are equipped to handle larger roles over a number of years, having new leadership ready to assume top roles can certainly be accomplished.

Sometimes, especially in family businesses, it’s having the old leader step aside that’s the biggest obstacle. But there is definitely an opportunity here, if the two generations work together to create a Win-Win.

Family Ties: Easier or More Difficult?

Some may think that this process should be easier in a family business, where the exiting leader has more confidence in the new person or people, because they are literally a “chip off the old block”.  Indeed, sometimes it does work out that way.

Anecdotally, though, it seems like family situations often make it harder to execute such a transition.

Perhaps this biased view comes mostly from founders or wealth creators who are the first generation (G1), and they notably have more difficulty bidding adieu and leaving things to G2 than occurs in subsequent generations.

 

Doing What You Like, Lots of Options

But let’s go back to the title and quote, about doing what you like, and wanting to keep doing it. As the leader for the past few decades, the number of roles that person held and the tasks for which they were responsible was likely pretty diverse.

Wouldn’t it make sense to try to discover which of those roles and tasks they particularly enjoyed, and find ways for them to continue them, yet, “without the pressure of performance”, as the example above noted?

It strikes me that there’s a huge opportunity here, for members of both generations, to co-create the conditions where they actually co-exist for a certain number of years.

It probably won’t be something that happens overnight, of course, and the longer the plan is in the works, the more likely it probably is that it will be a success.

It all starts with a discussion…

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Asking for What You Need in the FamBiz

Asking for What You Need in the FamBiz

This week I want to look at what seems like a pretty simple topic, but after we get through it all, you may agree that it’s not as simple as you first thought.

We’re going to look at the subject of asking for things, which some people do with ease, while others do with trepidation.

When you’re dealing with family members, it should be easier, right?  Well, not always.

 

Asking for Help

The first way that this topic landed on my potential blog post list came last year, when I attended a coaching workshop and someone asked one of the course leaders for ideas on how to get clients.

The answer was “if you want to coach someone, ask them”, which seemed both too simple and too difficult all at the same time, to the questioner and many others.

Then a couple of months ago on LinkedIn, I came across a quote from Simon Sinek, which read:

 

                               “To overcome our challenges, all that is 

                                 required is the courage to ask for help”

 

OK, that sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it?  But remember, simple and easy aren’t the same thing.  If it were that easy, and it worked, the world would be a happier place. Oh yeah, and there’s that part about “courage” that’s often in short supply.

 

“Help” Versus a “Resource”

This post’s title is about asking for “what you need”, while Sinek’s quote encourages us to “ask for help”, so there’s a nuance there, unless what we need always comes down to help.

I’ve written about asking for help before, notably here, 5 Things to Know: Asking for Help for a FamBiz, but the context there was mostly about a family situation, where they get to the point where they realize that they need help from the outside.

People who interact with me regularly, and those who’ve read Interdependent Wealth, will know that I’ve been trying to eliminate the word “help” from my vocabulary lately.  I find it has too much of a “One up vs. One down” connotation, and that sometimes causes its own issues.

I seldom offer to help anyone anymore, preferring instead to offer to be a resource to them.

 

Help Isn’t Always Helpful

I wrote about this almost two years ago in When Is Helping Not Helpful. 

Yes, it usually feels really good to help someone else, and more people should do it. I can assure you, though, that when you do the exact same thing, only framed as being a resource, it feels just as good.

And while it feels just as good to the “helper”, I think the person who was helped probably feels better about it.

This gets close to another topic, the one where we feel like we need to “fix” someone, which brings with it a whole slew of other issues that are beyond the scope of today’s post.

 

“What You Need” Versus “What You Want”

Anyone who’s a parent is probably familiar with the importance of making the distinction between what you want, and what you need.

It’s a basic concept that many parents try to explain pretty early on in the lives of their children. It’s also a concept that can be taught in conjunction with the idea of delayed gratification. See Marshmallow and Filet Mignon.

So I mention teaching this to children, and that may make you think of youngsters, but I can assure you that there are plenty of “adult children” (a.k.a. “former children”, or, my favourite label “offspring”) who could use some brushing up on the differences between wants and needs.

 

The Business Family Version

We’ll wrap up with some thoughts on how this topic relates to business families, especially as they mature and prepare for intergenerational transition.

Too many subjects are left too late in such families, and I always encourage them to begin talking about important subjects early on, rather than waiting too long.

One of the simpler ways to do that is to ask people for what you need from them.  I said it was simpler, not necessarily easier.

 

It Works in Both Directions!

The good news is that this works just as well for parents asking things of their offspring as it does for the younger ones to ask their parents.

Sure, it takes a bit of courage to get started, but once you begin, it’s a lot easier to keep it going.

You might even start by asking someone to read this post, and go from there…

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Surrendering in the Family Enterprise

Some words in English carry either a positive or negative connotation for the most part, yet there are some contexts where this can be turned on its head.

The world of family enterprise seems rife with examples, making it a favourite target of mine here.

One such word is “surrender”, and regular readers won’t be surprised that I’ll look at some French translations along the way.

 

Surrendering:  Abandoning or Yielding?

So let’s start with the French translation we get from Google, where the first word we get is “abandon”. This was also my wife’s reply when I asked her how to say surrender in French.  My reply to her was, “Um, that’s not really what I’m looking for”. 

Of course after I told her that Google corroborated her answer, she gave me “the look”.  I guess that “abandon” has as much of a negative connotation as surrender does.

The second option from Google was “céder”.  For those like me who learned to drive in Quebec decades ago, we know that the triangular yellow road signs we see when merging used to say “céder/yield”.

I’d contend that “yielding” does not carry as much of a negative feeling as surrendering.

 

Negative Examples from Family Business

I’ve got a couple of stories that I can share on this just from the last few months, from families who’ve reached out to me.  I’ll change some details for obvious reasons, but I want to make sure that the feeling of surrender comes through.

Jack and Rhonda contacted me about their manufacturing business that they had started some forty plus years ago.  Their son Frank was now running things, and had been for the past half decade. Frank’s wife was also involved at a pretty high level in the operations.

Meanwhile, Jack and Rhonda had been slowly but surely marginalized into very minor roles, which at first they did not really mind.

It seemed that things were in good hands with the next generation, and they welcomed a more relaxed lifestyle.

 

On the Outside Looking In

The parents remained majority owners, but having now surrendered pretty much all of the day-to-day running of the company, they were having difficulty making progress with their son on the ownership transition, since he saw no reason why his sister should even be in the conversation.

The parents’ surrender in the operations was causing unintended consequences on the ownership discussions.

Let’s switch gears now to another family, where three siblings all co-own a company started by their father, who passed away a long time ago. The company has a full independent Board of Directors, on which the siblings all sit.

 

Surrendering to your Sibling?

One sibling, and not the oldest, happens to be CEO, while another is a VP and the third runs a separate division.

When things were going well, everyone was happy. When things began to go sideways, the siblings who aren’t the CEO had difficulty surrendering the running of the company to the CEO.

In theory, the Board should provide a buffer here, but when there are three equal owners who are also on the Board, that sometimes doesn’t work as well in practice as it does in theory.

 

Positive Surrender… Is that Possible?

As I think I’ve hinted above, there must be some examples of surrendering in a family enterprise that are positive.

The idea for this came in a meditation recording I was listening to called “Learning to Surrender” (by Sarah Blondin; I’m a big fan).

The key to a positive surrender is your attitude, and an attitude of equanimity is what it really takes. See Equanimity: Yours for only $250 Million.

I’ll close with a story about a family I’ve been working with for a few years now.

 

Serenity Soon (If Not Now)

At a recent Family Council meeting, Dad informed his 4 children that he would soon be announcing that he would be stepping back from the Presidency of the business. 

He then added that a few months later, he planned to announce to employees that the rising generation were moving into ownership positions and more senior roles.

Their mother sat beside him with a proud smile, as they talked of plans to travel more while they could still really enjoy it, and to spend more time with their growing number of grandchildren.

I think we can all agree that this sounds like a positive surrender, one many others would love to emulate.

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Where Do YOU Fit in Your Business Family?

This post has been a long time coming, because the idea for it actually first came to me a few years ago, but somehow it never made it to my blog calendar.

The idea resurfaced again recently in some work I was doing with a family, so that was the clincher; it’s time.

 

Doing your “Values Work”

When working with people from business families, many consultants, myself included, emphasize the importance of working together to define and clarify the values that family members have in common, because once that work’s done, many decisions become easier to make.

Likewise, when I first entered this profession, I began to work on constructing my first website, and the coach I’d been working with insisted that I do my own personal “values work”, so that we could make the decisions we needed to make, so that my website properly reflected me, and what I find important.

For what it’s worth, the three core values I came up with were:

                        Authenticity  – Belonging –  Empathy

Because one’s values are typically pretty consistent over time, it should not be surprising to learn that I think that these still “fit” me pretty well.

And, noting that “belonging” is one of them, it shouldn’t be surprising that writing a blog about this topic is important to me, even if it’s something I could have (should have?) done sooner.

 

Standing on the Shoulders of a Giant

I don’t often share the names of people who inspire my posts, but I’ll make an exception here because I really wouldn’t have learned the importance of this without Aron Pervin, who shared it with me a few years ago while we had breakfast together in Toronto.

I was still new in this game, and I think I noted something about the importance for people to understand not only “what you do” in your FamBiz, but also “who you are”.

I thought I was pretty clever, highlighting the “Doing” and “Being” aspects, to this man who had been doing this work for decades before I began.

 

“I Also Add ‘Where Do You Fit’”

That’s when Aron replied that I was actually missing a pretty important piece, about “Where do you FIT”.

Hmmm. I thought.  That’s good. That’s really good.

I haven’t forgotten it either, but I do realize that I’ve been remiss in not sharing it here.

Because as much as I like it and think it’s important, I’m not sure that I’ve seen anyone else express it this way, this clearly.

 

Two Aspects, Two Steps

When I think about this question as it relates to enterprising families, it actually comes down to two separate components, or two aspects.  

The first part is all about “DO I fit?”, as in, am I welcome here, and it’s essentially a Yes or No question.  

It may seem like a small detail, but I can assure you that it’s not a negligible question.  Oftentimes, family members who aren’t employed in a business that is owned by the family will have trouble answering this question clearly and honestly.

There’s actually a degree of uncertainty in their minds, and it can sometimes be the subject of confusion.

 

OK, So Now Where Do I Fit?

The second part, assuming we have now answered that YES, we do fit, is to clarify exactly where we fit.  When answering Yes to the first part, it can sometimes become obvious that the second part of the question remains problematic.

There are many families where this line of thinking takes them “outside the box”, quite literally.

When a family business is still in its early decades, the idea that employees of an operating company have a place, and owners have a place, but that’s about it, can be prevalent.

The family members who don’t fit into those groups, but who are nonetheless “stakeholders”, can feel left out to some degree, and it can be a challenge to change that kind of thinking.

 

Family Council?  Board? Philanthropy?

For anyone reading this and scratching their head, I’ll leave you with a few possible ideas where non-employee family members might possibly fit into the family business.

Do you have a “family council” yet?  Is there a board of directors for the business, where some non-employee family members could add value?  How about family philanthropy?

These ideas work for some families, how about yours? Are you thinking outside the box?

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Instituting Family Governance, Incrementally

I just attended the 4th Annual Conference of the Institute for Family Governance (IFG) in NYC, and once again, it was a great experience worth sharing here.

Having attended the previous three as well, I noted to the organizers that I thought this was the best one yet, because it featured the most real live examples of families who have instituted governance in their families.

As I reflected on the stories we heard from and about these families, it also struck me that they all got where they are now by taking it one step at a time, i.e., incrementally.

 

Welcome to this “Whole New World”

The IFG annual conference has been a great place for people to be introduced to what for many is a “whole new world”, one where multigenerational families have made the significant efforts necessary to create systems, methods, structures and procedures to make sure that the wealth that they’ve created will continue to serve their families for generations.

Over the years, I’ve met many people who advise such families, but who often only get to see one aspect of how this all works for their clients, i.e. the part affected by their professional specialty (eg. law, tax, trusts, etc.)

This year I shared information about the conference with a colleague I had recently met at a coaching training workshop, who, after learning of my family business focus, had mentioned to me that she was working on her family’s first attempt at a family charter.

I’m so glad that she attended, because she got to see this “whole new world” that she was now entering with her family, but did so surrounded by a whole bunch of people who are already so comfortable in this world.

 

Each Family Is Unique, So Is Their Governance

Every story we heard about a family was different from every other one, because each family has their own history, composition, priorities, and desires.

The beauty of such a conference is that we got to see glimpses of different aspects of what some families have done, and we can learn so much from others, even when circumstances are very different from ones that we are faced with.

Even though each family is unique, there were some things that they all had in common.

 

Intentionality, Commitment, and Outside Help

We heard from a number of professionals who work with families on governance matters, who related stories about the process and all of the hard work that families need to put in to make governance work.

We also heard from a number of family members from such families, and it became clear that this work requires a lot of commitment from a large number of people in order to function.

And when we heard from family members themselves, they typically had high praise for the professionals that they worked with from outside the family, without whom they would not have come so far.

 

A Resilient Rising Generation

During the lunch break, attendees had a choice of roundtable discussions that they could attend, each lead by one or two facilitators selected by the organisers.

I co-lead the table about “Communication and Resilient Beneficiaries” with colleague Rebecca Meyer of Relative Solutions.  Some of the discussions we had are worth sharing, as we had some great input form advisors and family members alike.

Allowing your offspring to make their own mistakes, and resisting the urge to go and fix things for them was a common theme.

There was also lots of talk about normalizing failure, by having the leading generation share stories about their own mistakes and challenges that they faced, with which their children are not always familiar.

 

Lots of Effort, But Well Worth It

In the end, governance is mostly about communication, and families should be looking for more opportunities to talk and share experiences.

As a family’s wealth moves from the control of one generation to the next, they’ll all need to learn how to work together for the greater good of the whole family.

This doesn’t necessarily come naturally to all families, so starting small and learning together is usually a good idea.

All the families mentioned at the conference have been at it for at least a few years and they’re all continuing to improve and refine what they’re doing together, incrementally, but surely.

Is it time for your family to get started?

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Pens Vs Pencils for Your FamBiz

Pens Vs Pencils for Your FamBiz

This week’s topic is pretty simple, it’s about not overcomplicating things when it comes to working on the family issues in your business family.

To make my point stick, I want to share a story that I heard many years ago; you may have also heard some version of it too.

Part of me was tempted to do some research on this, to get the details correct and even verify that it is in fact a true story and not just an “urban legend”.  

But the lazier part of me won out, as I rationalized the fact that the details of the story really matter very little.  And, even if the story isn’t actually true, well, it could be!

 

Crazy Government Budget Stories

We’ve all heard various versions of stories where some government department spent $856,000 on a hammer, because of bureaucracy and overly complicated specifications.  My story is kind of like that too, with an added punch line. So here goes.

It seems that in the early days of the U.S. space program, there was a concern that because of a lack of gravity in outer space, conventional pens would not work aboard the spacecraft.  Gravity is one of those things we take for granted, and we only really appreciate some aspects of it when they aren’t there.

As the story goes, countless engineers and scientists got to work on a solution, to design a pen that would still work, even in the absence of gravity.

Of course putting lots of people to work on something ends up costing a lot of money.  And so nobody would be surprised to learn that the final cost was somewhere in the zillions of dollars.

 

A Cheaper Alternative

Meanwhile, in another country, over in Europe or Asia (or maybe both) they too were working on sending people into space.  They too had recognized that pens would not work due to the gravity issue.

Their solution? 

                                   To use pencils instead of pens.

The moral of the story is that there is often a very simple solution to every issue, if you take the time to look for it.

The issues that I typically talk about here are all about enterprising families and how they need to learn to work together as a family.

When people consider this subject for the first time, it can quickly seem complicated too, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

 

A Constitutional Crisis

As I wrote last summer in Behind the Flawed Family Constitution, some families believe that they need to create a full blown constitution for their families, right off the bat.

While it’s true that some multigenerational families do have their own constitution, I’m willing to bet that not one of them used a family constitution as their starting point in the creation of their family governance.

What they all likely did, way back when they were beginning to walk down that path, was to start with a family meeting. In fact, they might have even had a meeting about having meetings, which is actually a thing.

 

Family Council Meeting “Number Zero”

A client family I’ve been working with for the past few years, (mostly with the rising generation but also with their parents), started having quarterly “family council meetings” a couple of years ago.

When we all gathered for the first of those meetings, I handed out an agenda, which clearly stated that this was simply “Family Council Meeting # 0”.

It was a meeting about the kinds of meetings we were going to be having, and it’s where we decided, together, on some basic guidelines for these meetings going forward.

 

Not Carved in Stone, Just Written in Pencil

Most important of all is the attitude involved and the acceptance that there is not a single way to do this, and that the best way to go is to let things evolve, slowly but surely.

I’m reminded of a post I wrote a few years back, Start Cleaning Up your MESS where “MESS” is an acronym to help recall that you should “Start Moving”, “Start Early”, “Start Small”, and “Start Slowly”.

You also need to be flexible in letting everything develop at its own pace, and not be in a huge hurry. This is NOT about having one family meeting.  It’s about beginning a series of regular family meetings.

Take notes in pen or pencil, your choice. 

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Lighting the Way in your FamBiz

This week I want to take you on a quick journey through a few different metaphors that all involve light and are related to family business.

The initial idea for this post, as evidenced the title I chose, was to talk about the importance of having someone “light the way” for the family business.  So we’ll start there, but also take a bit of a tour of different types of lights that can also come in handy too.

 

The Torch Bearer

When you think about a family business, there’s often one person, typically a founder or a key leader from another generation, that comes to mind. I like the visual of a person holding a torch, leading the way, with others following.

The importance of great leadership in any organisation cannot be overstated, and family businesses are no different.

We often also hear about passing the torch to the next leader, but I much prefer another metaphor that I’ve heard and will continue to spread.

Rather than passing on their torch to someone else, wouldn’t it be better to light someone else’s torch instead?

Fire is something that you can give away and still have, kind of like love, in a way.

 

Under the Spotlight

There’s another form of light that is also typically associated with business families, and that’s the “spotlight”. Anyone who has ever gone to work for their parents knows about this light, and it isn’t always a comfortable place to be.

When your last name is the same as that of the person who signs the paycheques, and especially if that name is also on the sign above the door, you just know that everyone will be watching you.

Of course this can also be a good thing, because it does help keep these rising generation family members honest, knowing that it will be difficult to hide anything that they do that perhaps they shouldn’t.

 

The Search Light

I much prefer the search light or even a simple flashlight as a metaphor, because even though they are pretty similar to a spotlight, the intent is very different.

What I’m getting at here is that you use this type of light to look for something, by shining the light into places that are perhaps not as clear as they could be.

I often talk about the human capital that lies in every business family, and sometimes the search for such human capital is not as active as it could be. It takes time, effort, and intention to do this, but shining that light can pay huge dividends.

 

The Beacon or Lighthouse

The beacon has some similarities to the torch, in that they both act as a kind of guiding light. The lighthouse has an added element of stability and strength, though.

It almost feels like something that would apply to someone who has held a key active leadership role in the past, and has remained on the scene in a smaller role, but continues to be a wise soul for those who are now running things.

 

Sunlight: The Best Disinfectant

You may take issue with my including sunlight as one of my lights here, but that argument won’t get you very far, since it is completely natural to include it. 

You may be surprised at my reason for including it here, because it’s very different from the others.  

I really like the expression about sunlight being the best disinfectant, which is something we sometimes hear when discussing politics and government.

 

Transparency Is the Key

When it comes to families, though, it also has its place. I’m thinking about the fact that very often some family members are not as close to the family business as others.

When there is unequal information about what’s going on, especially when it comes to financial issues like compensation, there’s often plenty of suspicion as well.

That’s why I am talking about the importance of sunlight, because transparency is the best antidote to those suspicions.

 

You Light Up My Life

With apologies to Debbie Boone, a family business can be a huge plus for so many families, and it can truly light up the lives of so many family members.

It isn’t always all sweetness and light, though, as the blessings of a family business can quickly become curses instead, when things aren’t done as well as they should be.

 

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