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Putting the “Own” in Ownership

I am a big fan of the three-circle model and I have been since I first learned of its existence a few years ago.

As the story goes, it was actually derived from the two-circle model that preceded it, which was already groundbreaking in its own way because it was an attempt to separate the “family” and the “business” circles, while acknowledging their overlap.

When Renato Tagiuri and John Davis added “ownership” as the third circle, they had created a model that has stood the test of time for three decades now.

Ownership remains the circle that is hardest to grasp for many people, despite the fact that it sounds pretty straightforward on the surface.

People who do not have any relationship to a family business probably have a better grasp on the meaning of the word ownership, because anything that they own is likely pretty clear to them.

This week I attended an event where a woman from the third generation of a business family related that when she became an owner of her family’s business, she was not even informed until a year after the fact.

This reminded me of an event that I lived with my father many years ago. It was back in the 1980’s when CAFÉ was going strong in Montreal, and we attended a workshop together. In preparation, the organisers sent out a questionnaire to all attendees, asking for the percentage ownership in their family business.

My Dad had left this task to me, and I noted that he owned 67% of the company, and I owned 11%. He had set things up with two holdco’s, his, with 2/3 ownership, and his 3 children’s, with 1/3.

During the event, he saw the questionnaire that I had filled out for the first time, and he asked me point blank “What’s this?” I told him essentially what I just noted in the previous paragraph. “Oh, yeah, I guess you are right” was his reply.

Clearly he still considered himself the 100% owner, and I guess my sisters and I did too!

So ownership can be a little nebulous from time to time, and I know of at least one family business advisor who says that he only works with clients on ownership governance matters and avoids working with business founders, who so often have difficulty understanding the three circles.

A couple of weeks ago at the Family Business Summit in Halifax, I participated in an interactive exercise led by Doug Bolger of Learn2, who had the entire room working together and discussing succession matters.

At one point I had another “A-Ha moment”, and I always try to share those in this blog. We were discussing “ownership”, and then someone mentioned members of a younger generation wanting to do their “own” thing.

I had never realized that the word “own”, as in “my own” was part of the word “ownership”. I raised my hand and shared this realization with the group, and based on the reaction, I was not alone.

There is a new initiative being launched by the Business Family Foundation (BFF) this fall that recognizes that members of the rising generation in families seem to be more interested in doing their “own” thing more and more frequently these days.

They have created the “Initiative Intrapreneuriale” which will begin in Montreal in September, in French. As one of their “ambassadors” on this project, I would like to share why I think the idea behind this program is one “whose time has come”.

Intrapreneurship is not a new idea, many companies have benefitted from it, often without even calling it by this name.

What the BFF’s program is designed to do is to help spark business families into intrapreneurship as a way to get younger family members to join their family’s business AND do their own thing.

Enterprising families recognize that businesses have life cycles, and know about the importance of renewal. So why not encourage younger members to come up with their own business, and have it “grow up” within the existing family firm?

Sounds like a win-win proposition to me.

 

 

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My CAFÉ Symposium 2016 Top 10 List

Returning from Calgary after attending my third annual CAFÉ Symposium in a row, I thought I would try something a bit different in this blog, and with a hat tip to David Letterman, here is my Top 10 List of memories.

Number 10 – Tony Dilawri’s Dad stories

A second generation family business leader who opened the Symposium with his family story.

Favourite parts: His Dad announcing “We’re all moving to Regina”, as well as his Dad telling him he was not working hard enough because he did not work on weekends, and his reply that he had multiplied the size of the company many times over while working less hours.

Number 9 – Dinner conversation

At the Family Enterprise of the Year Award dinner, I was seated next to a retired criminal lawyer, Larry Hursh (accompanied by his wife Carolyn) and I had the chance to exchange views with him on the Oland trial that I had attended in November.

Number 8 – Another Molson please

After the FEYA dinner, author Gordon Pitts interviewed Andrew Molson, who shed light on how their family has remained strong over the generations, including 3 separate times that they have owned my favourite hockey team.

Number 7 – Old Friends, New Friends

Like any annual conference you attend, it just gets better every year, because you know more people and more people know you. It was great to see old friends and meet other new ones, and hopefully we will all see each other again in Halifax in 2017.

Number 6 – Paint by Numbers

An old friend was Sarah Tkatchuk of KPMG, and she and some colleagues lead a workshop called “Painting a clear picture of long term family success”, which was surprising to me because “painting” and “accountants” are not necessarily two words you think of together. Of course, it was essentially a “paint-by-numbers” exercise.

Number 5 – You are getting sleepy

Wayne Lee’s hypnosis show was hilarious and very memorable for the performances by a couple of participants, old friend Trudy Pelletier and new friend Margaret-Jean Mannix. I will just leave it at that.

Number 4 – Brett Wilson’s unique ways

The former Dragon shared a few of his stories and philosophies to end the conference.

Favourite parts: He admits attending the University of Saskatchewan because he did not realize that (in theory at least) he had other choices of schools. Also, the methods he is using to get his children to be financially responsible, which sound like they are working, even if they are clearly not for everyone.

Number 3 – Prepare those heirs!

The mother-daughter team of Kathy Reich and Nicky Scott shared lots of great ideas during their workshop. It is nice to see that more people are getting into what they called “Preparing Heirs for Assets (not the other way around)”.

Having read “Preparing Heirs” myself, and also having the pleasure of speaking with author Roy Wilson on a recent conference call, I am glad to help spread this message to more people.

Number 2 – A new take on Core Values

Keynote speaker John DeHart spoke passionately about how he co-founded Nurse Next Door and how defining their corporate values was (and still is) their key to success.

It only hit me after he was finished that his real innovation was getting away from the staid old “one word” values like integrity and replaced them with sayings, taglines or catchphrases like “sunny side up”, which was both a personal value of his and a value of his company.

Number 1 – The Bermingham Story

Patrick Bermingham recounted the tale of his 119-year old family business, and what a tale it was.

Favourite parts: How he purchased the company from his father, they shook hands, and Dad never said another word, he was now fully in charge. How he went about raising cash at a time where he had no other choice, and how he offered shares to key employees to ensure the company’s growth would be sustainable.

Many inspirational stories were heard and enjoyed by the hundreds of attendees, and I was glad to be one of them again.

I hope to see you all in Halifax next year!

 

 

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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There Is No “Fast Forward” Button

Last week we looked at the fact that people sometimes wish that they had the ability to hit the “Rewind” button in their life, but that outside of Hollywood, this was not something that is available to ordinary people (or even extra-ordinary people).

As I wrapped up, I promised to follow up with the mirror image of the Rewind button, which as we all remember from our 1970’s tape recorders or our 1990’s VCRs, is the “Fast Forward” button.

There are likely more people who wish they could hit Rewind than Fast Forward, based on two simple facts: our own mortality often makes us prefer to slow things down rather than speed things up, plus the fact that what has already occurred in the past is known, while the future is at best an educated guess.

Last week I made the tie-in to business families by talking about how family relationships sometimes get “stuck” because some family members hang on to past issues far longer than they probably should, and well past the point of their usefulness.

Some of you may be wondering how I am planning to make the family business question tie in to the Fast Forward button. Here goes…

Unfortunately, this subject forces us to look at a topic that most people prefer to avoid discussing, and it is one that was mentioned in passing a bit earlier. If you guessed that I was talking about mortality, take a bow.

Before I get to the ultra-frank wording of the manifestation of this problem, I want to tell you that it is something that I have seen far too often, and it breaks my heart every time.

For the past few years, even as my kids were only reaching their teens, I told them many times that even though I don’t yet know specifically “how” I am going to do it, I am determined to arrange my affairs in such a way that they will never be placed in a situatiuon where they will be hoping for me and their mother to die.

And that is the big Fast Forward button that too many people secretly wish that they could push.

Of course nobody will admit this, at least not out loud. Most will not even admit it to themselves. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening all around us, every day.

I did not wish for my father to die, as he left us, seven years ago, at the age of 72, but I sometimes wonder what my life would be like today if he were still with us. I truly hate to admit this, but I honestly do not think that I would be as happy as I am today if he were still around. (Wow, did I actually really just write that?)

There must be a really good reason for me to share this with readers, and there is. Knowing what I know now, about the importance of allowing each generation to rise and become everything they can be, is what I truly want and need to share.

This is not saying that my father was a bad person, in fact, in many ways, it says more about me, and my part in my relationship with my father, and my not having the courage to put what I needed on the table for discussion.

We did not have anyone that we knew at our disposal to help us have the important conversations that we should have been having.

It’s not that I would have pushed the Fast Forward button, but how many people out there secretly wish they could?

You don’t have the excuse that I did, about not having anyone at your disposal to help you have those key conversations, because you do. You are reading his blog right now.

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I Just Sold My Business for $50 Million. Now What?

This kind of situation happens in real life, and it certainly causes people to be seen differently by others, but that is only the beginning of how their lives will change. Most people will be envious of anyone in this position, but that doesn’t mean that they have necessarily solved all of their problems either.

So what does change, and what problems are you now faced with if you are the person at the center of this?

I will focus my comments on a “plain vanilla” family business situation for simplicity’s sake, but keep in mind that things can be much more complicated these days, with complex family structures that sometimes seem to be the norm with reconstituted families.

Let’s look at just three aspects of the new reality this person would face in the months and years after the business sale: the money, the person, and the family. Let’s call the person “Pat” for the sake of gender neutrality.

The Money

So Pat was recently running a business worth $50 million, and was probably doing a pretty good job, seeing as a company that size doesn’t typically run by itself. Good job, Pat. In comparison, running a $50 million pile of cash should be a walk in the park, right?

Well maybe yes, but not necessarily. The company surely had lots of qualified people looking after different departments. Money is certainly more straightforward, but it doesn’t manage itself either.

Pat may be surprised by how many new “friends” show up with great opportunities to invest part of that money, as well as how many experts materialize all of a sudden, each insisting that they are the best person for Pat’s particular situation.

Take your time, Pat, there is no big rush. Yes, you probably want to get your capital working for you, but taking a few weeks or months to figure out just how you want to manage your wealth is highly recommended. If any potential advisor tries to rush you, that is likely a sign that they are more interested in how your wealth can help them, and not you.

The Person

So Pat, what do you want to do? Travel, play golf, great. But what else?

Is there enough there to keep you challenged? People who work for someone else are often satisfied to no longer have to work for some A-Hole boss after they retire, and they can often be found on the golf course.

But Pat, you built a company, and now you sold it. I sure hope you already have some ideas of what you want to do with your time, some kind of projects, to replace the “work” part of your life.

Take a break, recharge, yes, great. But then what? I hope you will try a few new things and keep going until you find something that keeps the drive alive. Or better yet, you can find a few different “somethings”. Hint: Try volunteering. Plenty of good causes need good help.

The Family

Now this could be the toughest one of all.

Assuming that you have children, some of whom may have worked in the business, things have now changed for them too. Depending on whether or not they saw this coming, whether or not they remain with the company for some period, and whether or not they have marketable skills to find a similar job elsewhere, this is not something to dismiss lightly.

Please take the opportunity to share your thoughts with each of your children, individually and together, on how this sale changes things for them too. An attitude of “well, that’s their problem” is not very helpful.

If you have spent most of your time focussing on the business at the expense of spending time being a parent, maybe you can start to make up for that now?

When I wrote “share your thoughts” with your family, I wasn’t talking about a one-time event here, but regular contact. Get to know them each a bit better, treat them fairly, be a good parent, and help each of them become the best person they can be. Now there is a worthwhile project.

 

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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Transition with Purpose

This past week I was in Toronto for a few days, where in addition to meeting with various interesting people, I also attended an event put on by IFEA (Institute of Family Enterprise Advisors – ifea.ca) where I gained some insights into a subject that is beginning to affect workplaces and families everywhere.

The presentation was entitled “The Multigenerational Complexities Business Family Succession” which sounded like it was going to be right up my alley, but made me almost feel like I would not be learn much of anything new. I am happy to report that I was wrong on both counts.

The presenter, Lisa Taylor, founder of The Challenge Factory, started off by asking a few questions about retirement age and life expectancy, and as soon as I heard the first few answers, I had a good idea of where this talk was going. But I had no idea how eye-opening it would be.

Let me summarize a bit by saying that when 65 became the “official” retirement age, life expectancy was 62. The fact that many people continue to operate from a paradigm of “65 = retirement” is pretty befuddling in that light.

What ensued was an in-depth discussion about how increased (and increasing) life expectancy has affected workforces everywhere, as many people who are approaching 65 are not interested in retiring, and instead wish to continue working, for a variety of reasons.

Taylor used an analogy of riding up an escalator, and looking up ahead of you, when all of a sudden the person nearing the top decides not to get off, but instead takes a step backwards in order to keep the ride going just a bit longer. (You can watch a brief video of Taylor talking about the escalator analogy on her website at challengefactory.ca)

It does not take long for that one person at the top of the escalator, taking steps backwards, to begin to have adverse and dangerous effects on everyone else trying to ride to the top. This occurs in family businesses all the time, but also in many other kinds of workplaces.

In fact, the talk did not focus much on family business at all, but was actually quite interesting from a societal perspective, as longer life expectancy has created new realities for everyone, even if many people have not really noticed or begun to change their views of work lives.

On one of her slides, Taylor illustrated the difference between a typical career path using the “retire at 65” model that had prevailed through the second half of the past century, and a more recent variation that is becoming more prominent nowadays.

What struck me was her use of the expression “Transition with Purpose” that can occur at a couple of junctures in one’s work life, with a notable one (for me) around age 50. It seems that many people feel the need to make some sort of career transition at this age, and seeing this makes me feel more “normal”, as it really “fits” my reality.

If we had had more time during the discussion, I would have liked to talk about the concept of “Transition with Purpose” as it could benefit many business families.

What I am getting at here is the problem that many family businesses face when the founder keeps stepping backwards on the escalator, which results in many complications for the rest of the family and the business. My feeling is that if more time and effort is made in helping the founder find his or her “Transition with Purpose”, we would go a long way to minimize the number of these situations.

If we look at each of the two main words in the expression, I think that “transition” is the part that most people “get”, as the realities of aging and family life cycle mean that we go from one role to another over the course of a lifetime. But it is the “Purpose” part that seems much more elusive, and therefore requires more effort.

Every effort made to discover a worthwhile purpose is well worth it in the end.

 

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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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Communication: In Curling, and in the Family 

(Editor’s note: This post is a translation of last week’s post in French)

Hockey is generally considered to be THE Canadian sport, in which our national teams often win the biggest tournaments, on both the men’s and women’s sides. But there is another winter sport where Canadian teams win gold medals even more often than our hockey teams do.

Thanks to the title of this blog, you have probably already guessed that I am talking about curling. This sport has intrigued me for forty years or so, and since my entire family is not heavily involved in it, I continue to follow it closely.

Both of my kids play on the provincial juvenile curling circuit, and my wife is the coach of our daughter’s team, so every winter I get to watch a lot of bonspiels (tournaments). And when there is curling on TV, you can be sure that at least one of our TV’s will be tuned to TSN to watch the games.

Now you may be wondering what curling could have to do with communication, and even more so about family communication. Just stay with me, I am getting there.

If you are already a fan of curling, you know that communication between the four team members is really important. Each player throws two stones per end, while two teammates sweep (or not) in front of the stone, while the skip waits in the house and yells out instructions.

You can observe this during any curling match, from a recreation league game at a local club, through the juvenile circuit, and all the way up to the best teams in the world.

In any family business, there is also some common basic communication going on, but instead of the skip yelling out instructions, it is usually Dad telling everyone what to do. This goes on in just about any family, from one that owns a simple restaurant, through those with a few hundred employees and who are in the second or third generation, all the way to dynastic families.

But now, let’s start to look at some nuances. The team playing in the weekly rec league for the fun of it probably doesn’t communicate any more than necessary, and it will usually be the skip (the one with the most experience) who gives most of the instructions to the others.

A small family business probably acts in much the same way. No more discussion than necessary, and the boss is the one that runs things, his way.

But when you watch national championships on TV, you can see that curling is truly a team sport. Yes, you can still hear the skip screaming instructions to the sweepers when he/she wants the sweepers to sweep harder, or else the shot will be missed.

Curling became the best televised sport when they put microphones on the players may years ago, giving fans the ability to hear all of the discussions between the team members.

Imagine if you could watch and listen to the Rockefellers, the Desmarais’s, the Irvings, the Molsons, as they communicate about the decisions surrounding their families and their companies. Now THAT would be interesting.

As for curling, I can state unequivocally that the best teams at the highest level are successful in large part because of the way they make decisions and how they communicate with each other during games.

These teams have understood that they win or lose as a team, and that no one person has a monopoly on decisions, and certainly on the information that needs to be exchanged among teammates while the rock is in motion.

I watch my kids play and I am proud to say that they are making the effort to communicate better and more frequently on the ice, and they improve with each game.

Could entrepreneurial families learn something about the importance of communication by watching curling? Maybe so.

 

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La communication: au curling, comme en famille

Le hockey est généralement considéré comme LE sport canadien où nos équipes nationales gagnent souvent les plus grands tounois, tant chez les hommes que chez les femmes. Mais il y a un autre sport d’hiver où nos équipes canadiennes gagnent la médaille d’or encore plus souvent que nos hockeyeurs.

Grâce au titre de ce blogue, vous avez sans doute deviné que je parle du curling. Ce sport m’intrigue depuis une quarantaine d’années et, puisque toute ma famille y est présentement très impliquée, je continue à le suivre de près.

Mes deux enfants jouent sur le circuit provincial juvénile, et ma femme est entraîneur de l’équipe de ma fille, donc au cours de chaque hiver, j’assiste à plusieurs bonspiels (tournois). Et quand il y a du curling à la télé, vous pouvez être certain qu’au moins une de nos télés est allumée sur TSN pour regarder les matchs.

Vous commencez peut-être à vous questionner sur ce que le curling pourrait avoir avec la communication, et encore plus sur la communication familiale. Restez avec moi SVP, j’y arrive.

Si vous êtes déjà amateur de curling, vous savez que la communication entre les quatre membres d’une équipe est très importante. Chaque joueur lance deux pierres par bout, pendant que deux de ses co-équipiers balayent (ou non) devant la pierre, et le capitaine (“skip” en anglais) attend dans la maison et crie ses instructions.

Voilà ce qu’on peux voir en regardant n’importe quel match de curling, d’une équipe récréative dans un club le mardi soir, en passant par les juvéniles sur le circuit, et même au championnat du monde.

Dans n’importe quelle entreprise familiale, il y a aussi de la communication de base, mais au lieu du skip qui crie ses instructions, c’est probablement le père qui dit à tous quoi faire. Cela se passe dans presque toutes les familles, de ceux qui ont un simple petit restaurant, en passant par ceux qui ont des centaines d’employés et qui sont à la deuxième ou troisième génération, et même dans les familles dynastiques.

Mais là nous allons commencer à regarder un peu les nuances. L’équipe qui joue dans une ligue hebdomadaire, pour le simple plaisir, ne communique pas beaucoup plus qu’il le faut, et c’est souvent le skip qui a le plus d’expérience, et c’est lui qui envoie la grande partie des instructions aux autres.

Une petite entreprise familiale agira probablement de façon semblable. Pas plus de discussion qu’il ne faut, et c’est le boss qui dirige.

Mais c’est quand on regarde les championnats de curling à la télévision qu’on voit que le curling est vraiment un sport d’équipe. Oui, ce qu’on entend le plus c’est le skip qui crie fort quand il veut que les balayeurs travaillent plus fort, mais sinon le lancer serait raté.

Mais le curling est devenu le meilleur sport télévisé quand ils ont mis des micros sur les joueurs, ce qui donne aux amateurs la chance d’écouter toutes les discussions entre les membres des équipes.

Imaginez si on pourrait voir et écouter les Rockefellers, les Desmarais, les Irvings, et les Molsons quand ils se communiquent concernant les décisions qui entourent leurs familles et leurs compagnies. Ça serait fort intéressant.

En ce qui concerne le curling, je peux vous dire sans équivoque que les meilleures équipes des plus hauts niveaux ont du succès en grande partie grâce à la façon don’t ils prennent leurs décisions et comment ils communiquent entre eux durant les parties.

Ces équipes ont compris qu’ils gagneront ou perdront en équipe, et que ce n’est pas une seule personne qui a le monopole sur les décisions et surtout sur l’information qui doit être échangée entre les co-équipiers pendant que la pierre est en mouvement.

Je regarde mes enfants jouer et je suis fier de dire qu’ils font de gros efforts pour toujours mieux communiquer sur la glace, et ils s’améliorent avec chaque partie.

Est-ce que votre famille entrepreneuriale pourrait apprendre quelque chose sur l’importance de la communication en écoutant le curling?

Peut-être que oui.

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A Good Will Should Leave No Ill-Will

Sometimes when I come up with a blog topic, I end up spending a lot of time trying to get just the right title to make it sound intriguing. I have to say that the title above feels like it works.

Unfortuntely, though, sometimes the “right” title ends up being far from the original thought that inspired the blog in the first place. No problem there, as explaining the link between the spark and the title can be used productively as part of the story telling. Here goes.

I have written on the subject of wills in the past, and I invariably reference the work of Toms Deans each time I do, since his book “Willing Wisdom” is the best work that I have read on the subject, and not just because his thinking is well aligned with mine. Deans talks about a “collaborative will”, as in a document that is worked on together with the entire family.

In his speeches about the subject, he openly admits that his point of view is not shared by the majority of his audience, at least when they first hear it. He regales his listeners with stories of outright derision that he feels in his Q & A sessions, where people actually tell him that they think his ideas are crazy.

Let’s get back to the idea that originally sparked this blog post. I was actually watching my favourite reality TV show, Survivor, when it came to me. The show has been on since 2000, and they normally run two seasons per year, and they will be debuting the 30th season in the coming weeks. It has definitely stood the test of time.

What makes the show compelling is the element of human interaction and the way that people are forced to work together at first, but then eventually vote each other off the show in order to win the million dollar prize. The formula is superb, and results in fascinating TV for the whole family. We have been watching it as a family for many years.

For me the most fascinating part is the psychological component, as we get to see groups of people conspire together, planning to get rid of various opponents each week. As the numbers get smaller, people who previously worked together end up working against each other, but often on the surface they seem to still be working together.

These situations invariably end up with someone being voted out in what is always deemed a “blind-side”. In every version of Survivor, especially in the final 6 to 8 weeks of the season, several people are voted out in situations that they never saw coming.

The participants head off to the ritual of “Tribal Council” where they answer a few questions from host Jeff Probst, and then they each go and secretly write down the name of the person they want to vote out. This is normally preceded by a whole bunch of deception, double-talk, lying, acting out, arguing, crying, whatever.

In the early episodes of each season, the people voted out are not that surprised that they were selected, and they generally leave with their feelings intact. But as they get closer to the end, the ones voted out are often surprised, because they feel deceived by people they thought they could trust.

OK, so what does this have to do with a will again? Thanks for asking.

After you die, your family will go through the ritual of reading your will. Do you want your loved ones to be blind-sided? They probably think that they can trust you too. If they are surprised, they may feel hurt.

There are reasons why you have decided to leave things the way that you did, and they are (hopefully) good reasons. But, if you are no longer around to explain your reasons, and they are somehow misunderstood, you may leave someone feeling blind-sided. A good will should leave no ill-will.

 

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Put On your Own Mask First

Anyone who has ever been on a commercial airline flight will have heard the safety procedures over and over, to the point where some feel like they could repeat the demonstation themselves from memory.

Thankfully for me, I do not fly as often as I once did, and I have almost trained my brain to be able to tune the instructions out, especially since most of my flights originate in Montreal, so I get to hear the message repeated in English and French.

There is a nugget of wisdom in the standard message though, which applies to life in general, and not simply to what you should do in the event of a loss of cabin pressure.

Although I have yet to experience an incident in which those famous oxygen masks instantly drop from overhead, I am 100% certain that I would obey the directive that I first put on my own mask, before attempting to help others to put theirs on.

Quite simply, if you have not made sure that you are taken care of, you may soon be unable to help anyone else. Let’s look at some other areas in life where this is also the case.

One of my all-time favourite speakers was Zig Ziglar (1926-2012), motivator extraordinaire. I used to love to listen to his tapes, with his southern accent, going on about how motivation is important, but is not a one-time thing, like getting a vaccination. It was more like hygiene, something you need to do a little bit of, every day.

In one of the first lectures of his that I heard, he spoke about his need to lose weight, because he was about to become a motivational speaker, and he realized that his credibility would be very low if he got up on stage and everyone’s first impression was “what is this ol’ fat boy gonna teach me?”

I was also a big fan of the Sopranos TV series, where Tony Soprano often visited his psychiatrist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi. I remember being intrigued the first time that they showed her visiting with her shrink. Hmm, the shrink has her own shrink, interesting.

Of course I also now understand that good coaches have their own coaches, and these relationships are sometimes symbiotic, and create a win-win situation.

There is an area that I am currently working on personally too, which is integral to my work with families, and it comes from Bowen theory. Dr. Murray Bowen (1913-1990) was an American psychiatrist who carried out some ground-breaking work in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

He began by working with schizophrenia patients, but soon found that his theories also applied to almost all families. His Bowen family systems theory is based on the premise that the person in the family who is deemed to be “sick” is best treated as part of the entire family system.

The “problem” does not reside “within” this person, but is more likely caused by the interactions of this person with the other members of the family system.

The term “systems theory” is used in many fields, notably in medecine, and is all about how changes in one area undeniably cause changes in other areas as well, since the entire “system” has many inter-related components.

I am currently half way through a course on Bowen theory, and I find it fascinating. I had an A-Ha moment during our December class on the family projection process, and I am still coming to terms with some of the things that I am learning about myself, and the way that I am, thanks to the relationships that I had and have with my family of origin.

I am working on better understanding myself, and it is a process, like everything. But that’s alright, as I am very much a “journey” kind of guy, as opposed to a “destination” guy.

I have put my mask on, and I am breathing normally, so that I can now help anyone else put on their mask too.

 

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