, ,

University Case Competition: Family Business Style

Last week the place to be was Burlington, Vermont.  I happened to be right in the thick of it for the first couple of days, and my experience was nothing but positive. So what was going on there that was so special?

For the third year in a row, the University of Vermont hosted the Global Family Enterprise Case Competition (#FECC15) at the Burlington Hilton and on their beautiful campus. It is the only competiton of its kind on the planet.

When they say “global”, they are not kidding either. While about half of the teams came from North America (including 4 from Canada and 2 from Mexico) there were competitors on hand from Europe, South America, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and the UK, and I may have missed some.  Sixteen schools sent Undergraduate teams, and eight schools were represented in the Graduate league.

I have seen many business cases over the years, dozens during my undergrad and hundreds while doing my MBA, but I never read any cases like the ones used in this competition.  I was lucky enough to be a judge on the first two days, and I can say that the cases that the students had to present solutions for were like no business cases I had ever even imagined reading.

The competitors had a full seven days to prepare the first case, so they all had plenty of time to figure out what they were going to propose, how the were going to structure their presentations, and which teammates would be responsible for which sections.

The second and third cases, as well as the final on Saturday, were set up so that each team of three students would only have 4 hours from the time they received the case to the time they were required to present their viewpoints to a panel of “esteemed” judges.

But let me get back to the cases, because it can’t really be a family enterprise case competition if the cases are not situations that only a real family business would face.  I was only privy to the first two cases, but they were both fantastic examples of what successful family businesses face as they go from one generation of managers and owners to the next.

The first case was about a third-generation (G3) family who had been trying to write their family constitution for a few years already, without success, despite hiring a few consultants to help guide them. The four teams in the division that I was judging all came at their solutions in a different way.  Not only that, but each team brought up at least one issue that none of the other three had mentioned.

On day two, the teams were now faced with the time crunch of only having 4 hours to prepare, from the time they received the case until they had to begin their presentation.  But despite the fact that they had very little time, the solutions that I got to see and hear were quite remarkable.

This case involved a group of G4 siblings who were worried that their children (G5) were not showing enough interest in getting involved in the business. During the judges preparation meeting, I pointed out that the average age of the judges was likely close to the ages of the G4’s in the case, while the ages of the G5’s in the case was close to that of the competitors whose solutions we would be hearing.

It was a fantastic experience for me, as well as the judges that I worked with; I can only imagine how great the week was for those who came to compete.

The undergrad finalists included 3 Canadian schools and one from Chile, with Carleton U’s Sprott School of Business taking top spot in the final round over Dalhousie.  The winners of the Graduate section were from Jonkoping Unviversity of Sweden

I hope to take part again next year, at the 4th Annual FECC, in January, 2016.

 

/by
,

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.

 

/by
,

Apprendre en lisant; réapprendre en relisant

C’est assez rare que je relis un livre, mais quand je le fais, j’apprends de nouvelles choses à chaque fois. Je devrais donc le faire plus souvent, n’est-ce pas?

Si je ne le fais pas autant que je le devrais, c’est sans doute grâce à un manque de temps. Et aussi, à cause d’un surplus de livres déjà sur mon bureau.

Mais dernièrement, j’ai eu la chance de faire quelque chose que je n’avais jamais fait auparavant. J’ai relu un livre en français que j’avais déjà lu en anglais. C’était vraiment cool, parce que tandis que le contenu était presque complètement pareil, c’était exprimé d’une nouvelle façon.

Ça veut probablement dire que la traduction était très bien faite, et j’ose dire que le livre était sûrement à mon goût si j’ai pris la peine de le relire.

Depuis que j’oeuvre dans le domaine des entreprises familiales, j’ai lu quelques livres sur le sujet, mais celui-ci était le premier que j’ai relu, et en le relisant, je me suis rappellé comment je l’avais aimé la première fois.

Mais quel est ce livre remarquable, vous vous demandez? En anglais, il s’appelle SHIFT your Family Business, c’est sorti en juillet 2014, et son auteur est quelqu’un que je vois souvent, surtout quand je regarde dans le miroir.

J’ai décidé de le faire traduire en français dernièrement, et je venais de recevoir la version française il y a deux semaines environ. Je ne sais pas si je l’aurais relu autrement, surtout pas si vite après l’avoir lu la première fois.

C’était toute une expérience de voir mes textes dans une autre forme que laquelle je les avais écrits, mais c’était très agréable de lire un livre qui avait un contenu avec lequel j’étais tellement d’accord!

Puisque les mots n’étaient pas les miens, j’oubliais parfois que l’idée était de vérifier si la traductrice avait bien saisi mes pensées et qu’elle avait bien réussi à les exprimer de nouveau en français.

Mais en même temps, j’ai eu une nouvelle appréciation pour ce que j’avais accompli du premier coup en l’écrivant en anglais. J’espère que l’effort que j’ai investi dans cette traduction aura valu la peine, mais je n’avais pas vraiment le choix, étant donné que je vis au Québec et ce n’est pas tout le monde qui est capable de lire mon livre en anglais.

Ça ne finira pas là non plus, puisque jusqu’ici mon site web est seulement en anglais, sans oublier mes cartes d’affaires!

Ça s’en vient, tranquillement pas vite. En même temps, je consacre mes efforts pour trouver toutes les façons et opportunités pour faire circuler mon message, et je crois que les gens commencent à m’entendre, et ils continueront à m’entendre en 2015.

Je trouve qu’il existe encore trop de familles en affaires qui se concentrent trop sur leur entreprise plutôt que sur leur famille.

Ceux qui offrent leurs services à des PME familiales sont aussi trop concentrés sur l’aspect “compagnie” et pas assez sur l’aspect “famille”.

Ça commence à changer, mais pas assez vite à mon goût.

La version française de mon livre s’intitule “Changer votre vision de l’entreprise familiale. Cessez de travailler dans votre entreprise familiale et travaillez plutôt sur votre famille entrepreneuriale.”

J’espère que la version française sera disponible au mois de février 2015. SHIFT your Family Business est disponible sur Amazon.com et Amazon.ca depuis juillet 2014.

/by
,

Would You Like to See the Menu, or the Recipe Book?

Advising family businesses is a growing field, as more people are recognizing what an important part they play in the economy, with all sorts of statistics being bandied about, from the percentage of GDP to the percentage of jobs that they are responsible for.

Still, the vast majority of those who advise these businesses continue to serve mostly the business circle, and not that many actually specialize in the issues that affect the family circle. I have spent about 95% of my life in the business circle, since I was raised to believe that it was the only one that mattered.

As a recent convert to the family circle, I can tell you that it is a very drastic change in perception, and not one that most people comprehend easily. I have committed myself to continue to “preach the gospel” about the importance of taking care of the family dynamics issues before they cause problems.

I had my A-Ha moment almost 2 years ago during the Family Enterpise Advisor course (www.ifea.ca). I first blogged about this in June 2013: https://stevelegler.com/three-circles-seven-sectors-one-a-ha-moment/

Today I want to talk about some of the difficulties I have had when trying to explain just how facilitators, coaches, and mediators like myself fit into the picture, especially when speaking to the advisors who already serve family businesses. In fact, one simple way is to say to them that while they serve the family business, we serve the business family.

Over lunch recently with a colleague who makes his living from selling insurance policies that are used in large and complex trusts for ultra-high-net-worth individuals, he explained to me that it would help me greatly to develop and explain my “process”, so that people like accountants and tax specialists could realize and understand how I add value to their services.

But last week during a similar lunchtime discussion, this time with someone who also works the process side of things (a business transition coach, but who does not typically work with families) I had no trouble getting him to understand my complaint that there is no “recipe” or exact set of steps to this work that can be laid out as “my process”.

I made the analogy of a baker versus a chef. Baking, from my limited experience, is a science, where not following the steps of the recipe exactly will almost surely result in a sub-optimal end result. Family business advising is much more like cooking; think soup, stew, or chili. It is much more of an art, with a variety of ingredients and quantities depeneding on the chef and the season.

A couple of days later, it hit me. It is not a recipe that I need to show people, because even pretending that there is a proper recipe would be wrong. A better analogy would be to show people the menu.

When someone comes into a restaurant, they almost always look at the menu, and rarely ask to see the recipe book. And so it should be for family business advisors.

Then I took it a step or two further. Some restaurants have menus that are so extensive that they actually offer too many choices. What might be even better is a kind of “lunchtime special” menu, where you get a soup or a salad, a choice of 10 main courses, and a cup of coffee.

I know that there are others in this space that may be struggling with getting their message heard in a productive way, and I am a big believer in helping to make the pie bigger.

I want to continue to get the message out to people who work with business families that they not simply assume that the family issues will just take care of themselves, and that the only key client is the business.

The need is huge, even if it has not yet manifested itself as a huge demand. Nobody can “corner the market”, but we can help to grow the demand, by continuing to spread the message.

Would you care to see my lunch specials? Stay tuned.

 

/by
,

A Will Outlines the “What”, But Not the “How”

Most people will agree that it is very important for everyone to have a will, and some will go so far as to remind you of the importance of keeping that crucial document up to date.

That is all very well and good, but in my books it is not nearly sufficient. Of course if you still do not have a will, I encourage you to take care of this deficiency ASAP.

By the same token, if you DO have a will, but you have not looked at it or updated it in the last few years, please pull it out and see if it all still makes sense with the reality of your family today.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have a penchant for analogies, and for this subject I believe I have come up with one that is very à propos.

While it does not lend itself to a good blog title or soundbite, it is nonetheless very important to understand.

Here goes: A will is like a law. Your will tells your heirs what happens to all your assets and possessions. Similarly, a law is a document that describes what is allowed and what is legal, and what is not allowed and illegal.

But laws are written in general terms, and then the laws get turned into regulations. There are people who work for the various governments and departments, whose job it is to turn the laws into rules and regulations, and it is these rules and regulations, not the laws, that are the key to how the laws impact the day-to-day lives of citizens.

So if a will is like a law, and a law depends on its regulations, what does the will depend on? I’m glad you asked!

The lawyer who prepared the will can help the family understand what the will means legally, insofar as who now owns what. A good lawyer, who took the time to get to know and understand his or her client’s wishes and intentions, may even be able to help the family understand WHY things were laid out a certain way.

But I don’t know too many lawyers who will be able to help the family figure out HOW they are going to get along and manage things in the future, now that the dearly departed has actually departed.

Imagine if there were a way that you could help your family work through the questions of HOW they are going to work together after you are gone. Wait, why are you just imagining it, why aren’t you actually doing it?

Now I am not suggesting that this is the kind of discussion that everyone loves to have, far from it. But it is too important to ignore it.

Best-selling author Tom Deans’ second book, Willing Wisdom, gives some very thought-provoking advice, sugesting that everyone review their will annually, and modify the document as needed after having a collaborative discussion with their entire family.

I love the idea, but I acknowledge that it is probably a little extreme for most people. But talking about sex never got anyone pregnant, so talking about death isn’t going to kill you either.

My main point is this: Having an up-to-date will is the bare minimum. The people who are going to have to deal with your assets, and who are going to have to deal with each other, would benefit enormously from understanding not only WHAT you have written in your will, but also WHY you have made the choices that you did.

And furthermore, if you can get them to also comprehend HOW you would like them to work with each other, they could all take advantage of your wisdom, even after you are gone.

The hardest part is getting the conversation started, but the sooner you do, the easier it gets.

/by
, ,

It’s Hip to Be Square, Right?

When I turned 50 recently, I vowed not to wear a tie again, with the possible exceptions of attending a wedding or a funeral. Thankfully I have not been to either since, so I haven’t had to make that call.

The open neck look now seems to be more prevalent than wearing a tie, at least from my observations.

During my childhood, my father always wore a tie to work, and when I started working in the office full time, I too wore one daily.

One day we were walking to a nearby restaurant for lunch, and a local kid came by on his bike and asked us if we were detectives. I guess to him we looked the part based on what he saw on TV.

When I was kid, my parents sometimes gave my grandfather a tie as a gift. But he had never worked a white-collar job, and I found it funny that my father always had to tie the tie for him, and he would hang it up and keep it tied for the occasions when he needed to spiff himself up.

I don’t miss looking like a cop, and I never wore a bow tie either, with the exception of a photo I recall seeing of myself when I was about 4 years old, but in that picture I was also wearing a red blazer, so I was obviously not the one who picked the outfit.

Without a tie, though, what could I use instead to add at least a modicum of pizzazz to my wardbrobe? Enter the pocket square. As Huey Lewis told us all those years ago (1986, wow, that long, yes, I checked!), It’s Hip to be Square.

So I now have a small inventory of pocket squares of various colours and patterns, but far from the tie inventory that I had amassed. But with time, it may get there.

One of the things I like about the pocket square thing is the name, pocket square. It must go back to my Dad again, because as far as he was concerned, to be square was a supreme compliment, it was the opposite of crooked.

“That Bob is a real square guy” would be about the nicest thing he could say about someone. That’s not to say that he rarely paid anyone a compliment, just to emphasize how important squareness was to him.

Now I’ve stated that I like the whole pocket square idea, but it has raised some questions on what is OK and what isn’t with respect to wearing one. I have never been a fashion junkie, I have usually been content to find clothes that fit me and that don’t clash.

I like the fact that there are some alternatives to how you wear the square. Some guys go with the ironed square, where it looks pressed and it forms a perfect thin rectangle above the pocket line. It’s a classy look, but really not my style.

I prefer more of a freestyle look, but I am not sure if all of the variations that I have been trying are cool. I am getting more adventurous, with different ways of folding the thing so that a few triangles stick out, or just kind of fluffing it up and shoving it in however it comes out. It all seems pretty random sometimes.

Or is it okay to fasten it in place with some tape or pins inside the pocket, after all that work to get it to look just right?

One conclusion that I have come to, is that guys who wear both a pocket square AND a tie are probably trying too hard, but maybe that’s just me.

Of course, this is coming from a guy who has been spotted on more than one dance floor with a tie around his head. But never again, since I don’t do the tie thing anymore. I’m a square guy now, and I think my Dad would be proud.

 

/by
, ,

“Family Business” Versus “Family Wealth”

The area of family business advising is considered by some to be a niche market, since there are not that many of us who hold ourselves out as specialists in the field. Family wealth, by contrast, seems to be a much more crowded area, perhaps because so many huge institutional players are involved in the area of wealth management.

Today I want to look at some of the similarities and some of the differences, and even throw in a couple of other terms to discuss variations of the two.

At its most basic level, the key difference is usually about the existence or absence of an operating business. When a family owns and operates a business, with facilities, employees, and the sale of goods and services, we would usually call it a family business.

In the case where a family has a good deal of wealth, but that wealth is mostly in the form of financial assets, and typically of the more liquid variety, we tend to describe them as families of wealth. There are even terms like high net worth individuals (HNWI) and ultra high net worth individuals (UHNWI) depending on whether they have $10 MM or $500 MM, for example.

There are plenty of families who do not fit so neatly into one category or the other, of course, as some are successful in exiting one line of business and turning that portion to liquid wealth, while maintaining another active operating company. Or a family may take some of its liquid wealth and invest in starting or buying another business.

What these families all have in common, though, is that the decisions that they make do not only affect their company or their money, but also many members of their family. When it comes time to think about how the business or the wealth will go from the parents’ generation to their kids, and then the grandchildren, there are many areas that can get tricky.

The Family Firm Institute, a global organisation based in Boston, offers courses and certification for those who advise these kinds of families. I recently completed the initial level of the Certificate in Family Business Advising (CBFA) as well as the Certificate in Family Wealth Advising (CFWA).

I will be doing their course on Family Governance beginning in January, as it is a requirement for both of the advanced versions of those certificates (ACFBA and ACFWA). Many of the courses for these certificates in Family Business and Family Wealth advising apply to both.

In Canada, IFEA, the Institute of Family Enterprise Advisors, offers the designation “FEA”, where they use the word “Enterprise” as more of a catch all, encompassing both business and wealth, because of the many similarities and the difficulty in labelling these families.

Much of the research in this area is currenlty focused on the area of entrepreneurialism, and creating “enterprising families”, which is often required to keep the assets of the family growing as quickly as the number of family members increases geometrically with each generation.

Tom Davidow, a veteran of this field and head of his eponymous advsiory firm, makes special mention of Real Estate families on his website, as he notes that they have many of the traits from the wealth realm but also an operations component and some tricky tax issues due to the way these assets are often owned.

I met Davidow this week at a conference for Family Offices, which is yet another term that is not always well understood, but which often operates at the intersection of family business and family wealth.

A family office is typically set up to handle the needs of one family (single family office, or SFO) or the needs of several families (multi-family office, or MFO), and can have anywhere from one employee to dozens of staff.

There are many names and not always a lot of agreement about what they mean. But when a family owns a large quantity of assets, that are destined to be kept in the family over coming generations, it is important to remember that the “family stuff” doesn’t always just take care of itself.

 

/by
, , ,

Striving for a Succession Non-Event

This week’s blog is inspired by a quote that I came across on Twitter a couple of weeks ago. It was tweeted out by the Business Families Foundation, but ironically it does not come from someone in a family business.

It comes from Anne Mulcahy, the former head of Xerox, who Chief Executive magazine named CEO of the year in 2008. Without further ado, here is what she said:

“One of the things we often miss in succession planning is that it should be gradual and thoughtful, with lots of sharing of information and knowledge and perspective, so that it’s almost a non-event when it happens”.

There is so much that I love about this quote, so let’s get started and see if I can share all the reasons that I love it. To simplify the task, I will break it up into four parts.

One of the things we often miss in succession planning

–      There are MANY things that get missed in succession planning;

–      Things are OFTEN missed;

–      Succession planning happens in ALL businesses, not just family businesses.

 is that it should be gradual and thoughtful,

–      GRADUAL is preferred, versus all at once;

–      Before doing it, lots of THOUGHT should go into how it will be done.

with lots of sharing of information and knowledge and perspective

–      LOTS of sharing is better than just a little bit;

–      Sharing of INFORMATION is important, but it is not the only thing;

–      KNOWLEDGE must also be shared, and that is NOT the same as information (i.e. not just WHAT, but WHY and HOW);

–      PERSPECTIVE sharing is also important, and this implies listening to the points of view of,

and getting input from, MANY parties.

so that it’s almost a non-event when it happens.

–      What do we hope the result will be? Almost a NON-EVENT. Nobody should really notice when it happens.

Allow me to digress to make a key point here. As a kid I remember seeing a “Under New Administration” sign at a local business, likely a restaurant, and I asked my Dad why they would put up such a sign.

I don’t recall his exact explanation, but it’s not important, because everyone reading this understands what those signs are meant to convey.

But when you are planning for the succession of your family business, I daresay that you would prefer NOT to emphasize that there is someone new in charge of the place.

It is still the same family running the place and it is just as good as it has always been, maybe even better.

I had lunch recently with a friend who also grew up working for his father, and we talked about how his Dad still used to come in to the office every day for many years after handing over control to his sons.

I mentioned that he was lucky that his father was the type who could let go and let the next generation run things, as this is not always the case. In fact, when I first started dealing with their company, I am pretty sure the father was still nominally in charge of things.

But I can honestly say that I am not sure when my friend “officially” succeeded his father. It eventually became clear that the younger generation was in charge, but I still saw Dad there almost every time I visited.

They seem to have created the Non-Event Succession, and good for them. Some people are more naturally inclined to be good delegators, good teachers, good parents.

Gradual, thoughtful sharing of information, knowledge and perspective. You do not have to have read Mulcahy’s quote to do it well, far from it.

But if you know people who are struggling with their succession issues and you can only give them one quote to help guide them, you can start with Mulcahy’s.

But why limit yourself to just the quote? Please feel free to share this blog post with them too!

/by
, ,

Family Business Advising: Art vs. Science

The professionals who provide services to family businesses come from a variety of fields, but even so, most of them have a lot in common. Whether they are accountants, lawyers, tax specialists, wealth managers or insurance specialists, they typically deal with business and financial issues.

If we are talking about family businesses, why aren’t there any who deal with the family? The truth is that there are some people who specialize in the family circle, but not nearly as many professionals who advise the business and ownership circles.

The field of family business advising as a sub-specialty of business advising is relatively new, but it is growing and slowly being recognized as an important area. Most people can quickly see that there are lots of business issues that affect the family, but fewer have actually thought about the fact that there are family issues that affect the business too.

The people whose serve the family side of things more than the business side have a number of obstacles to overcome; let’s look at some of them, in no particular order.

Content vs Process

A lawyer will prepare a shareholders agreement, an accountant will prepare a set of financial statements and a wealth manager will make an investment for you. They are all discrete transactions, all of them are tangible; each is one piece of content.

Facilitating family meetings, mediating a dispute between siblings, or helping bring a family together to work on their values, vision and goals, for their part, are more process related. These functions can be very important for long-term family business success, and as such, they are often longer term in nature.

Transaction vs Relationship

The content pieces I mentioned above are typically done as separate transactions. Yes, relationships are also important to work on for accountants and lawyers, but in the family realm, it is almost all about the relationship, and the advisor needs to develop a good working relationship with everyone, not just the person who signs the cheques.

Soft vs Hard

Some people like to talk about hard skills versus soft skills, and I suppose that is one way of looking at it, but let’s not forget that the “soft” stuff is often actually much HARDER to deal with. Few of those who work on the transactions are trained to deal with these soft issues, and many families don’t want to talk about their family problems with those who charge them several hundred dollars an hour.

Business is about $$$ vs Family is about Love

Business is usually very much about making money and creating wealth, while family is all about love. It is the head versus the heart, and they do not necessarily always agree.

The advisor who can show you how his tax strategy can save you $XX,000.00 has an easier sale than the one who tells you that he can help make sure that your family has conflict-free Thanksgiving dinners in the future. How much is that worth?

Art vs Science

What it comes down to in many ways is that it is an art to deal with the family, while dealing with the business is more of a science. To be a good family business advisor, you need to be able to bridge both of these, art AND science.

There are some family therapists who help families deal with conflict, but very few of them understand anything about business, so it is hard for them to provide that bridge.

I have come up with an analogy, but I am not sure how good it is, but here goes.

Paint-by-Numbers

When I was a kid, I did a few paint by numbers, and while it felt like I was an artist, I was just filling in spaces with pre-decided colours of paint, which is more like science.

We need to be able to show our client families the canvas with the outlines of what we can do, and tell them what colour we can help them put in which spaces. This way, they will better understand what we can do for them, in a way that helps them see the value we can bring.

/by
, ,

R.I.P. my Old Friend

As much as I struggled to find the right title for this blog post, I know that I will likely struggle more writing it, as the tears are already welling up in my eyes just contemplating the topic.

Thankfully, this writing is actually a bit therapeutic for me.

Bosco was a Golden Retriever who had been with us for the past 8 and-a-half years, after spending his first two years with another family, who unfortunately went through a divorce. It was unfortunate for them, since they could not agree on who got to keep him, but very lucky for us.

Our kids were just 5 and 6 at the time, so it is no exaggeration to say that he has been a part of most of their childhood family memories, with the series of annual Christmas photos as a reminder of how they grew up as he grew old.

He had slowed down considerably over the years, but still seemed to be in decent health considering his sedentary lifestyle and his propensity to hang around the kitchen, you know, just in case some food happened to fall on the floor.

But on Wednesday this week, my wife was out of town and I was at an event downtown. The kids were at home with the pets (Bosco plus another dog and 3 cats), and things went bad unexpectedly and quickly.

My daughter texted me around 5 PM saying something was wrong with Bosco, so I called her to see what was up. Difficulty breathing, and inability to even stand up, hmmm, I thought, I better head home quickly.

By the time I got to my car not even 10 minutes later, she texted me to say that she feared the worst. I got home and sadly realized that she was right. Sad enough to have an old friend pass away, but sadder still that it happened in front of my kids, without their parents there.

My son helped me load him into the car for one final trip to the vet, where we said goodbye one last time, and we both cried all the way home.

After sleeping on it a few nights, I am very thankful for the quickness with which he scheduled his ultimate departure, if not the exact timing. How many stories have you heard about people whose pets get sick, and they then have to make choices between expensive veterinary procedures and letting nature take its course.

I will now try to carefully draw a parallel between the case of a pet and that of a parent. I say “carefully” because I recall an instance when my aunt passed away, and my father suggested to her widower husband that he get a dog.

Dad was making what he felt was a constructive suggestion to help his brother-in-law through some of the grief and loneliness, but I know that some people took it wrongly, as if he was suggesting that my aunt could be “replaced” by a dog.

The story I wish to convey is about my Dad, and how he left us relatively early, yet not so quickly as to leave us scrambling.

My mother recently related to me that when she and my Dad used to go and visit his mother during her long battle with Alzheimers, on the drive home, Dad always said to her, “If I ever get like that, please shoot me”.

The cancer saved us from having to go through that, and Bosco’s passing, also likely from cancer, saved us a lot of tough times and extra heartache.

And the title for this blog? I borrowed it from my 13-year-old daughter’s Facebook post about the loss of her “old friend”.

Sometimes sad events allow us to appreciate how quickly our kids have matured while we were paying attention to other things.

Goodbye Bosco. It is better to have loved you and lost you, than to never have loved you at all.

 

/by