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Driven to Commit Patricide (Part 2 of 2)

When we left off last week, I was in the courthouse bathroom, having texted my wife about my surreal elevator ride up with the accused murdered. As I went to wash up, I sensed someone entering behind me. Yes, you guessed it, it was my “new friend”.

I thought about our similarities; same generation, only son of a relatively wealthy, successful man, a father with whom we did not always see eye-to-eye, having spent decades trying to live up to our parents’ expectations. Each of us had lost our fathers within the past decade, albeit under very different circumstances (cancer vs bludgeoning).

I tried to put myself in his shoes here today, and wondered about how I would feel, on trial for having killed my father, and having pleaded not guilty.

Had I been unfairly accused of killing my father, faced with serious jail time, I am reasonably certain that I would not have looked so calm, serene and, I daresay, happy.

Something didn’t compute in my head, there was a disconnect between what I was seeing and the vibe that I was getting, with what I had expected to see. In just a few minutes, my mind was made up, and in my head I had already found this man guilty.

In my heart, however, I was less certain. The stories that came up during the testimony of many witnesses over months of the trial painted a picture of the murder victim that made it very hard to accept that the “good guy”, the son, could go to jail for a long time for getting rid of the “bad guy”, the father.

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful, and the trial continued for another few weeks before the case was given to the jury. They came back with their guilty verdict after 4 days, the announcement met with shock and disbelief.

The case may be coming back on appeal in the fall, meanwhile my “friend” is behind bars, having already once been denied bail pending that appeal. There may be more courtroom drama coming, but we have plenty to chew on already, and hopefully some lessons we can learn.

No, this will not be about how to get away with murder, but more about the ways that wealthy families can go about their business and family lives without the murder instinct ever being triggered.

Parents usually control the family wealth, doing so as their children grow up and mature. There is often a tendency to want to continue to control not just the wealth, but also the children, for far longer than what would normally be considered a healthy and useful time period.

“It’s for their own good”, we tell ourselves as parents, “I know what is best for them, and I have their best interests at heart”. Besides, I worked so hard/waited so long myself (choose one, or both).

It takes a heck of a lot of courage to let go of that control, and to trust that the job we did as parents will be sufficient to allow our children to assume increasing amounts of decision making over the family’s wealth.

We have strayed from the case at hand to some generalities here, but that was always my intention.

“How could this family tragedy have been avoided” may be the specific question, but “how can families learn from the mistakes of others” is what I am really after here.

The natural order of things is for the older generation to die before their children, and thankfully this is usually the case. Having the children wish for their parents’ early demise is one thing, patricide quite another.

Transitioning family wealth, and the decision-making and control around that wealth seem far less intuitive, and not necessarily part of any “natural order”.

From my view, this was not a case of killing someone to get at their money. A son who finally snapped after having been controlled and belittled for his whole life, by a bitter man who clearly had issues in his own family of origin?

That would be my sad conclusion.

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Tell it to the Judge (Part 2 of 2)

Last week my intention was to write a single blog about this subject, but then things didn’t go as planned, because there was just too much “stuff” I needed to cover to do the topic justice.

So I cut things off at a point where I was hitting my self-imposed word limit (around 700) and figured that sleeping on the subject for another 6 days would truly inspire me to wrap things up in a fantastic crescendo finish. We shall see.

At the end of part 1, Tell it to the Judge (Part 1 of 2) we had begun to look at how parents are judged.

My argument was that the only people who are truly in a position to judge the parenting abilities of anyone, are their “subjects”, i.e. the children that they raised.

In the same way that my sisters and I are the best possible judges of the parenting abilities of our mother and father, my parenting abilities can only really be properly judge by my children

Assuming you buy into my argument (thanks!), let’s look at some of the issues this also brings up. The first one is the timing. When are they actually in a position to judge?

An infant will judge Mommy and Daddy by how quickly they change a soiled diaper or give them a bottle when they are hungry. Many years later in life, they may judge their parents by what has been left to them in the parents’ last will and testament.

That potentially leaves a LOT of time in between, and there are many points where their opinions of their parents can and will change.

Many people agree that the teenage years are the most challenging for parents, and so asking teens to judge and evaluate their parents could lead to some interesting responses.

A lot of adults will look back at the time when they were teens as a period when they did not appreciate their parents enough. It takes a certain amount of maturity to fully get the fact that discipline imposed by parents pays off in the long run.

By the time you hit the point where you realize that you need to worry more about your parents than they do about you, you are certainly mature enough to judge the job that they did raising you.

So what is this fascination that I have with judgement of parents all about? Allow me to try to sum it up. I believe that the “job” of parents is to take parenting seriously, and to make rasing their children a top priority in their lives.

As an advisor to business families, I get to meet with many people who have made running and growing their business a higher priority than parenting. I also believe that many of the people who have put business above family will eventually regret it.

The book I wrote in 2014, SHIFT your Family Business, had this as its secondary title: “Stop working IN your family business, Start working ON your business family. It is kind of my “go to” message.

The good news is that it is never too late to make that shift. But it does require courage. Running a business also takes courage, but sometimes it is easier to be courageous in the cutthroat world of business than amongst your family.

I don’t know why that is, but I just feel like I see it too often for it not to be true.

It also takes courage to ask your children to give you feedback on your parenting. I know that most parents will never ask their kids this type of question, and I suppose some people would call me crazy for even suggesting it.

I like to think that I am doing a good job as a parent, but if I never ask my kids what they think, how will I know?

Why should I care? Because I take my job as a parent seriously. And their feedback can help me do it better. But do I have the courage to ask them? Stay tuned to this space for the answer.

 

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Tell it to the Judge (Part 1 of 2)

Lately the subject of “judging” has been recurring in my life and thoughts, and therefore also in my blogs. Since there are so many ways to look at judges and judgement, my view is that discussion of this subject will always be worthwhile.

Three weeks ago, we looked at being “judicious” versus being “judgemental” in the blog Judgement, Not Judgement. A couple of weeks prior, I related the wonderful experience of serving as a judge in the Family Enterprise Case Competition, in Vermont, a Global Hub? What the FECC?

There will also be an upcoming blog about a court case, featuring a real judge. I actually went and sat in the courtroom at a murder trial for a day, a few months ago. It was a case of patricide that made national headlines, and I am looking forward to sharing that experience with readers.

This week’s post is about who gets to judge, and in what context. Pope Francis, before getting involved in the US Presidential campaign, was becoming known for saying the phrase “Who am I to judge?” when asked about various people in various circumstances.

Some people were not happy with this seeming abdication of the “responsibility” to pass judgement on what is right and what is wrong, but I think that he may be on to something.

So if even someone as high up the totem pole as the Pope is able to withhold judgement, who does get to judge?

As is so often the case, it is all about the context. One of my favourite mantras is “Give me context”. This is where our friends the economists would substitute, “It depends”.

So let’s leave behind the warm and fuzzy “listen without judgement”, “who am I to judge”, and “stop being so judgemental” and move to what is ultimately THE context that I take closest to heart, that of a business family.

In Parenting and Family Business Leadership, we looked at how people play the dual roles of business leader and parent. Today I want to extend that concept to how these separate roles are judged as being fulfilled successfully or not.

The easier place to begin is with the business. It seems pretty simple to judge the performance of a business, because there are a multitude of quantitative factors that everyone and anyone can easily see.

Is the business profitable, is it growing, are its customers satisfied? How many people does it employ, how many locations does it have, how many countries do they do business in. The list is literally endless.

So it is relatively easy to judge a business, but does that mean it is just as easy to judge the business leader? I think not. Now it can get trickier, because when you want to look at the personal leadership qualities of the person leading the business, the things that people consider become much more qualitative in nature.

Let’s jump over to the family side before we run out of racetrack. The dual roles of business leader and parent are difficult to balance, most people will agree with that.

But how do we judge the role of the parent? As a parent, when I observe other parents dealing with their children, it is sometimes hard NOT to judge them, at least internally, and compare how they handle a situation with how we would have done so.

Ultimately, the best judges of anyone’s parenting abilities are their children.

That is the biggest, deepest thought that has struck me recently, and I haven’t seen it, read it, or heard it anywhere.

If, and it is a big “if”, parenting is something that you wish to do well, the only true judges that matter in your evaluation are your own children. Their judgement is the only one that can ever matter.

Of course this now gets us into so many other questions, especially around the timing and methods of getting their evaluation and judgement of us, their parents.

We will pick this up again next week. Meanwhile, hug your kids and try to stay on their good side.

 

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Vermont, a Global Hub? What the FECC?

Burlington Vermont is not a place most people think about when globalization is the subject. But once a year, that all changes, and people involved in Family Business congregate there in January for a one-of-a-kind experience.

The Global Family Enterprise Case Competition (FECC) just wrapped up this weekend, and the fourth annual edition was better than ever. The folks at the Grossman School of Business at the University of Vermont can truly call their event “Global”.

I had the privilege of serving on the judging committee at this competition for the third year in a row, and as always, it was an enriching experience. So how global is it?

Well on Thursday I served on a panel with another Montrealer, but he happens to hail from Mexico (as did a couple of the Undergraduate teams participating). That same panel featured a woman from Switzerland, who was born in Czechoslovakia (which is now 2 countries!)

There were 24 student teams competing, with 16 in the Undergraduate section and 8 in the Graduate portion, and these teams hailed from 10 different countries, but if that weren’t enough, the students themselves came from even more diverse geographic and cultural backgrounds.

I don’t have vital stats for all of the participants, but from just the eight teams that I saw, here are a few examples:

A team from Sweden featured at least 2 competitors who were German, which they clearly used to their advantage on the case of the Juchheim company, which, suprisingly (or not) was about a Japanese family enterprise.

Another team, from Texas, featured students with both Latin American and Asian roots, and a team from Spain featured one presenter with a Middle Eastern background.

I could go on, but I think that I have already given you a flavour of what the event is like, and I have probably already used some terms that will have offended some people who are more politically correct than me.

So what is it that makes Family Enterprise such a great field for a global competition? That’s an easy one.

The languages and the culture change from country to country, but the prevalence of family business is pretty well widespread around the world. And not only that, what parents want and hope for when they go into business with their family members is not very different from one location to another.

Furthermore, the issues that come up in family enterprise situations that you can find in one country will invariably show up in just about every other country too.

The good news here is that you can learn a lot about the big issues and how you may want to handle them simply by studying what has gone on elsewhere. You know, learn from other people’s mistakes.

The field of family business as a discipline, to be studied, researched, and taught in schools is still relatively new. The related field of family business advising is also still considered pretty new.

What this means is that the families who are eager to get involved with examining their own situations by opening their eyes and themselves up to what is going on with other families, are still part of what one would term the “early adopters”.

Family Business is not yet seen as “mainstream”, and is not taught as a separate discipline in very many business schools yet.

Likewise, many people like me who call ourselves Family Business Advisors are still looked at as a little bit odd (OK, I confess, you got me there) and we are sometimes met with questions like, “Is that a thing?” when we describe ourselves as such.

Things are changing, slowly but surely, in the right direction. If you have any interest in the field of Family Enterprise education, I invite you to check out the FECC at UVM and get involved in next year’s 5th annual edition. I know that I am already planning a return trip.

 

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Parenting & Family Business Leadership

Many people throughout history have worn both the “family-business-leader” hat and the “parent” hat simultaneously.

A certain percentage of them have excelled in both roles, some have been much better at one than the other, and still others never really mastered either.

Of course there are plenty of areas where the things one does in one area will undoubtedly have an effect on the other, because it is virtually impossible to separate the roles completely.

And just as I noted above, where some people excel at both, others at neither, and many at one at the expense of the other, the same can be said about certain actions that one takes while playing these roles.

There are many trade-offs where it seems clear that working late and missing your kid’s soccer game is a plus for the business and a minus for the family, or the reverse is true if you leave early to make it to the game but don’t finish that important order.

I like to think that the best thing that I can do as a family business advisor is to point out the situations that are in fact a lose/lose, and help families avoid them, and also point out the possible win/win situations, and help families exploit those.

It sounds simple when put that way, but simple and easy are NOT synonyms.

Interestingly, the two examples of the lose/lose variety that arise most often are opposite sides of the same coin, and they have to do with how we treat our kids and value their input.

On the one hand, there are lots of examples of parents who spoil their children with easy, high-paying jobs, with low expectations of performance. This is not great business leadership, nor is it great parenting.

The other side of that coin also occurs rather frequently, and it looks like this: The kids work really hard, are underpaid, are ready to take over the business, but they are never given the reins, because the parents are not ready to let go. Once again, the business suffers, and so does the family.

It all comes down to finding the correct balance, just like Goldilocks. We don’t want the porridge that is too hot because it will burn our tongue, and the cold porridge is just, well, yucky.

So what is the secret to finding that balance? Part of it is simply recognizing that you are playing both the role of the parent and of the family business leader. But that clearly isn’t enough, because as we just saw, you can actually screw up on both simultaneously.

Besides recognizing that you are playing two roles, it is important to think about your perspective, and to compare and contrast that perspective in two major ways.

First, look at the way you are acting in the two roles from a TIME perspective, and think back to when you were the age that your children are at now, and how you were treated and would have wanted to be treated.

Then look ahead to when your children will be at the age you are at now, and consider your relationship with your parents. If that is too extreme, think back ten years, and then ten years ahead.

After doing the time perspective exercise, simply take a moment to reflect on how you see things, and imagine how the other family members see things from their point of view, today. I will guarantee that if you ask them if they see things the same way that you do, you will be in for at least one or two surprises.

The key word in that last sentence is “if”, as in “if you ask them”. In my experience, few family business leaders will actually take the time to ask their children how they see things.

Yes, I know that you are the one running the show, and all your hard work is what got you here. Congratulations.

But do you have the courage to ask your children how they see things? You may be surprised with what you learn.

 

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Channeling your Inner Santa

This is a magical time of year, and this week was chock full of great experiences for me. I want to share my thoughts on one particular morning that had me in a new role, and how the things I learned might be useful for people in business families.

For the past 6 years now, I have been volunteering semi-regularly at a non-profit organisation in one of the poorer parts of Montreal.

So on Thursday, as I was helping prepare the food boxes for the arrival of about 150 people, I was pulled aside and asked if I was free to come in on Saturday morning. Someone had just called and said they couldn’t make it, and now they were scrambling to find just the right person to fill in.

As a caucasian man, I can honestly say that I don’t think that I have been a victim of racial profiling before, and maybe it had more to do with “body type” than race, but I was pretty sure that I had not been selected at random to come in to play the role of the guy in the red suit who lived at the North Pole.

Well I can belt out a deep “Ho Ho Ho” with the best of them, so this would be fun, right, and how hard could it be?

I came in around 8:30 on Saturday, and I was lead upstairs and given a box containing an eclectic mix of red pants, white beards, one boot, some red tops and hats, and a big black belt. It took some mixing and matching, a bit of creativity and scotch tape, but I managed to pull everything together.

But then a few families began arriving and some of the kids were looking at me, walking around in these red pants, gathering up my things, and I quickly realized that I needed to get “backstage”, lest I ruin the surprise.

So I retreated to a back room, got all dressed up, found a mirror so I could check myself out, and waited. And waited some more. There were some logistical details to work out and volunteers to get organised so that the giving of the gifts to the children would flow properly.

Normally, this kind of stuff is right up my alley, and I would have jumped right in and been one of the people figuring out how to process the hundreds of people who were scheduled to show up over the course of the next 6 hours. But I was dressed up as Mr. Claus, waiting backstage.

The visual of Santa getting it all organised and instructing people on what their roles should be just didn’t work, so I would just have to wait, watch, and hope for the best. When everything was finally ready, I made my entrance and sat on a nice little couch.

The families went up, one-by-one, and received age-appropriate and gender appropriate gifts, and then had the option of a photo op with Santa. The mix of reactions from the little ones was quite interesting, from the crying and screaming of some, to the warm tender hugs from others.

I asked the kids if they always listened to their parents, were nice to their siblings, and if they always did their homework, while avoiding asking them what they wanted for Christmas, since that was completely beyond my control, and I did not want any part of setting up unrealistic expectations.

Here is the family business take-away: Try out a new role, one that might be outside your comfort zone. Watch how others react to your new role, it is amazing what you can learn just by observing, not only about others, but about yourself.

If you are the one who is normally “in control”, try muting that for a change and see what happens, who steps up, how things go. I am not suggesting scrapping family traditions, but letting them evolve.

Family communication and leadership takes many forms, and we can all do a little bit better. Channel your inner Santa, and enjoy your family time over the holidays. 

 

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Évolution ou Révolution? À vous de choisir…

Évolution ou Révolution? À vous de choisir…

Étant né dans une famille entrepreneuriale, j’ai toujours eu un intérêt à suivre leurs différentes façons de faire. On peut y voir de très beaux exemples de pratiques qu’on voudrait utiliser comme modèle, et d’autres qu’on voudrait éviter à tout prix.

J’aimerais partager une façon de penser à ce sujet qui m’est venue à l’esprit dernièrement.

Dans n’importe quelle famille, au cours des années et des décennies, il existe une certaine évolution naturelle. On est né, nos parents prennent soin de nous, et éventuellement, nous avons nos propres enfants, et nous prenons soin d’eux.

En même temps, nos parents vieillissent, et ils bénéficient du fait qu’ils ont eu des enfants, qui deviennent une ressource pour eux, quand ils ont besoin d’aide. Les enfants finissent par prendre soin des parents.

J’espère que mes enfants seront là, disponibles et motivés pour me venir en aide quand j’en aurai le besoin.

On pourrait décrire cette situation comme une évolution. Les membres de la famille passent chacun par toutes les phases de la vie, de façon assez prévisible, dans la majorité des cas.

Mais là, arrêtons de parler de familles en général, et concentrons-nous sur les familles entrepreneuriales. Il y a beaucoup de différences entre ces familles et des familles dites “normales”, mais nous allons viser une caractéristique en particulier.

Je ne présume pas que toutes les familles qui sont menées par un entrepreneur qui a eu beaucoup de succès sont pareilles, puisqu’il existe beaucoup d’exceptions à la règle.

Mais trop souvent, les entrepreneurs qui ont bâti leur entreprise, et ainsi leur fortune, ont beaucoup de difficultés à laisser leur place à ceux qui suivent.

Ce n’est quand même pas trop surprenant. Ils ont réussi leur vie en se battant à tous les jours, très souvent face à du monde qui les doutait, et qui leur disait qu’ils ne réussiront pas. Malgré ces obstacles, ils ont quand même survécu, et même triomphé!

Éventuellement ils atteignent l’âge de 65, 70, 75, 80, et tout le monde se met à les questionner sur leur avenir, sans vraiment cacher leurs opinions, qui penchent sur l’idée de ralentir, passer le flambeau, jouer au golf, et voyager.

Ces gens ont passé leur vie à contredire ceux qui les questionnaient, pourquoi changeraient-ils maintenant?

Le plus gros problème revient au sujet que nous discutions tantôt, l’évolution. Nous avons constaté que l’évolution était plutôt naturelle.

Mais quand on essaye trop fort de combattre l’évolution naturelle, il y a quelque chose d’autre qui arrive. J’appelle ça la Révolution.

Pendant que l’entrepreneur atteint 65, 70, 75, etc., qu’est-ce qui se passe avec ses enfants? Ils arrivent à 35, 40, 45, 50, etc., mais la place qu’ils s’attendaient à prendre n’est toujours pas libérée. Au début, ils patientent, pensant que le “jour J” arrivera sans doute bientôt.

Malheureusement pour eux, ils risquent d’attendre beaucoup plus longtemps qu’ils le souhaitaient, ce qui sème les graines de la révolution.

Il n’y a pas de solution miracle à ce phénomène, mais j’aimerais vous donner un peu d’espoir.

D’abord sachez que dans la grande majorité des familles, les parents décèdent avant leurs enfants, donc la nature est toujours de votre bord, si vous êtes parmi ceux et celles qui commencent à manquer de patience.

Mais sans farce, j’ai quelques conseils qui vous seront peut-être utiles.

D’habitude, la confrontation ne fonctionne pas très bien, mais le silence non plus. Des conversations, ouvertes, honnêtes, et qui mettent les cartes sur la table, sont de rigueur. Mais quand on pousse trop fort, trop vite, on risque de provoquer de la résistance.

Le respect et la patience sont aussi importants. Certains disent que ceux qui ne veulent pas partir ont peur de perdre leur identité et leur raison d’être. Aidez-leur à surmonter ces défis, réconfortez-les de toutes les manières possibles, mais soyez prêt à recevoir des objections tout au long du trajet.

Ces options sont préférables à la révolution, mais parfois la menace d’une révolution est quand même nécessaire. Mais avant d’y arriver, pensez peut-être à rentrer une personne externe, pour faciliter les discussions. Vous en connaissez sûrement au moins une.

 

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Getting Brothers on the Same Page

Getting Brothers on the Same Page

This week, I was approached by a colleague about a pair of brothers, who are operating a business together, who are approaching a crossroads. My colleague asked me for some input on what kinds of issues they would be facing, and how he might offer to assist them.

(This made me flash back to a blog from April 2014, about another pair of brothers who worked together).

He didn’t give me too much to go on, and I’m not even sure how much information he had himself, so I will have to fill in some of the blanks with my own assumptions. This is fine because anything I offer here cannot be prescriptive, nor should it be overly directed to the specific facts of their case.

So here is a scenario, including my assumed facts:

Two brothers, in their late 50’s, co-own their company, which they have grown over the past 30 years or so. Both have children, but they are too young to take over right now. “Frank” has a vision of somehow keeping the business in the family, while “Sam” just wants to sell.

As usual, I have many more questions to ask before being able to supply any useful answers. Here are a few that come to mind immediately:

– Are these paths mutually exclusive?

Not necessarily. If Frank has an interest in staying on and eventually bringing his kids into the business, there are certainly ways that this can be done. If Sam wants out, they would need to come to a negotiated agreement on the sale price, including the terms and conditions, which would allow Frank to buy his brother out.

Frank would need to be sure that the leadership and management roles that Sam had assumed would be covered off by someone, and they would need to come up with a financing arrangement that would allow Frank to purchase Sam’s shares over time so as not to put the company at risk.

–  Can the business be run by a non-family member?

If Frank is not the type to run the business by himself and if it will be a number of years before his kids would be ready to assume key roles, the option of hiring professional outside management can also be an interesting idea.

Not all family businesses pass directly from parent to child; often some trusted managers assume top roles for a number of years while the next generation completes their years of preparation to take over the top job.

–  Has an outside buyer been identified?

If an outside purchaser has been identified, a sale of the business, whereby both brothers actually cash out, could be a blessing in disguise. Sam can close the book and move on, and Frank would be free to do as he saw fit with his proceeds.

–  Could Frank help his kid(s) run another business?

Some parents love running a business and long for a relationship with their children in which they can pass on that love to their offspring. But many times the particular business of the parents is not in a field that captures the imagination of their kids.

How about taking the proceeds and finding a business opportunity in a field that the children are attracted to, and helping them start their own business in that area?

–  Where should the brothers begin?

Ideally, Frank and Sam can discuss all of these options before going too far down the road with any particular option.

–  Beware the advisor who only carries a hammer!

Too often, guys like Frank and Sam are not sure where to turn, and they take the first piece of advice that comes their way if it sounds plausible. Remember the saying about a man who only has a hammer, who looks at everything as if it is a nail?

Business advisors, most of whom specialize in one particular area, are also prone to this type of reflexive advice. For big decisions like these, taking the time to look at ALL of the options makes the most sense.

 

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You Can’t See What You Can’t See

Is a blindspot really a blindspot if you don’t know you have it?

As is often the case, this week’s blog subject is based on something that happened to me in real life, and I have accepted the challenge of relating the story in an interesting and useful way.

Since this story involves people in my own family, I will use fake names for them, as I usually do when I talk about real people, and I will adopt my standard custom of employing a pseudonym that starts with the same first letter as their real names.

My daughter wanted me to call her “Sassy”, and she wanted me to call her brother “Rusty”, but he didn’t really like that name, and so somehow we settled on him being “Rambo” instead. If you have children, you probably understand the importance of keeping your kids happy and staying on their good side. Now Sassy and Rambo would make better names for pets than kids, but what the heck.

Rambo and Sassy will be going to a new school in September, and as part of the paperwork that the school has asked for, we needed them to have a physical exam done by a doctor, in part to pronounce them able to participate in the school’s sports programs.

So I made an appointment for them and brought them to see my doctor to get them checked out, have the papers officially signed, and thereby cross another item off the checklist that sees them one step closer to being ready for September.

Sassy went first, initially going with the nurse for noting her height and weight, as well as an eyesight verification. Rambo followed the same sequence, except that after the doctor finished with him, I got called in because there was something noteworthy that he wanted to share with me.

The doctor handed me a piece of paper on which he had written 20/60 and 20/50, which were the results of his eye test. What? Really?

How could this be, he never once said anything to us about having trouble seeing? I guess his vision has always been bad because he told us that he has not noticed any deterioration.

So I had the paper in my hand with the numbers on it and Sassy saw it and asked what it was. I told her that we would talk about it later, and then she said “Is Rambo blind?” She does have a tendency to exaggerate, even though I have told her a million times to stop it.

But when I confirmed that, yes, Rambo apparently suffers from poor vision, she proclaimed “I knew it! I knew it!” Apparently, Sassy has been telling her parents for years that her brother doesn’t see well, and we ignored her.

So getting back to the question I asked at the beginning of this post, the answer is a definite YES. Even if you don’t know that you have a blindspot, it’s still a blindspot. And if you have an observant sibling, they may have noticed it.

Everyone has blindspots, and it isn’t always easy to acknowledge them, understand them, accept that they are real, and manage them. It can be helpful to learn about them because that really is the first important step to doing something about them.

But like anything else in a family, and especially in a family business, the way that you learn about your blindspots, and how your family members use that information makes all the difference in the world.

The importance of Self-Awareness cannot be overestimated, but having a family where each member helps the others overcome weaknesses is a wonderful gift that is even more precious.

It is so much better than a family where members use people’s weaknesses against them, but unfortunately that happens all too often.

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Successful Planning: Who Should Be Involved?

“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!”

Benjamin Franklin

In no way am I claiming to be smarter than Ben Franklin, but I will take his quote one step further. Franklin was right that planning is very important, but more needs to be added. After all, he died almost 225 years ago.

In the realm of multi-generational family planning, for business families or families of even moderate wealth, it is very important to make sure that you have the right people at the table when it comes time to make the plans.

Let’s look at another great quote (author unknown) that is also very profound. I will give you the backstory in a second.

“Plans that are about us, but don’t include us, are not for us”.

This is a quote that I got from Matt Wesley, a man who I consider to be one of the gurus in helping families with the dynamics of their legacy planning work.

I first heard Matt mention this quote a few months ago during a teleconference presentation for the Purposeful Planning Institute. Then, a few weeks ago while he was co-presenting on another PPI call, an audience member quoted it back to him during the Q & A session.

He thanked the participant and then added a bit more context for those who had missed the original citation. It comes from New Orleans in 2005, post Katrina.

He told us that he got the quote from the work of Margaret Wheatley, who was examining the disaster of Hurricane Katrina. Actually, it was a series of disasters, starting with the hurricane, but then also the fallout from the government’s response, which for many people ended up making things worse instead of better.

So where did Wheatley get the quote? It was spray-painted on the outside of one of the flood-ravaged houses in New Orleans. The disaster of the government response stemmed largely from the fact that they were dictating what would be done, without consulting the people for whom it was to be done.

Anyone can make plans, but you will only know how good your plans are once you get to the implementation stage. If things fall apart then, it may have been due to poor implementation, but then, shouldn’t the implementation have been part of the planning too?

If you are planning how you will help people after a flood, you might want to ask them what they need.

If you are planning what assets you are going to leave to your children, and how they are supposed to work together to manage those assets, you just may want to get them involved during the planning.

Here are some common planning approaches:

  1. Parents and advisors make the plans, children find out after death.

Not great, usually pretty bad, family harmony is an afterthought, plenty of disappointment and lack of preparedness to go around.

  1. Parents and advisors make the plans, and inform the children of the plans as a “fait accompli”.

A little bit better, but only slightly. If the siblings get along alright, hopefully they can work through the details and still want to get together as one big happy family over the holidays every year.

  1. Parents and children (actually former children, now adults!) work together on plans, and decisions are made in the best interests of the entire family. Once they know what they want to accomplish, they THEN engage the advisors to fine-tune the details of HOW they will write it up.

Actually, I said that these were common approaches. The last one is easily the best, but it is not yet common enough.

Hopefully, we are getting closer to the point where parents are satisfied that they have done a good enough job as parents to allow their offspring to have some say in their destiny.

The old “it’s MY money, so I will decide what I am going to do with it” seems so 20th century to me.

 

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