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Shift your Family Business | Family Business and Legacy Adviser
  • WORK WITH ME
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      • Professional Advisors to Families – Collaboration and Training
      • Wealthy Families and Family Offices
      • Families in Business – Facilitation and Coaching
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        • SHIFT YOUR FAMILY BUSINESS BOOK
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        • What is your “True Family Legacy”?
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        • 5 Ways the Rising Generation Can Prepare
        • Evolution of Family Governance
      • FAMILY HARMONY VIDEOS
        • Sibling Rivalry Video
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        • To Go Far, Go Together
        • Embracing Conflict in Family Business
        • Choosing Sides in a Family Business
      • FAMILY BUSINESS VIDEOS
        • Professionalize Family Business
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        • How Much is Too Much?
        • 5 Things that can derail a family business
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Steve Legler

Family Business Legacy, Harmony and Communication Expert

  • Work with Steve
  • Who I Work With
  • Family Business Videos
  • Steve’s Book
  • About Steve

Work with Steve

Many business families feel stuck.

Different people have different points of view, amounts of information and ways of communicating. To share or not share. Openness in giving and receiving feedback. Who speaks first! The different stakeholders in a family often have trouble simply knowing how to start talking.

They are not communicating as clearly as they need to and they can’t keep going in circles. They need to do something. They need to get the conversation started.

Bringing in a skilled and neutral 3rd party brings in clarity, which will lead to harmony.

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Examples of Tools I Use Depending On Clients’ Needs:

The Family Continuity Blueprint

The Family Continuity Blueprint was conceived as a tool to help families and their advisors get a clear picture of where they are and where they want to go.

It can serve as an important first step in a process.

The world of family business and wealth always gets complex when it comes time to figure out the best ways of getting it from one generation to the next.

The first goal of the FCBP is to get a true, factual picture, on one piece of paper, of what is at stake. Clarifying the situation is always a productive first step.

Many parents shy away from important discussions they know they need to have with the rising generation. Making the FCBP a family project is a novel way to get families to begin sharing their views on this critical matter.

You can’t keep everyone in the dark forever. To initiate important discussions about business and asset ownership and their future transitions, you need to know where you are starting from today.

Completing the FCBP might be just the excuse you need to begin having these discussions.

Getting everyTHING on one page helps get everyONE on the same page.

Engagement

Introductory Family Business Meeting – I offer these meetings at no cost until I have a sufficient understanding of your family’s needs and what you would like to work towards.

Once we determine what you want to achieve and how I can best support you, the investment in your family business harmony is usually done on a monthly or quarterly retainer, based on each family’s individual needs, the speed at which we can proceed, and the number of hours I need to devote.

STOP working in your family BUSINESS,
START working on your business FAMILY

Contact Steve

Steve’s Videos on Family Business

Who is Steve Legler | Family Business Advisor

5 Things to Know about About Purposeful Planning

5 Things you Need to Know About Family Vision

5 Things you Need to Know: about Family Alignment

The Exponential Magic of Family Collaboration

5 things to know about asking for help for your Family Business

5 Things you Need to Know about Sibling Rivalry

Professionalizing a Family Business

5 Things You Need To Know About Inheritance

STOP working in your family BUSINESS,
START working on your business FAMILY

Contact Steve

Steve’s Book

Buy book on Amazon.com

Buy book on Amazon.ca

Buy book on Indigo

Buy book on Barnes & Noble

Shift Your Family Business by Steve Legler

SHIFT your Family Business was written for anyone who has ever worked in a family business or been part of a business family.

Steve Legler grew up in one such family, and married into another, and in this, his first book, he examines the challenges that business families face, and gives readers lots of insights and ideas to help them face and overcome those challenges.

He concludes with some thoughts that demystify governance, and invites business families to take on a “family office” mindset to stay focused and on track.

SHIFT your Family Business is all about helping business families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want.

STOP working in your family BUSINESS,
START working on your business FAMILY

Contact Steve

“Picture two mountains with a valley in between. I am in the alley, and at the top of one mountain I see family businesses and the people working in them. When I turn the other way, I see on top of the second mountain the people who wrote all the other family business books on the specific, advanced topics in which they specialize. My main goal with this book is to bring these groups together, because I know many of the solutions in those specialized books are just what business families need.”

From Chapter 1By Author - Steve Legler

“I have been in a room with advisors learning this stuff and I have been with family business people learning it. The family business people grasp it much more quickly. I said in the introduction that the Three-Circle Model is simple but powerful, and I can tell you that it is often an eye-opener for family business people, even though it has been around for a couple of decades.”

From Chapter 2By Author - Steve Legler

“The governance part of this is not only the “doing it” part that comes after the talking part, but also using some tools to make things clearer and more structured, which will be very important going forward. As you prepare for this step, I invite you to look back and see what kind of progress you’ve already made just getting to this point. Many families don’t make it this far. Now if you are completely ready to embrace the idea of family, business and ownership governance, I commend you but suggest that you take things slowly.”

From Chapter 8By Author - Steve Legler

“Managing an operating business is one thing; managing wealth is another. There are plenty of things that overlap, though, and also lots of ways that ideas and skills useful in one area can help those managing in the other area. A family that has amassed significant wealth, but that no longer owns an operating business, is much more likely to have an interest and inclination to think in family office terms. A family whose operating business constitutes a large portion of the family wealth, on the other hand, is much less likely to appreciate the benefits of adopting a family office mindset.”

From Chapter 9By Author - Steve Legler

“Steve Legler was born into a family business. As the only son of an immigrant entrepreneur, it became clear very early on that he was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps. He spent every summer of his teens and the first three years after earning his Bachelor’s degree in commerce learning everything he could about the business. He returned to the business after getting his MBA, ready for the challenges that awaited. But within six months the family sold the operating business, going from 250 employees to four.”

Some History on Steve LeglerBy Author - Steve Legler

About Steve

About Steve Legler

Some people work their butt off for their whole life trying to build a business for their family. They often dream about how great it will be for the family to work together with a common purpose.  But the dream doesn’t always work out the way they imagined, because it is a LOT more complex than they ever imagined.

It isn’t usually the business part that trips them up, more often it is the family part. The roadblocks usually show up when it comes time to truly transition the business to the next generation, and this is where Steve comes in.  He specializes in helping families turn their dream into a workable plan, using a step-by-step method to get everyone on the same page.

Once the family has completed his Business Family Continuity BluePrint, all family members will see the family’s goals, and they will understand their roles. Steve then helps them all figure out how they can move forward, working together.

Steve is a proud FEA Designate (IFEA) and holds ACBFA and ACFWA certifications (FFI), in addition to having an MBA (UWO-Ivey) He is also a CFA charterholder (CFA Institute), and the author of Shift your Family Business (Friesen Press, 2014)

STOP working in your family BUSINESS,
START working on your business FAMILY

Contact Steve

Who I Work With

WHO I WORK WITH

  • Families in Business

  • Wealthy Families and Family Offices

  • Professional Advisors

    (Legal, Accounting, Tax, Trust, Insurance, Wealth Planners, etc.)

  • FAMILIES IN BUSINESS

    Most of this website is geared towards families who are involved in the ownership and management of an operating business, so pretty much everything is aimed at this group of people.

  • WEALTHY FAMILIES AND FAMILY OFFICES

    Some families will already have gone through a “liquidity event” or sale, and will have slightly different priorities.

    In many ways, these situations are simpler, but sometimes these families think that there is nothing left to manage, because all of their assets are now liquid.

    In fact, having liquid assets will certainly look simpler, but that brings along with it a vastly different set of realities that need to be dealt with, since the assets now seem so much more flexible and available, which of course they are.

    All the more reason to take the time to organize things wisely, and ensure that the family governance structure is set up to handle these assets.

  • OTHER PROFESSIONALS:

    Very few business families have any professional help that specializes in the family side of things, but they all have professionals who advise them on business matters.

    Because of this, I am often introduced to families through one of their existing trusted advisors. This is a normal occurrence, and I understand that everyone has a role to play, and I am not looking to replace other advisors.

    In order to get everything set up properly for a family, a variety of different professionals, with numerous specialties, are required.

    As the “family specialist”, it is often my job to make sure that all of the proposed solutions from the other professionals are actually understood by the family, in order to ensure that the solutions are the best fit for the family’s needs

STOP working in your family BUSINESS,
START working on your business FAMILY

Contact Steve

Recent Posts

  • Challenges Transmitting the Value of Industry to the NextGen
  • Stop Frankensteining It
  • The Illusory Time/Money Trade-Off
  • “Circle Gets the Square” – Non-Hollywood Version
  • Enough – Assez – Basta – Genug
  • Making It Safe to Share Your Feelings with Family
  • On Accepting Acceptance and Self-Awareness
  • Knowing What Your Family’s Stuck With
  • Episode 335: Steve Legler on 100 1-minute conversations
  • On Matching Families with Advisors and Teams
  • On Peer Groups and Feelings of Infidelity
  • You Want a MEDAL for That?
  • On Role Clarity for Family Enterprises and Advisors
  • Giving Your All to the Family Enterprise
  • The Elusive Perfect Cookie-Cutter Solution
  • Wants Versus Needs in the Family System

Resources

  • Resources
  • Family Business Advice
  • Family Continuity Blueprint
  • Collaboration Events

Ebooks

Family Harmony Ebook
Family Alignment Ebook

Books

Shift Your Family Business Book
Interdependent Wealth

About Steve Legler

Steve is a proud FEA Designate (IFEA) and holds ACBFA and ACFWA certifications (FFI), in addition to having an MBA (UWO-Ivey) He is also a CFA charterholder (CFA Institute), and the author of Shift your Family Business (Friesen Press, 2014). Read more…

Family Harmony Videos

  • Sibling Rivalry Video
  • Planning Family Meetings
  • To Go Far, Go Together
  • Embracing Conflict in Family Business

Family Legacy Videos

  • What is your “True Family Legacy”?
  • Family Inheritance
  • Purposeful Planning
  • Legacy Needs Harmony

Family Business Videos

  • Professionalize Family Business
  • The Exponential Magic
  • Family Business Asking For Help
  • How Much is Too Much?

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