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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Gray Is My Favourite Colour

I had lunch with a friend a couple of weeks ago, and it turned out that we had a mutual acquaintance. “Bryan” told me that he and “Larry” had recently had a long discussion about things that are actually truly “black and white”. I wish I had been there, because to me, “everything is gray” as I told him.

There is a folder in my email account in which I keep blog ideas, and I have had the idea for this blog about “grayness” in there for the longest time, so I figured it was now time to give it a go.

The title of today’s installment is a line from the 1998 Counting Crows song, “Mr. Jones”, which has long been one of my favourites. The song mentions “all of the beautiful colours are very very meaningful” and the singer continues, “Gray is my favourite colour”.

I have always loved gray, and not just because you can spell it gray or grey, it goes with everything too!

But let’s get back to gray versus black and white. I believe that between black and white there are over 49 different shades of gray. I have not read the famous book, nor have I spotted it on my wife’s nightstand.

But seriously, very few things are 100% in life, either black or white. As part of my former life when I personally managed the portfolios of our family office, I had printed out a copy of some newsletter writer’s “Twenty Rules for Traders”.

The list, which included one rule that said something like “You must always follow the rules”, later concluded that you needed “To know when you should ignore the rules and break them.” OK then.

Many people really like things to be black or white, because it actualy makes things a lot simpler when  making decisions is clear and rules-based. But there are inevitably exceptions that come up, and that is when you need to exercise judgement. As you may have noticed, not everyone has sound judgement, which can be problematic.

In the family business realm, some advisors learn to rely on certain practices that have worked well with a few clients and then assume that these should be applied as hard and fast rules for all their clients. Yikes, I always worry when advisors are so sure of the solutions before they understand the client.

I don’t have too many non-negotiables, because there are almost always some exceptions that will come up in some situation with some client.

If I did have one such “rule” it would be that before hiring their children to work full time in the family business, parents should insist that the children work for someone else for a few years.

But even though I highly recommend this practice, I am positive that it is not always necessary, and I could point to many cases where it was not done and there were no detrimental effects.

I still remember when I was just about to graduate from McGill and my Dad told me that he had heard from some people at a CAFÉ meeting (Canadian Association for Family Enterprise) about this idea of getting the kids to “go find a real job first”, I was quite excited by it, until he completed his sentence and said “But we’re not gonna do that”.

If you pushed me to find something that is not gray, I guess I would have go to the subject of integrity, because that is where there is no room for any gray.

And I just googled the word “integrity” to find an awesome ending to this post, and look what I found, an entry with two definitions of the word:

  1. The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.
  2. The state of being whole and undivided.

I can buy that. But gray is still my favourite colour!

 

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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.

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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.

 

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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.

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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.

 

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“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.

 

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La Traduction Non-Simultanée

J’ai pris la décision récemment de faire traduire mon livre en français, et j’ose dire que je le fait “à la demande populaire”. Peut-être que j’exagère un petit peu là-dessus, mais nous verrons avec le temps.

Quand quelqu’un me décrit comme étant “parfaitement bilingue”, je ne suis pas d’accord, puisque je suis très conscient de mes limites en français. Oui, j’écris parfois des blogues en français, moi-même, tout seul, mais je ne les publierai jamais sans les faire réviser par quelqu’un d’autre avant de peser sur le piton “publish”.

C’est ma fille qui me rend ce service, et elle le fait avec plaisir, surtout depuis que je lui offre $2 pour chaque erreur qu’elle trouve et corrige. Elle n’est pas encore rendue riche, mais disons que j’ai déjà écrit quelques blogues qui m’ont coûté chers, à cause de mon inattention aux règles de grammaire que j’avais pourtant apprises au primaire à l’École St-Rémi dans les années 70.

Mais c’est une réalité qu’au Québec, avoir son livre en anglais, mais de ne pas avoir une version française, ce n’est pas idéal. J’hésitais de le traduire dès le début pour diverses raisons, incluant le coût de la traduction, la question de la distribution au Québec, et surtout la complexité de traduire le titre et les noms des chapitres clés.

Le titre anglais est “SHIFT your Family Business”, où les lettres du mot “SHIFT” sont un acronyme basé sur les mots Start, Help, Invest, Flexible et Talk.

Je n’ai aucune idée comment traduire tout cela de façon claire et précise, tout en créant quelque chose qui sonne bien et qui a de l’allure.

J’ai octroyé le contrat de traduction à une professionelle du domaine et je me fie sur elle. Une semaine après lui avoir donné le projet, je lui ai posé la question sur ses idées pour le titre, et elle m’a répondu qu’elle préfèrait attendre d’avoir complété le travail, pour bien comprendre l’étendue de mon message, avant de le baptiser.

J’ai trouvé sa réponse géniale; mais j’ai tellement hâte de voir comment nous allons l’appeller!

Retournant maintenant sur le titre du blogue, je procède aussi à la traduction non-simultanée de mon site web, de mes cartes d’affaires, etc.

La tâche de développer son identité et de faire son “branding” professionel est très important pour le marketing de services, donc j’ai décidé de faire ces démarches dans ma langue maternelle en premier.

Il y a un certain temps, je regardais la nécessité de faire traduire tout mes outils de marketing en français d’un point de vue négatif, comme un mal nécessaire. Avec le temps, et avec un peu de réflection, (et en parlant avec de plus en plus de gens francophones) je le vois d’un autre oeil.

Même si j’admets de ne pas être “parfaitement” bilingue, je suis facilement “assez” bilingue pour rendre mes services dans les deux langues. Et il n’y a aucun point négatif là. Si ceci n’est pas un atout, je ne sais pas qu’est-ce qui se qualifie comme étant un atout.

Ce blogue tire bientôt à sa fin, et je n’ai pas encore essayé d’y attacher un angle “entreprise familiale”, à part le fait de payer ma fille pour ses talents de rédactrice.

Allons-y avec celui-ci: Un entrepreneur qui bâti une entreprise a souvent tous les talents nécessaires pour créer quelque chose de valeur pour sa famille, mais il a parfois de la difficulté à TRADUIRE ses efforts de façon que ses enfants, et ses petits-enfants, pourront continuer à en bénéficier.

En cas d’urgence, j’aurais pu traduire moi-même mon livre. Mais je connais mes limites, et j’ai décidé d’engager une professionelle, une spécialiste, qui connait ce métier beaucoup mieux que moi. Au bout de la ligne, le résultat sera sûrement plus satisfaisant.

NDLR: ce blogue a coûté à mon père 14$.

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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!

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