Put Me In, Coach (2 of 2)

Last week I took you through the progression I have undergone recently, from how I used to think about coaching, to where I am today, as I move through the Coaches Training Institute (CTI) program.

But I only really started to get to the great stuff that I have learned about coaching as it relates to family businesses, and the ways that it can help me interact with all of the different people who are part of any business family.

So for a little recap, CTI’s program involves a series of five courses, each one is three days of intense exercises, led by two course leaders. There are typically around 20 students in each class, and after 3 days together, you feel like you have known most of your classmates for a LOT longer than three days.

One analogy that I have come up with for what happens over the 3 days is this: It is like taking your brain out of your head, putting it on the table, and mashing it up, kneading it, and flattening it out with a rolling pin. At the end of the Friday class, you fold it back up, stick it back in your head, and go home. You repeat the process on Saturday, and then again on Sunday.

By the time you get back to work on Monday morning, you do NOT feel like you had a relaxing weekend, to the contrary. But then you start to notice how you look at everything differently.

What goes on during those three days is very intense, but also a lot of fun. There is a lot of self-analysis, as you are repeatedly put into real coaching situations with the other participants, based on real things that are going on in your (real) life.

One of the greatest feelings that you get in the course is that you are actually helping other people, and that positive feeling is hard to describe. You are learning new coaching techniques, and you get to apply them immediately, and even though you are just trying things out (and making plenty of mistakes), you start to see immediate results.

It is hard to put into words the feeling you get from helping people make important breakthroughs in areas that were troubling them, usually in a very short time (15 minutes or less) and with only a bit of training, and very little practice. The idea is that we practice on each other, but the cool thing is that we already get to see that the techniques actually work.

In the third course, called balance, one of our leaders mentioned something that stayed with me. He said that 80% of coaching is simply “being with” the person that you are coaching. It reminded me of the old Woody Allen quote “90% of life is showing up”. But think about it, being with someone as they work through an issue, the coach is there, as a resource, as support, as someone who is not judging, but simply helping, asking questions, and offering a different perspective.

It sounds simple, but as I always say, simple does NOT mean easy. One of the reasons that we see progress so quickly is that by the third course, the only people who are still registering and showing up for these classes are people who get off on helping others work through issues in a helpful way.

I still have two more weekends ahead of me where I will be throwing my brain on the table and giving it another few daylong workouts with the rolling pin, but I am excited by the thought of getting even better at this.

When I can combine all the things that I am learning from CTI with my experience with business families, the possibilties for me to help them through their tough issues will continue to improve.

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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Put Me In, Coach (1 of 2)

It was almost a year ago that I first started to look seriously at coaching as a possible career move. The field is still very much in its infancy in Canada, especially as compared to where things are in the US. As such, it is one of the most misunderstood fields in which I have ever been involved.

Today I want to take you through the evolution of my thinking on the subject, because it could be eye-opening for many of you.

Let’s start about 10 years ago, when someone I know was looking at making a career move into coaching, and they asked my father for his opinion. I was not there at the time, but later my Dad told me that he could not understand why anyone would want to make a career out of “helping losers”.

As usual, Dad looked at everything through his one-and-only lens; if he did something or liked something, it was good, if he did not do it or like it, it was stupid and useless. Thankfully, people evolve from one generation to the next, and I am able to see things from different perspectives, and I can state unequivocally that losers don’t hire coaches.

Dad and I never had the conversation that I could now have with him about what coaches do, and what kind of people hire them, and that is too bad for him. If you keep reading, hopefully you will emerge more enlightened than him.

That “helping losers” mentality stuck in my head until January 2013, when I began the Family Enterprise Advisor program. At lunch on the first day, when I mentioned to a classmate that I was contemplating additional training in other related fields, like conflict resolution, she replied “Yes, and coaching”.

I was skeptical at first, and she saw the quizzical look on my face, so she then explained a bit about what kind of skills good coaches have and how they can be so helpful in family business situations. The fact that she ran her own coaching business made me take note. But I filed it away for the next few days.

Getting back to my office the following week, I decided to Google “coach training”, and I quickly realized a few things. First of all, it is a huge and growing field, and second, well, how the heck can you tell who is really good and credible and who is really not great and a waste of time?

So I got back to my classmate, Julie Morton, of Conscious Legacy Coaching, and asked her for her advice, in order to zero in on the right kind of coach training for me. She came back with only one real recommendation, CTI, the Coaches Training Institute.

So I signed up for their first course, Fundamentals, and a couple of months later I returned to Toronto to see what this coach training thing was all about. Three full days later I emerged, and I could only shake my head in disbelief at how powerful the experience was for me.

To wrap up this week’s blog I will fast forward and tell you that after that first session in Toronto in April, I continued to take the second course, Fullfilment, in Montreal in December, and then gathered some momentum and took course 3, Balance, in January, with most of the same group.

In February I will be back for Process, and then finish up with Synergy in March. In the meantime, next week I will try to explain how the program has changed my view on so many things, and tell you why I am excited about what I have been learning.

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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World’s Only Family Business Case Competition

I recently had the pleasure of being a judge at the second annual FECC, the Family Enterprise Case Competition held in Burlington, Vermont, hosted by the University of Vermont’s (UVM) School of Business Administration. I was invited by Dann van der Vliet, one of the co-founders of the event, who also runs the University’s Family Business Initiative.

Case competitions have become a pretty big deal over the past decade, so it may be surprising to learn that UVM’s event is the only one on the planet to focus exclusively on Family Enterprise. When I was doing my MBA at Ivey (UWO) we did hundreds of cases, but I can’t remember any that were about family businesses.

When I got to the Burlington Hilton I could feel the nervous energy of dozens of young people, as they prepared to make their presentations to the panels of judges that afternoon. For the first case, they had had a week to prepare, so this was actually going to be the easiest one they had to crack. The rest of the competition was going to be a game of “beat the clock”, with only 3 hours of preparation time for each case.

There were multiple teams of Undergraduates from schools in the US, Canada, and Mexico, as well as entries from Chile, Malaysia, the Netherlands. The Graduate category (MBA students) added even more international flavour, with two US schools up against teams from Sweden, Colombia, and Italy. There were 19 teams in 5 divisions, with only the top teams in each division moving on to the finals after 3 days of intense pressure.

I was only judging the first day’s case presentations, the Mother Myricks’s Confectionary case, which had many of the judges wondering aloud about why it was chosen for a family business case competition, since it was a company with only the husband and wife, and no kids in the business.

The undergrad division that I was judging featured schools from Canada (2), Mexico, and the Netherlands. I can tell you that I was quite impressed by all of the students. If my kids can present like that when they get to University, I will certainly be proud.

Each team had only 30 minutes to explain their recommendations, and that included 10 minutes of Q & A at the end. They walked in and introduced themselves to the judges, we introduced ourselves to them, and off they went with their Powerpoint slides and their well-prepared pitches. They seamlessly handed things off to one another and made sure everyone got about the same amount of airtime.

The Q & A was the best part, since it gave us a chance to probe things from a different angle than the one that they had prepared. We had been asked to go easy on them the first day (something about not wanting to make anyone cry), but the last team we saw did such a great job that I could not resist asking a tough question, because it was clear that they would be getting first place on that day regardless.

During the feedback to that team, I mentioned that I felt comfortable asking them a tough question, to which the student who answered it replied “Which question was the tough one?” I was not surprised to learn that that team made it to the finals, but finished out of the medals.

The undergrad winners were from the John Molson School of Business at Concordia in Montreal, while the graduate winners were from Jonkoping University in Sweden.

I hope to be part of it again next year.

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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C’est pas juste l’argent

Les gens parlent de l’argent et y pensent souvent. C’est normal puisque c’est perçu comme la source de bien des problèmes, et surtout de leurs solutions. Mais souvent ça serait préférable de regarder plus loin, et on verra que ce n’est pas juste l’argent qui est en cause.

Quelques exemples pour illustrer: Les premières fois que je faisais du bénévolat dans une banque alimentaire, je voulais souvent plonger ma main dans ma poche pour sortir un $1 ou un $2 pour dépanner quelqu’un, mais il a fallu que je me retienne. Les clients sont obligés de débourser $1 par adulte pour avoir droit à leur boîte de nourriture. Les règles sont là pour de bonnes raisons et en intervenant comme tel, j’aurais pu nuire à celles-ci. La première fois que la directrice m’a vu sortir mon portefeuille, le regard qu’elle m’a donné me l’a tout de suite expliqué.

J’ai une soeur qui travaille dans le système de la santé et ma conjointe travaille avec des OSBL. Elles sont tous les deux témoins de manques de budgets, et ce sur une base quotidienne. Mais les deux sont aussi d’accord que ce n’est pas l’argent qui manque le plus. C’est toujours facile de dire qu’avec plus d’argent, tout irait mieux, mais ce n’est pas toujours la vérité. De meilleures structures, de la gouvernance, de l’organisation, un coup de pouce dans la bonne direction, ce sont tous des façons pour améliorer les choses sans ajouter plus d’argent.

Prenons maintenant l’un de mes sujets préférés, l’héritage que nous voulons laisser à nos enfants et petit-enfants. Est-ce que c’est simplement de l’argent qu’on voudrait leur laisser? Est-ce que c’est juste de l’argent qu’ils veulent recevoir? J’espère que ça ne sera pas le cas pour moi et mes enfants.

Quand je dis que ce n’est pas juste de l’argent, vous pourrez croire que j’oublie d’autres actifs tangibles qui ont une valeur monétaire, comme des bijoux, de l’art, l’immobilier, mais ce n’est même pas ça mon point. Je parle ici, par contre, d’intangibles.

J’espère ne pas avoir perdu trop de monde. J’espère que vous n’allez pas tous penser que je parle de l’amour. Mais oui, l’amour en fait partie; peut-être une très grande partie. J’aime mes enfants, vous aimez vos enfants, nous le savons tous. Mais comme parents, comment est-ce que cet amour se manifeste chez nos enfants?

Une lacune que je vois trop souvent chez les parents, c’est qu’ils ne prennent pas le temps d’éduquer leurs enfants sur ce qui est important dans la vie. Je parle des valeurs de la famille, d’où ils viennent, où ils sont, et où ils s’en vont. Nous sommes très loin de parler d’argent, n’est-ce pas?

Mais dans les familles dynastiques que nous connaissons tous, avez-vous déjà pensé ce qu’ils ont tous en commun? Ils ont tous eu la chance de partir du bon pied, souvent grâce à un entrepreneur dans leur arbre généologique, mais quels sont les atouts qui leur ont ménés où ils sont, plusieurs générations plus tard?

Ils se sont tous organisés pour comprendre ce qui est important dans leur famille avec les responsabilités, les structures, la vision familiale à long terme, et l’esprit de rester en famille, en sachant d’où ils viennent et où il sent vont, en famille.

Je crois que comme parents, nous devons ces leçons à nos enfants, pour qu’ils puissent ensuite les transmettre à leurs enfants. Parce que si c’est “juste l’argent” qu’on leur laisse, bien, ça risque de durer moins longtemps, et on risque d’avoir raté un peu notre coup.

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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Independent and Dependable Advisors

The adjectives “dependable” and “independent” have more in common than those 6 letters in a row. They also happen to be two of the most important requirements people should insist upon when looking for people to advise them on important issues.

Let’s start with dependable, since it seems more obvious that you would naturally look for that quality in anyone you deal with, especially someone that will be sending you an invoice.

Of course everyone will claim to be dependable, but you will only really know after enough interactions with them. If you have dependable people that you can rely on, hopefully you recognize this quality in them, and appreciate it too, because it seems like it is becoming less common these days.

If you are an advisor, hopefully you recognize how important your dependability is to your clients, because it can take a long time to build up, but with one slip, a whole lot of goodwill can be wiped away very quickly.

Personally, I find it very disappointing when someone upon whom I have relied for many years all of a sudden lets me down. I will usually give anyone a second chance, but eventually you often have to move on. Sometimes I think I might be a little too demanding, but I generally just use the golden rule, I expect others to treat me the way that I would treat them if the roles were reversed.

Let’s move over to the independence question. Why is it important, and what am I getting at? Well I mentioned something about an invoice earlier, and it was not an accident, because it is a big part of what makes an advisor independent.

There are many different business models at play in the world of professional services, and it is easy to become confused or to be misled. I usually prefer to get a bill directly and know what I am paying for, than to eventually learn that the person who gave me the advice got a huge reward that I was not aware of in advance.

Accountants, lawyers, and coaches all work in a relatively straightforward way, we pay them for their time. We might think the bill is too high, but it is usually pretty clear. When financial products are involved, things can get very murky. But we seldom ask the questions that would clarify things for us, because we don’t want to look stupid, or to come across as an a-hole, or make people feel like we don’t trust them.

A good friend of mine who makes his living selling insurance products once told me that he has an advantage over lawyers and accountants in getting to know his clients, because he doesn’t bill them for his time, so they open up more. I had not thought of that, but it makes sense to me.

But I hate to think about those clients and the type of advice they are getting from those advisors who invoice them, if their main criterion is to minimize the size of the bill.

I am not saying that if there is no invoice, they cannot be independent. I am saying that it is important to understand how people are compensated, and to ask questions until you do understand.

Better yet, find a dependable and independent person who understands your situation, and get them to ask the questions for you. They can then help you make sure that you are doing the right things, in the right way, for all the right reasons.

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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Enough Money? Yes. Enough Time? No

We all know about the trade-offs between time and money. It’s usually about people spending much of their time trying to make enough money, so that they will be able to have whatever they want, and be able to do whatever they like.

But there are other combinations of time and money in sufficient or insufficient quantity that can also cause problems. We mentioned not enough time due to the feeling of not having enough money, but there is also too much money AND too much time, which creates its own set of problems, and those are not the kind that will have anyone feeling sorry for you.

There are also plenty of cases of people who have lots of time available, but not enough money. The simple solution, and please recall that “simple” and “easy” are two very different things, is for these people to get a job, thereby filling up some of their time with productive work, AND increasing the money they have available for necessities and discretionary purchases.

If only it were that easy. It is easy to sit in judgment of others, but it is not helpful. For every apparent lazy person on welfare, there are several others who have suffered through life with so many things working against them that the privileged few would never understand.

Speaking as a member of those privileged few, I can tell you that my outlook changed quickly when I began volunteering at a food bank a few years ago. I wouldn’t want to trade places with them, and I certainly no longer look down upon them, since I have not walked the proverbial mile in their shoes.

But the title of this blog is “enough money, but not enough time”, so let’s go there now. These situations usually come under the heading of “how much is enough?” There are lots of people who appear to have plenty of money (to us, but obviously not to themselves) but who are always so busy, they never seem to have any time to do anything besides work.

Some of them realize it and make changes in time, others only do so once the stress has taken a huge toll, and their health or family relationships have suffered great harm.

In the same way that these people might look at the person picking up a food basket and wonder why the person doesn’t just get a job, that person on welfare might look at the person working an 80-hour week and wonder why they don’t slow down before it kills them.

Not everyone’s ideal work-life balance is the same, of course, but most people would do well to stop and think about it more often.  When looking at business families there are all kinds of scenarios that come up in the areas of time and money, from the founder/father who won’t let go, to two siblings earning the same pay but with hugely different workloads and responsibilities, to the kid who feels compelled to take over a business in which they have no real interest, but sees it as an obligation or the path of least resistance.

This time of year is often used for reflection, as one year ends and another one begins. Thinking about important core issues like your work-life balance, and talking about them with the important people in your life, are probably the best gift you can give yourself.

And then if you are lucky enough to have a sufficient amount of money, and still have some time on your hands, there are plenty of volunteering opportunities available, and some of them will help change your perspectives on life too.

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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Season’s Bloggings

At this time of year, we get to see a whole bunch of retrospectives of all the events that happened over the past 12 months. These reports are great filler pieces for news organisations at a time of year that is usually slow anyway, so they are the perfect fit.

Personally, I usually find these things pretty lame, and certainly not something to look forward to. The one exception would be “Top 10” highlight reels on sports channels, or maybe some bloopers.

But just because this season isn’t great for TV, doesn’t mean it isn’t a great time for some personal retrospection. (Yes, that IS a word, I just checked).

When I was younger, the Christmas season didn’t really do much for me, and I even went through a kind of “grinch” phase, during which I didn’t buy gifts for anybody. But alas, parenthood changed that.

When my kids were younger and still in the Santa phase, Christmas was lots of fun, and I can still picture the huge mess in our living room after the gifts were opened, since the gifts came not just from Mr. Claus, but from grandparents, aunts, and uncles too.

With teenagers now, (OK, strictly speaking one is still a 12 and a half-year-old) things have shifted once again. Now I enjoy looking back over the year and noting the progress they have made in so many areas of their lives.

The old saying “they grow up so fast” is so true, it’s almost scary. One year is a long time to you when you are a kid, but when you are pushing 50, it goes by in a flash. I still have trouble figuring out how so much can happen AND time can go by so fast. If so much is happening, shouldn’t it be taking longer?

Alright, maybe I am getting too existential here, but ‘tis the season, isn’t it? We look back on the year that just was and marvel at how things have changed, and you almost have to shake your head when you try to look ahead a year and think of where you will be next Christmas.

But as scary as it might be, I believe that everyone really should do it, even if it you only do it once a year. If you wanna do something even more fun, project out 5 years and look at how old everyone in your family will be at the end of 2018. Yikes!

If you work in a family business, it is even more important to undertake this kind of exercise, because there are so many moving parts to begin with, that when you throw in the time element, things can really start to get interesting.

If you don’t have an operating business but are lucky enough to be in the HNW (high net worth) category, look ahead and think about how you want things to go in your future, and what your kids’ roles will be as they age, and as YOU age.

This is the time of year that we usually see family members, some of whom we may not see as often as we would like to. It is a great time to work on improving communication with everyone, and even to talk about the future together.

How many of you are up to it? Good luck to those who do, I believe that you will be glad you did.

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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Trop tôt? Non. Trop tard? Non plus

Nous connaissons tous des gens qui ont commencé leurs projets un peu trop tard dans la vie. J’ose même suggérer que nous avons tous attendu un peu trop longtemps avant de démarrer quelques-uns de nos propres projets personnels.

Que ce soit épargner de l’argent pour sa retraite, arrêter de fumer, décider de se remettre en forme, ou de planifier la succession de son entreprise familiale, c’est presque jamais trop tard pour commencer.

De l’autre côté de la médaille, il y a la question opposée, est-ce qu’on peut commencer trop tôt? Ça, selon moi, c’est encore plus rare.

Prenons l’exemple des gens qui se pensent trop vieux pour apprendre à utiliser un ordinateur. Je connais personnellement deux octagénaires qui illustrent les deux extrêmes possibles. “Marc” est rendu un expert, qui fait des recherches sur sa région natale, communique avec sa parenté de l’autre côté de l’Atlantique, et il est devenu le lien entre sa famille canadienne et ceux qui demeurent encore en Europe. Il a 86 ans et il demeure dans le même bungalow depuis une cinquantaine d’années.

“Robert”, de son côté, a toujours crû qu’il était trop tard pour lui pour apprendre “à jouer avec ça”. Malgré le fait qu’il est plus jeune que Marc, et qu’il aurait eu plus de budget pour s’équiper et de se faire enseigner comment faire, il n’a jamais embarqué. Impossible pour ses enfants et ses petits-enfants de communiquer avec lui par courriel ou par Skype. Il ne sait pas ce qu’il manque, mais avec la technologie d’aujourd’hui, ça serait toujours une possibilité, s’il décidait qu’il voulait le faire.

Allons voir un exemple opposé, chez les jeunes. Sauvez son argent pour l’avenir, ou même pour la retraite, ça ne semble pas être fait par tout le monde. Certaines personnes embarquent parce qu’ils comprennent qu’en débutant tôt, c’est beaucoup plus facile d’avoir les résultats espérés à long terme. D’autres n’ont pas ce réflexe, et ils vont payer le prix plus tard, litérallement.

Le sujet qui me tient le plus à coeur se trouve entre les deux extêmes, dans les entreprises familiales. Le ou les membres de la première génération (G1) ont souvent de la difficulté à intégrer ceux de la génération qui suit (G2), que ce soit du point de vue de la gestion de la compagnie, ou encore plus, quand on parle de devenir actionnaires.

Ceux qui me connaissent vont déjà me voir venir, mais je vais tout de suite monter sur mon cheval de bataille préféré, la communication.

Si j’ai un secret à partager avec vous, c’est que ce n’est jamais trop tôt pour commencer à bien communiquer avec l’autre génération, et en même temps, ce n’est jamais trop tard non plus!

Je connais une famille où la communication n’a jamais été leur point fort. Le père est maintenant moins stable mentalement qu’il l’était, et les enfants agissent souvent comme si c’était trop tard pour communiquer sur les sujets importants. J’essaye de les convaincre qu’ils ont tort.

De mon côté, mes enfants sont des ados, et il n’y a presque pas de sujet interdit chez nous. Nous écoutons souvent des émissions de télé qui sont destinées aux adultes, mais nous le faisons ensemble, et leurs questions sont toujours les bienvenues. Et c’est souvent moi qui leur pose des questions pour être certain qu’ils ont bien compris. Et je parle évidemment pas seulement du fait d’avoir compris les jokes ou les histoires, mais aussi les questions de moralité (“Right” vs. “Wrong”).

Au bout de la ligne, si ça vaut la peine de le faire, ce n’est jamais trop tôt, ni trop tard.

Et je crois que la communication est parmie les sujets qui sont les plus importants, et donc ce n’est jamais trop tôt, ni trop tard, de commencer à bien communiquer.

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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What Kind of Snob Are You?

They are all around us, almost everywhere we look. We see them at breakfast, lunch, supper, and in the evening. I am talking about snobs here, what kind(s) are you, or are you agnostic?

You know whom I am referring to, so let’s start at breakfast. “Oh, you have a Keurig? I have a Nespresso, it brews much better coffee”.

At lunch you offer someone a San Pellegrino with their lunch. “Oh, you don’t have Perrier?” At supper you offer someone some Tabasco with their meal. “Oh, do you have Sriracha?”

In the evening you offer them a beer. “Stella?” “Oh, I prefer Heineken”.

The coffee snob, the carbonated water snob, the hot sauce snob, the beer snob. Ughh. They drive me crazy. Does it really make a f#?&*%@+#ing difference? I could have also added the cola snob, the phone snob, the car snob, and of course everyone’s favourite, the wine snob.

I am usually pretty indifferent to most of these issues, so sometimes I wonder if I am the one missing something. Deep down, I often secretly wish I could conduct a blind taste test with some people, and I feel pretty sure that half the people could not even tell the difference if the labels were missing.

So why did I feel the need to share these thoughts? I find that you can tell a lot about someone by the way they behave. Duh! No kidding. But sometimes these snob issues just jump out at me.

I read the book “The Millionaiire Next Door” almost 20 years ago, but I still remember the story about the guy who only drank two kinds of beer: “Free, and Budweiser”.

What he meant was that if you offered to buy him a beer, he did not care what kind it was, he would drink anything. If, however, he were buying, then he would insist on buying his favourite kind, a Bud.

I thought that was so cool, I must have repeated this story dozens of times over the years. And it remains my best “anti-snob” story.

Thanksgiving is now behind us in both Canada and the US, and the holidays are around the corner. Do we practice too much gratitude or not enough? For most people, it is the latter.

I volunteer at a food bank, and most of the people we serve are gratefully for most of the food we provide them with. But even there, exceptions exist. Some people are always thankful and smiling, others are bitter and complain every time. Guess which ones sometimes get a little extra?

As hard as some snobs are for me to listen too, the worst are the ones who try to convince you that they are right, and that whatever they eat/drink/drive/use is the best, and if you do not agree with them, there MUST be something wrong with you.

I inherited many traits from my father, and I am happy to say that this was one that missed me.

He would cook up some kinds of foods that he grew up with, involving part of animals that North Americans would not dream of eating, and then he would offer to share.

He was a hard person to say “no” to, but my sisters and I usually resisted. But he wouldn’t just be satisfied with “Oh, you don’t know what you are missing”, or “OK, then there will be more for me”.

He always tried to make us feel wrong, and I remember it like it was yesterday.

Oh well, more chicken feet for him!

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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The Long and the Short of It

Most people spend so much time looking at the short term, they end up ignoring the long term. I usually have the opposite problem.

That is often a good thing, though, if only because focussing on the future usually helps guide your shorter term decisions. Let’s look at some examples of this issue.

I am relatively new to the field of family business consulting, and anxious to learn as much as I can from those who have been at it for years. I recently came across the Purposeful Planning Institute, which is a group of like-minded people who help others with their planning (in a purposeful way!).

For the past couple of months I have been listening in on their weekly calls and I have realized that the majority of the speakers seem to be far ahead of where I am, which is not that surprising. But not only that, they also seem to be looking so much further into the future on behalf of their clients.

Maybe I notice this because my typical preferred client is just starting to look more at their family, rather than simply their business. I identify most easily with my own family and that of my in-laws, both of which were lead by founders who focussed a great deal on their businesses, possibly at the expense of their families, despite the best of intentions.

Looking at the long term has many advantages, but can you look too far ahead? Maybe yes, but I find that it is better to look ahead too often, and too far, than the reverse. So many people are so busy putting out day-to-day fires in their business, making the long-term view suffer.

A great example of the long versus short question came from an unexpected source recently. I was considering having laser eye surgery to correct a problem with my vision. I wear glasses for driving and going to sports events, as they help me see clearly at longer distances. I don’t need glasses for reading, although my arms seem to be getting a bit too short when dealing with very fine print.

The woman who tested my eyes suggested I delay any surgery for a few years. I was not too surprised, because my eyesight is generally better than most people’s my age, and I have been told in the past that I was not an ideal candidate for laser surgery.

But then she really explained it to me in a way that I could understand, which I really appreciated, because I pride myself in being able to clarify confusing things for others.

She told me that everyone has a certain range of vision over which they have the ability to focus clearly without glasses or contacts. For some it is on the far end, for others, it is up close. Here is where it got really interesting. If you have surgery to alter the range, in my case to improve my distance viewing, then you will also affect the other end, adversely.

The surgery just moves the range in one direction or the other, it doesn’t make the range any longer. You cannot extend the range, you can just move it closer or farther.

Getting back to my family business analogy, let me attempt to put it in the proverbial nutshell.

If you want to start looking at the long term, you actually MUST stop spending time on the short term. You CANNOT do it all.

You have to make a conscious shift in you thinking. And that is the long and the short of it.

 

Steve Legler “gets” business families.
 
He understands the issues that families face, as well as how each family member sees things from their own viewpoint.
 
He specializes in helping business families navigate the difficult areas where the family and the business overlap, by listening to each person’s concerns and ideas.  He then helps the family work together to bridge gaps by building common goals, based on their shared values and vision.
 
His background in family business, his experience running his own family office, along with his education and training in coaching, facilitation, and mediation, make him uniquely suited to the role of advising business families and families of wealth.
 
He is the author of Shift your Family Business (2014), he received his MBA from the Richard  Ivey School of Business (UWO, 1991), is a CFA Charterholder (CFA Institute, 2002), a Family Enterprise Advisor (IFEA 2014), and has received the ACFBA and CFWA accreditations (Family Firm Institute 2014-2015).
 
He prides himself on his ability to help families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want. To learn how, start by signing up for his monthly newsletter and weekly blogs here.
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