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Looking Forward Together as an Enterprising Family

Are We All Looking Forward to the Same Thing?

Recently while dealing with a family where some of the members kept wanting to rehash events from the past, it became nearly impossible for me to get them to concentrate on leaving old squabbles behind and instead try to focus on looking forward instead.

That got me thinking about how simple this can sound, yet still be hard to get people to buy into.

There are of course many reasons to look backwards on occasion, but if you drive your car while staring at the rear view mirror, you will run into trouble (or something else) relatively quickly.

So this week, I want to share some of my thoughts about the whole idea of looking forward as a family.

 

Setting the Past Aside – At Least for Now

I’m not suggesting that families never think about or talk about the past.

There are plenty of times and occasions and reasons to do that, but if you spend too much time there, when you really should instead be trying to work productively towards some common desired future, those looks backward too often end up usurping all of the positive energy you’ll need to make progress.

There are times when you need to agree to set the past aside, at least for now.

I wrote about this many years ago in There is No “Rewind” Button.

 

“As a Family” Changes Over Time

As we turn our focus to looking forward “as a family” I guess the first musing I have is that the idea of looking forward as a group of people can get a bit tricky, because each member of the group has their own pair of eyes with which they do their own looking.

So the group, the family in this case, needs to do some work to try to establish a common future towards which they are all looking.

This is important work that I think many families should undertake because the results will usually be useful in making sure that everyone understands where they are trying to go together, so all of their efforts can be aimed in the same direction.

Okay, so let’s say the family does that today and they all agree, are they then set for life? I assume you recognize a rhetorical question when I ask it.

Of course that common vision of where the family is looking to go needs to be revisited often, as each person’s view will also differ a bit over time as the family advances.

 

By Generation, By Individual

One way to try to tease out the variety of viewpoints is to look separately at members of the same generation, who at least are progressing through their life stages on a similar timeframe.

When the rising generation in a family enterprise is in their 30’s and 40’s, most of them will have at least some common views that will differ from their parents’, who are likely in their 50’s and 60’s.

However, fast forward a couple of decades, and those rising gen members will now likely view certain things in a way similar to how their parents saw things not that long ago.

And of course, each of the individuals in each generation will have their own unique things that they are looking forward to as well.

 

Re-Calibrating the Vision – It’s a Process

As any family sets out towards a future together, the simple passage of time, along with daily, weekly, and monthly events and happenings all combine to change where they are now.

Hopefully they will be closer to where they were planning to go, but things don’t always move forward as planned, nor do they always move in a straight line.

Figuring out if you are all still looking forward to the same thing requires frequent re-calibrating of that vision.

 

Looking Forward Together Regularly – Family Forums

Some regular readers may already see where I’m headed, and that’s to make sure that you don’t just have occasional, ad-hoc meetings as a family.

You need to develop a habit of having regularly scheduled meetings as a family, as noted in Live from the Forum – Successful Transitions.

Families who get together regularly (often quarterly or annually) can easily take stock of where they are, how they got there, and where they’re trying to go next.

Refocusing together also re-energizes everyone.

There’s always something to look forward to, and figuring it out together, over and over again, will help you all get there.

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Finding the Liquidity Sweet Spot for your Family

Searching for the “Goldilocks Zone”

These weekly missives have been inspired by a variety of sparks over the years, and this one is sort of a “mish-mash” because it comes from a number of places.

I’ve long wanted to incorporate a great quote from a colleague into a blog, and I’ll finally do it in this post.

I love it when some social media interaction on one of my posts creates a new spark, and that’s also the case here.

And, when I speak with potential clients about situations that concern them, that also makes me want to share my ideas here too.

So let’s dive into the deep end and look at some liquidity issues for families (see what I did there?).

An Old LinkedIn Post Gets a “Yeah-But!”

My social media folks schedule regular posts from my accounts on LinkedIn and Twitter, which weave in both my new weekly posts along with plenty of “recycled” content from days gone by.

I continuously create regular content, which I enjoy, but if you only post and repost the same piece several times over and over each week, it may not be as well received as when you share more variety.

Recently, a post about liquidity from a few years ago sparked a comment that seemed to take an opposite view to one of the points I made. See Liquidity Events in a FamBiz – Pros & Cons.

They took issue with the fact that I suggested that it can make sense to not share too much liquidity right after a business is sold, for a variety of reasons.

The alternate viewpoint is also quite valid, of course, as there are cases where a family has plenty of wealth and yet most family members will wait years or even decades before they will see any direct benefit from it.

“It’s Great That We’re Wealthy, But…”

This made me recall that great quote from my friend and colleague Travis Harms, another guy who regularly creates great content for this field.

He shared with me the way one family member put it to him: 

                    “Yes, thanks, it’s great that we’re wealthy. 

                         But, can we also have some money?”

Bang! Drop the mic! What a great way to summarize the way so many rising generation family members feel.

Imagine living in a town where everyone knows that you are part of the family that owns an extra-large enterprise.

Everyone knows that you’re wealthy, and yet they look down on you because you appear “cheap” more often than not.

Little do they know, you may own a portion of a large asset base, but you’re still working your butt off each week just to pay the mortgage on your modest house.

An Apple a Day – And Then the Orchard!

That brings me to a family I recently heard about, where the parents were quite wealthy yet were successful in keeping secret the extent of their wealth from their sons.

One son was being modestly supported to a certain extent due to some personal difficulties, yet he would eventually stand to inherit way more than he could reasonably spend in his remaining lifetime.

As I thought about a metaphor for this, I landed on getting an apple a day from your parents, because they didn’t want to spoil you.

You ate that apple every day, kept the doctor away, and then after the parent’s funeral, you discovered that you now own an orchard!

All along, you knew they had a few apple trees in the backyard, and assumed that was the extent of it.

Lots of Planning, Lots of Sharing, Lots of Transparency

The “answers”, if there are any, to these situations are never simple.

However, when there is a lot of planning, a lot of sharing, and a lot of transparency around what the leading generation is hoping to accomplish with the decisions they make, things generally go better than when the opposite track is taken.

When there’s no planning, no sharing, and no transparency, it’s a recipe for disappointment, mistrust, confusion, and conflict.

Taking Advice Versus Co-Creation

Too often, such parents blindly rely on the advice of certain professionals whose viewpoint is conflicted by their desire to remain part of the picture in managing the wealth of the senior generation.

Once the offspring are mature enough to understand what will eventually be coming their way, I recommend they also become involved in co-creating their future as stewards of the family wealth.

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Overdue 4-D Connections at FEC Symposium

Overdue 4-D Connections at FEC Symposium

So Refreshing after Years of 2-D

Far be it for me to declare an end to the Covid pandemic, but it sure feels like we’ve entered back into the land of face-to-face connections with colleagues and clients, both new and old.

I’ve just spent a few great days in Vancouver at the Family Enterprise Canada (FEC) Symposium, and I’m more energized than I’ve been in a long time.

The reasons for my positivity are varied, but mostly stem from so much pent up demand within me and others to actually spend time with other like-minded people, in each others’ physical company.

I can’t tell you how many times I shared face-to-face conversations with familiar people who I had only ever seen on Zoom, in two dimensions (2-D).

I even got so tired of my own joke about this, “So nice to see you in 3-D” that I decided I needed to go a dimension further, but you’ll need to stick around to the end for that punchline.

 

Let Me Count the Ways

FEC brings together two major constituencies, members of enterprising families, and advisors to such families who’ve completed FEC’s family enterprise advisor (FEA) designation. There are now over 400 FEA designates, and our numbers at this sold-out Symposium were well into triple digits.

I got reacquainted with several colleagues whose hands I’d already shaken in years past, and also to finally size up some people I’ve known for a while but whose height I’d been unable to assess thus far.

Not that that’s crucial, but more than one person told me that I’m taller than they expected from our online encounters, where Zoom is the great height equalizer.

I even had a chance to meet a former client in attendance, who brought me up to speed on their family’s progress since I last saw them a few years back.

I also slipped out of the hotel briefly to meet with a current BC-based coaching client who happened to be in Vancouver at the same time.

Thanks to CC who alerted me to his presence and for inviting me to their work meeting; it was so cool to see a group of advisors in the same room together working to develop solutions for a complex family situation.

 

Fun Being Back Up Onstage

By far the key element of my time there that created the most lasting memories was the fact that I had been recruited to co-MC the event over the two main days.

Getting mic’ed up and going up onto the stage to introduce all the wonderful session facilitators was an honour and a pleasure.

Getting to know my co-host, Keita Demming, and developing the rapport required to pull that off relatively seamlessly is a testament to his flexibility in dealing with my “Costello” to his “Abbott”.

The kind feedback I received from so many people, friends and strangers alike, will keep me pumped for months to come.

Something about being in a room full of family business types makes me feel like I’m in my element and that I’ve found “my people”.

 

True and Authentic Sharing of Experiences

The format of Symposium included a few breakout sessions where the family members and advisors went to separate sessions, but the majority of the time was spent together in plenary sessions.

There was lots of magic in those, because of they way they’d been ingeniously set up, which was quite well received.

The main room sessions were mostly panels moderated by seasoned family business advisors, where the panelists came from family enterprises.

The result was so much valuable sharing of true, lived family business experiences, which benefits both family attendees and the many FEA’s in the room.

 

So, What About that “4th” Dimension?

Alright, so what did I mean earlier when I teased about the fourth dimension? Well, so many of the people I’ve met working in this field during the past decade are more than just colleagues, they have become true friends.

And like many friends, when I see them for the first time in a while, hugs are exchanged.

It’s tough to replicate a hug in an online meeting.

Thanks to Covid, we now need to make sure a hug is welcome, and most were.

I’m looking forward to more 4-D encounters later this year, at the PPI Rendez-Vous in Denver in July, and FFI in Boston in October.

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Curiosity as the Antidote to Assumptions in Families

We All Know What Happens When We Assume

For me it was Mr. McGee, a High School teacher, who first shared the dangers of making assumptions. I cannot recall the context of this lesson from circa 1980, but I distinctly remember him writing the word “ASSUME” on the chalkboard.

He then said, “You know what happens when you assume?”

The class waited for the punchline. He then drew two short vertical lines, before and after the “U”, leaving three distinct words:

A  S  S   [  U  ]   M  E

“You make an ASS out of U and ME”

That was over 40 years ago and it’s still with me, so let’s just say the message stuck.

And We Are ALL Guilty of It

I’m pretty sure most readers will have heard some version of this tale somewhere along the way, and if not, feel free to borrow the one from Mr. McGee.

And, not surprisingly, all of us are also certainly guilty of making assumptions, because, well, you can’t not make them sometimes!

But what if there were an antidote that we could dream up that could help us minimize those occasions where we risk making an ass out of each other, especially with important people in our lives, like our family members?

Well I’ve got good news, there is one. And we all have some of it in us, and we can improve with practice.

My title has already given it away, but for those of you who already got lost in my prose (and I don’t want to assume that you recall the title of this blog) it’s curiosity.

A Coaching Webinar as Source

The idea for this post came a while back when I was watching a webinar about coaching, and presenter said, “The greatest resistance to curiosity is assumptions”.

I jotted that down because I felt like there was some juice to be squeezed from it.

But as I thought about it from many family business contexts with which I am familiar, I decided to turn it around and focus on the assumptions that too many people make about family members.

Rather than looking at “resistance to curiosity”, I want to concentrate on using curiosity to overcome the many problems that come from not having enough curious conversations.

It Comes Down to Attitude

My guess is that senior generation family members are typically guilty of this a bit more often, but I’m sure it happens in every generation.

It typically stems from an attitude of believing you know things you just never bothered to verify.

“Of course the kids will want to work in the family business” comes to mind for me, personally.  In my case it also came along with a healthy dose of not leaving me any choice.

My Dad knew what was best for me, or so he surely believed. Of course his plans for me also happened to be what he thought was best for him.

He could have been much more curious about what I wanted, but he never allowed himself to go there, just in case he’d learn something he didn’t really want to know.

Someone from Outside the Family as a Spark

So how might one go about sparking the kind of curiosity that I’m talking about here?

When the group of people is always exactly the same, it’s easy to get into a rut, and there isn’t much room for curiosity.

But what happens when an outsider shows up with the group, and that person is curious and begins to ask questions to satisfy their curiosity?

This could be just the right way for some new subjects and ideas to land on the table for consideration.

There are many things I should have pushed back on with my Dad, but I did not, for all kinds of reasons, many of which are more clear to me now than they were decades ago.

Could a well-placed and well-meaning outsider have helped spark certain discussions that could have been started, so that I could shine a spotlight on some of the many assumptions he had made about me?

Recognizing That Something’s Amiss

Sometimes you know that something is amiss and if you take the time to ask what you’re assuming, you’ll likely be onto something.

If you can then get curious and actually ask questions so that you can learn, you’ll be going in the right direction.

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“Nose In, Fingers Out” for Family Business

“Nose In, Fingers Out” for Family Business

Today’s topic is one that I’ve been thinking about for a while, ever since I first saw it mentioned back in 2017.

If you Google “nose in, fingers out”, you’ll see that it has been used by a number of people, attesting to its usefulness in creating a mental image that most people can quickly grasp.

I need to give a hat tip to Larry Putterman for putting it on my radar screen first.

 

 

It’s All About Boundaries

A topic that arises often in business families is that of “boundaries”, and there are many reasons for that, and anyone who has ever worked with, or in, a family business knows what I’m talking about.

But while the “nose in, fingers out” idea is about boundaries, it is also a subtle way to discuss how boundary lines are not all necessarily a solid concrete wall, but perhaps just some steel slats.

Boundaries are important, but we need to think about, and talk about, what the boundaries are supposed to accomplish, if we are going to establish the optimal boundaries for our situation.

 

Boundaries

From CEO to Chairman

The area that Putterman specializes in is Boards of Directors, and in the family business context what he is most often referring to relates to a person who has decided to scale back their involvement as part of a transition.

The former leader of the operations of the business, likely the CEO, has decided to pass on the reins of the operations, but to stay involved in a lesser capacity, and not disappear altogether, at least not yet.

There are different ways to take these kinds of steps gradually, of course.  My father brought in a non-family President and stepped into the Chairman role, but kept the CEO title for himself for a while.

Quite often the biggest step is the one where the CEO mantle is relinquished, and only the Chairmanship is retained.

 

 

How Much Is Out, How Much Is In?

In a family business, an outgoing leader will (hopefully) get to the point where, for many reasons, it makes more sense to scale back their involvement, moving from day-to-day operations to more of an oversight role.

These kinds of transitions happen all the time.

But sometimes they work out well, and other times, well, they just create problems.

This is where the “nose in, fingers out” idea comes in.

 

 

What Is Permissable?

The devil, as they say, is always in the details.

The nose and the eyes go together, so you are allowed to look around and sniff around as much as you like.

As you would expect in an oversight role, continuing to observe whatever is going on in the company is allowed and even required.

Below the nose is the mouth, of course, and this is usually the first place that problems begin to arise.

 

 

The Mouth Can Be a Finger (?)

If the nose and eyes go together, does that mean the mouth does too?

Probably not.

Once you step back from the day-to-day to oversight, what you say to people, at least those who are involved in the daily operations, needs to be weighed very carefully.

Problems and confusion arise quite quickly when the old boss walks around and tells “his people” what to do.

In fact, it is at this point where the mouth has become tantamount to a finger.

 

 

Encouragement Yes, Direction No

When the ex-leader talks to the employees, care must be taken to limit their words to encouragement and not direction.

When they are in a board setting or discussing things with others involved in oversight only, then the mouth is once again an agent of the eyes.

 

Road directions in a desert

 

What About Other Family Members?

 

There is another area where the nose in, fingers out situation comes up in family business that I’d also like to touch on here.

It’s the one where family members who do not work in the business interact with others, often siblings, who do.

There are boundary issues here as well, as those who don’t work there have an information disadvantage that they usually need to overcome.

Sometimes their questions seem a little too much like fingers in, rather than just noses.

For those being questioned, the best defence for this is to try to be as transparent as possible, and to get out in front of any questions.

If you satisfy their noses, they will be less tempted to poke their fingers in.

 

 

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