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If Ignorance is Bliss, What’s Oblivion?

I am often prone to thinking about abstract concepts, and lately my brain seems to be in overdrive in this area.

Hopefully, I will be able to tie things up into something relevant and useful for those who are interested in business families and the succession issues that they face. Ultimately, that is the goal of this blog.

We have all heard that ignorance is bliss. What that statement means to me is that sometimes when you are unaware of something (usually something bad), you are actually happier than you would be if you were aware of it.

Say you are in a foreign country where you do not understand the language. You pass a sign that says that you have just entered a dangerous area. Assuming you survive, would you have been happier knowing that, or remaining ignorant of the fact?

Now being ignorant of too many things is not necessarily wonderful either, in fact, the term “Ignoramus” is not usually used for flattery.

We are all ignorant of many things, due to the simple fact that no person can know everything. Some people act like they know everything, but that is another subject. They don’t. Nobody knows everything.

But there is another form of ignorance that is slightly different, and it is oblivion. To be “oblivious” is to be unaware. It is not a lack of knowledge of a subject in general, but a lack of realisation in a particular situation.

I get frustrated when I shop in stores with narrow aisles. I like to move quickly, find what I need, get in, and get out. But there are always (well not always, but it seems like always) oblivious people in my way. They stand in the middle of the aisle, sometimes with a shopping cart left in a spot that makes them even harder to get around, and they seem to be there to thwart my progress.

That kind of oblivion (the word “obliviousness” seems better in some ways, but is really not very elegant to say) is relatively benign.

My father was less ignorant than most people. If a subject interested him, he could study it quickly and get a deeper knowledge than many who were much more familiar than him.

But oblivion? Wow, what a difference. Maybe it was his entrepreneurial nature, always moving forward, always focussed on getting something done. Too much focus on one topic almost lends itself to being unaware of other things going on around you at the same time.

How many business families can relate to this one? Dad is hard at work, building the business for his family. What other things is he missing? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

So if ignorance is bliss, what is oblivion? It could also be bliss, but my take is that it creates blind spots in some family areas that should not be neglected. And those who are in the family do not always find it easy to confront Dad about these subjects. They have learned that it is best to stay out of his way.

So what do you do if you are in a business family with an oblivious older generation? What is the point of even bringing it up, he probably won’t even listen. Right? You may be surprised.

Start. Start somewhere. Anywhere. Get together and talk in a group. Start conversations about how things are being done and how that affects everyone else. Bring in someone from outside the family if you need to.

Ignorance can be solved by knowledge. Oblivion requires awareness. Too many people are doing too many things while UNAWARE of the unintended consequences of their actions. They need to be made aware, to shake them out of their oblivion. It is never too early to start.

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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Les expériences partagées comme point en commun

Je suis revenu de belles vacances cette semaine, après avoir passé presque trois semaines au Brésil avec ma famille. Comme de raison, les gens que je rencontre me posent tous la même question, soit, “Puis, comment ça a été?”

Après la première réponse, qui fut toujours “fantastique” ou une autre adjectif semblable, je suis porté à ajouter que c’est les expériences partagées que nous avons vécues ensemble qui seront les plus beaux souvenirs pour moi. Évidemment, j’espère que ça sera pareil pour mes enfants.

Ça me rappelle d’autres vacances que nous avons prises ensemble au fil des années, mais, que les enfants semblent avoir oubliées en grande partie. Maintenant agés de 12 et 13 ans, je crois que les souvenirs seront gravés un peu plus profondémment.

Nous avons vécu des moments inespérés de l’Amazonie jusqu’aux chutes d’Iguaçu, en passant par Sao Paulo et Rio, en plus de plusieurs plages et parcs nationaux. Plus qu’une semaine avec une famille d’amis Brésiliens, des matchs de futbol avec des foules électrisantes, en plus de beaucoup d’animaux sauvages qu’on ne voit pas chez nous.

Mais ça sera surtout les petits moments entre nous qui resteront avec moi à long terme.

Les expériences que nous vivons et que d’autres ont déjà vécu peuvent aussi servir de point commun, même quand nous ne les vivons pas ensemble ou au même moment. Je parle ici de gens qui nous rencontrons, et que par la suite on apprend que nous avons étudié à la même école, ou qui ont joué dans une même équipe, ou qui ont vécu une certaine expérience.

J’ai eu le malheur d’avoir petit accident de voiture il y a une quinzaine d’années. En sortant de nos autos, j’ai fait une échange de carte d’affaires avec l’autre conducteur. Il a regardé ma carte et m’a demandé, “MBA? Quelle école?” Je lui dit “Western” (Maintenant connu comme Ivey). “Moi aussi”, il répond. Avec ça, nous étions sur la même longueur d’ondes, et il m’a dit que s’il y avait des dommages, il m’appellerait.

Je me rappelle d’avoir lu une histoire sur Pat Burns, coach de hockey. Il n’avait pas un agent comme les autres, il faisait confiance à son cousin, Robin Burns, ex joueur de la LNH, mais aussi un homme d’affaires avec beaucoup de succès et très respecté.

Après avoir conclu une entente entre Pat et les Bruins, le négociateur de l’équipe avait demandé à Robin, “Where did you go to law school?”, en présumant que lui aussi était avocat de profession. C’est un exemple qui démontre que la façon dont on agit peut créer l’illusion que nous avons vécu une expérience semblable, avec un résultat positif.

Quand on parle de familles en affaires, un point contentieux peut se développer entre les membres de la famille qui travaillent dans l’entreprise et ceux qui ne sont pas employé. C’est souvent à cause du manque d’expériences partagées que les problèmes surviennent.

Voilà l’importance de la communication, et même de faire certain de planifier des activités pour toute la famille pour servir de point commun et d’expériences partagées. Il s’agit d’un bon début pour débuter des discussions et d’encourager la communication entre tous les membres de la famille.

Denièrement, j’aimerais souligner que quand les gens qui travaillent dans une entreprises familiales ont la chance de s’entretenir avec des conseillers qui ont eux aussi déjà travailler au sein d’une compagnie familiale, le fait d’avoir vécu des experiences semblables peut aussi aider à mener à un niveau de compréhension plus profond, plus rapidement.

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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WHERE am I Going to Die?

Years ago, I heard someone mention that unlike most people who wondered WHEN they are going to die, he would prefer to know WHERE he was going to die. That way, he could simply avoid going to that place until he was ready.

I have since repeated this story many times, and for whatever reason, I almost always use Toronto in my example. Maybe it is because as a life-long Montrealer, the natural inter-city rivalry seemed like a good fit.

I recently had reason (and time) to think about this old story as I got to spend more time than planned waiting at the airport in Montreal for a Toronto-bound flight.

I was scheduled to fly into Toronto on airline that I prefer not to name, but let’s just say their name rhymes with “quarter”.

I needed to be at a course on Monday at 8:30 AM, and not wanting to kill my whole weekend with the family, I booked a seat on their Sunday 8:10 PM flight, conveniently into Billy Bishop airport, very close to my downtown hotel.

I arrived at the airport and immediately noticed more people than usual, and many of them were complaining. I soon learned that the airline’s computer had suffered a system shutdowm due to glitch earlier in the day, and they were trying in vain to play catch up.

It was 7:00 PM and they told me my flight would leave at 10:35. Oh well, I will get to bed late but by midnight I should be at my hotel, no big deal.

I could go on about how the departure time kept getting pushed back, but we have all been there. After it got moved to midnight, a plane arrived at our gate at 11:45, and I thought, “Oh cool, it’s here, we’re gonna leave soon”. HA HA HA. This plane is staying here overnight. Our plane just left Halifax.

At this point I started thinking that maybe someone was trying to tell me that I should NOT go to Toronto.

We finally boarded around 1:00, but after we got on the plane, they told us that it was too late to land at Billy Bishop. OK, we all think, we will be going to Pearson, further from downtown, but at this hour, there won’t be any traffic, so it is not that big a deal.

But NO, that would make too much sense. After we boarded, we learned that we would be going to a nearby city, let’s call it Shlamilton. Big groan from everyone.

Okay, not true. There was one happy guy, who happened to live there. But wait, Holy Crap, what if it is really Shlamilton I need to avoid? I can’t even get off this plane now! This could be the end.

No time to think about that, a crying baby takes my mind off it. A few minutes later he stops, but is quickly followed by crying baby number two.

We landed in Shlamilton at 2:30 and boarded a bus (except for the one lucky guy who took a cab home). The bus got us to Billy Bishop just before 4:00 AM.

There were 4 taxis waiting, and over 30 people on the bus. Some more fun awaited…

It was a long travel day, but I made it, finally getting to sleep around 4:30. Maybe I don’t have to avoid Shlamilton? Maybe I should avoid “quarter”? Or maybe I need to make sure my will is up to date.

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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Sharing my Warmth Goes to the Dogs

At our house, in addition to Mom and Dad and the two kids, we also have 3 cats and 2 dogs. Like most dogs, ours do not like thunderstorms.

We live in a nice neighbourhood that happens to be relatively close to where our local NHL hockey team has their practice facilities, so quite a few of the players live nearby.

One of these players is an all-star goaltender that we will call “Larry Nice”. He is also the owner of a couple of dogs, which I know since I follow him on Twitter, where he recently posted a photo of his two pals.

I volunteer at a Montreal charity called Share the Warmth, and can usually be found there on Thursday afternoons when we give out boxes of food to the local folks. When I leave the house on those days my wife will often say “Have fun sharing your warmth today”.

During the food bank, we give out pet food when we have it, but we ran out a few months ago and have had to say “Sorry, we don’t have any this week”, when people asked.

I recently contacted someone I knew who worked for Hagen, a local pet food manufacturer, and through her and Hagen’s generosity, we finally managed to have lots of dog food on hand for a change.

So on a recent Thursday, I was “sharing my warmth” and we were giving out lots of dog food, probably more than we should have, since it had been so long and we really had quite a bit of inventory for a change. At the same time, storm clouds were brewing (literally).

Back at home, the dogs were in the backyard. The one who usually freaks out during storms has been known to break through or dig his way out from under our fence. It is for this reason that I got him a dog tag with my cell phone number and address on it.

The people coming in for food were dripping wet from the rain. I am hoping that the bit of thunder that I heard in Montreal did not mean that my dogs were getting scared in the yard.

At about 2 o’clock, my phone rang. The guy on the other end told me he had my dog. He said he could meet me at a nearby parking lot and give him back to me. I explained that I couldn’t get away and my best-case scenario would be to meet him in about 20 minutes.

Then the nice man noticed our address on the dog tag and offered to bring him back home. I said, yes, please, and thank you, and informed him that there would be another dog there waiting for his vagabond buddy.

I got home a couple of hours later and found both dogs safe, sound, and quite dirty. Later I sat back and checked my Twitter timeline to see what I had missed during the day.

What’s this I see? “Larry Nice” has tweeted that he “picked up a fugitive today”, with a link to a photo that he posted.

Curious, I clicked on the link, and almost fell off my chair when I saw my dog in the back seat of Larry’s Ford pick-up. Thanks Larry, for a story that I have already told quite a few times, and will continue to share. The dogs sure hope you never get traded, especially not to the Lightning.

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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Three Circles + Seven Sectors = One A-Ha Moment

Over the past 8 months or so, I have taken on a renewed interest in family businesses and what makes them different and what makes them tick. I have enrolled in courses that do a great job of teaching what family business is all about and how and why they are special.

The courses have covered some in-depth ideas like having a family mission statement, holding regular family meetings, setting up a board of directors with non-family members, getting advisors from different fields to work together harmoniously, facilitating meetings and helping with conflict resolution.

But the single most important thing that I learned was right at the beginning of each course. And it is still the most powerful place to begin any discussion with a family businessperson. It is called the Three-Circle Model. It is SO simple, yet we kept coming back to it during the courses.

The Three-Circle Model (TCM) has only been around for twenty to twenty-five years or so. I am not sure who gets the credit for it, and I would not be surprised to learn that its exact origin is disputed. I recently read an artice from the 1980s that was still talking about family business from a “Two Systems” point of view, which leads me to believe that the TCM evolved afterwards.

(Note from 2016: Please see http://johndavis.com/three-circle-model-of-the-family-business-system/ for more on the origin of the model)

Without further ado, the 3 circles are, “Family”, “Business”, and “Ownership”. F-B-O, a simple Venn diagram of three overlapping circles.

The premise is this: Most people look at a family business as one thing, one entity, one system. But upon closer inspection, there is a LOT more going on there. So in the 80s they started to look at how the Family and the Business were different, and needed to be looked at separately. Later, it was determined that Ownership was also worth spinning out as its own circle.

So part 1 of my equation above in the title of this post is the TCM. What about the seven sectors? Glad you asked. When you draw the TCM as a Venn diagram, you get seven different sectors. Picture yourself asking a three-year-old with a box of Crayolas to colour each portion with a different crayon; they would need seven of them.

So why is this important to Family Businesses? Well mostly because the people who inhabit some of those sectors aren’t even part of the family business. Some of them are part of the Business Family!

People who are only in one circle (the 3 sectors without any overlap) will look at the family business much differently than those who are in one of the three sectors within a two-cirlce overlap.

And then there are those in the middle sector, who are part of the Family, who work in the Business, AND who are also part of Ownership. They often lament the fact that everyone else doesn’t see things the same way as they do!

People who inhabit different sectors will view things in different ways. It is only natural.

Once you learn to view any family business through the TCM, it is like turning on a floodlight. All of a sudden some things that were difficult to comprehend become more easily understood.

And then when you realize that the four sectors where there are overlaps are the ones you need to really concentrate on, you can start to make a lot of progress. I like to think of this as the “flashlight” stage.

The TCM was the floodlight that allowed us to see many things in a new way. Shining the flashlight into the nooks and crannies of the overlapping sectors will help uncover the key areas that will need to be monitored and worked on going forward.

For a visual perspective on all this, please visit my website: click here

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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“I Finished my Book!”

About half of my lifetime ago, while working for the family business, the key managers and myself were forced into taking an in-house course on goal-setting. We met once a week for a few months with some guru-type who made us do all sorts of exercises and tried to get us to form new, better habits.

One thing we had to do each week was to set some work goals and some personal ones. Then, when we got together again, we took turns reporting our successes. One time, “Gerry”, who came to us after we had acquired his family company, announced to us with glee, “I finished my book!”

Wow, we all thought, none of us had even realized that Gerry was writing a book. “What is your book about?” someone asked. “Um, I didn’t write a book, I finished reading a book”, he replied, sheepishly.

All this to say that everyone looks at books a bit differently. Most people rarely even read them, and very few people write books worth reading. But great books can be so inspirational.

I go through phases with my reading. Using my Kindle, and now my iPad, I will often have 3 or 4 books on the go at the same time. My normal method is to read a chapter of one book, then a chapter of another, rotating through them. Some of the people to whom I have mentioned this method look at me like I am crazy, as they only read one book at a time.

Different strokes for different folks. With today’s technology there is almost no excuse NOT to read though. You can finish one book from an author and immediately download the sequel or another in the series.

These days I find references to books through Twitter and will often download a book that sounds like it will be useful or inspiring. The trouble often comes when I have so many books piled up to read (figuratively, since they are electronic) that I know that I will never get through them all.

I have recently started to do more skimming or speed-reading just to be able to get to them all. But I still feel guilty that I might miss some nugget somewhere when I do that. I am trying to convince myself that it is better to read about 50-75 % of 20 books than to read 100 % of 10 books. It depends on which books, of course.

If I have books on the brain this week, it is because I had a visit from a friend this week, who told me that he is working on the third edition of his book, and he asked me about whether or not I would ever write a book. Hmm, not sure, I replied. But my mind started spinning.

The very next day I had a phone meeting with someone that I had only met once, briefly, a couple of weeks ago. We were talking about my re-branding as I make the move from the family office space, over to the field of family business advising. He is currently working on a book himself.

Then he mentioned,“You know, when you start to write a book, you would be amazed at how it changes your focus and helps you put things into a new perspective and helps you figure out what is important” (paraphrasing, I wish that I had written it down so I could quote him verbatim).

So this week two different people who are each working on books (writing, not just reading) mention writing a book to me. Neither one said, “Steve, YOU should write a book”.

But that is what I heard.

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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D’autre CAFÉ?

La semaine dernière, j’ai écrit dans ce blog (en anglais) un texte sur le Family Enterprise of the Year Award présenté par CAFÉ, le Canadian Association for Family Enterprise. Dans ce texte, je mentionnais que je trouvais cela décevant que CAFÉ n’a plus vraiment une présence au Québec.

Nous sommes aujourd’hui la fête des pères, et, pour moi, elle est devenue une journée d’émotions mixtes. J’ai deux enfants qui sont trèèèès importants dans ma vie, et qui y prennent beaucoup de place. C’est également la cinquième fête des pères que je vis sans mon père, qui lui, aussi, avait pris beaucoup de place dans ma vie.

Notre compagnie familiale était devenue membre de CAFÉ dans les années 80, et j’ai assisté a quelques-uns de leurs évenements avec mon père. J’ai trouvé ça génial qu’il existait une place où on discutait ouvertement de situations et de questions que nous vivions dans notre famille.

J’ai vu en mon père un esprit de coopération avec les membres de son PAG (Personal Advisory Group) pour essayer de développer des systèmes chez nous pour mieux intégrer “famille” et “business”.

Je suis devenu membre affilié de CAFÉ dernièrement, mais je n’ai aucune position officielle avec eux, donc j’ai la possibilité de parler sans restriction et sans partie pris.

Je sais que les activités d’un groupe comme CAFÉ on beaucoup de potentiel pour aider les familles d’affaires dans le ROC (Rest of Canada) comme au Québec. Je sais qu’il existe, au Québec, des organismes qui oeuvrent dans des domaines connexes.

Je sais qu’au Québec, c’est toujours différent, et j’ose dire que je comprend un peu pourquoi c’est le cas.

Mais ayant discuté dernièrement avec les hauts dirigeants de CAFÉ, incluant le Chairman, le Vice-Chair, le D.G., etc., je peux dire qu’il y a une ouverture à revenir au Québec, et je crois qu’ils sont tous prêts à regarder toutes les options.

Quand je pense aux “autres organismes”, il y a le CIFA à HEC, et il y a aussi le Groupement des Chefs d’Entreprises. Il y en a sûrement d’autres que je ne connais pas encore. Peut-être que CAFÉ devrait explorer des alliances avec de tels groupes?

Mais au Québec la question de langue revient toujours, et pour cause. Mais quand la volonté est présente, la langue n’est plus un obstacle majeur, surtout en sachant que la grande majorité des participants sont bilingues (surtout à Montréal).

J’ai aussi noté de plus en plus des rencontres bilingues dans d’autres organismes. C’est-à-dire, des occasions où le monde s’interchangent entre eux en anglais et/ou en français, sans se sentir obligé de traduire, en sachant que tout le monde (ou presque) a compris.

Je suis certain que je ne suis pas le seul qui change de poste lors des speechs politique pour ne pas être obligé d’entendre un interprète.

Deux dernières idées, et ils pourront peut-être se marier ensemble. Le D-G de CAFÉ m’avait mentionné la possibilité de recommencer au Québec avec un PAG, et voir où on pouvait se rendre.

La deuxième idée est la mienne, et parvient du domaine de l’agriculture. Je n’y connait pas grand chose, mais je sais que l’UPA (Union des Producteurs Agricoles) est présent partout au Québec, et ils ont un comité dans chaque région.

Mais en plus, ils y a un comité “English”. Je le sais puisque mon père était membre pendant des années.

Si CAFÉ revenait avec un ou des PAGS, en anglais, pour débuter. Entretemps, des alliances avec d’autres organismes pourront aussi être explorées?

Peut-être qu’on verra une autre instance de “if you build it, they will come”.

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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Another Round of CAFÉ?

Saturday night, June 8, 2013. The place to be was the Sheraton Conference Center in Toronto. The occasion? CAFÉ’s annual Family Enterprise of the Year Awards (FEYA).

CAFÉ (Canadian Association of Famliy Enterprise) is celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2013, and I recently joined as an affiliate member, given my renewed interest in the family business area. I had not realized that CAFÉ began in 1983, but found it interesting because my previous involvement with them was in the mid-80s, as they were just getting started.

At that time I was the second-generation (G2) son who was about to enter the family business, and someone got my father interested in CAFÉ. That was where he learned the importance of getting the family more involved, even those who did not work in the business.

He actually set up a family retreat, which I remember mostly because it was the only one we ever had. Not that it went badly, but running the company was more urgent, and nobody stepped up to make sure that the event became a regular part of our calendar.

We learned a few things from CAFÉ, not all of which were applied, of course. I vividly recall Dad telling me about how they recommend that kids work somewhere outside the family business for at least 3 to 5 years before even being allowed to come into the family company. Made sense to me, but Dad felt it did not apply to our situation.

So back to the FEYA event on Saturday.The best part of any CAFÉ gathering is the sharing of stories. Family businesses are all unique, yet there are always things that you can learn from others, especially how they have handled the intersection of the family with the business.

The three finalist families were all in attendance, each with about a dozen or so people there, representing two or three generations. They each had a little speech prepared, as well as a great video that the CAFÉ folks obviously put a great deal of effort into producing.

Not surprisingly, the families were all very thankful that they had become involved in CAFÉ, as the interactions had helped them figure out some things that they would not likely have picked up anywhere else. The stories were all very different, but each was touching in its own way.

A key benefit for families who join is the PAG (Personal Advisory Group) network. My father referred to his as his “CAFÉ Buddy group”. They used to have regular meetings, alternating whose family/company they would discusss. It became an informal board of sorts, where he could share stories, ideas, and problems with others who were undergoing many similar issues.

Even after selling our operations, he continued to meet with his PAG. After he passed away, a couple of his former PAG friends invited me to their annual Christmas gathering, which was really cool, as we spent the time reminiscing and sharing stories about him.

CAFÉ can be very powerful. Unfortunately, it is not nearly as powerful as it could be. That is not meant to be an insult, as I know that the board is working hard at making CAFÉ become an even more important part of the family business scene in Canada. They had just concluded some board meetings and were quite pumped at what they were working on.

There was even a bit of talk about Quebec and its lack of presence in CAFÉ. How could they find ways to get more invloved there? Apparently there was a new member from Quebec who was keen on helping mobilize things.

That would be me. If you are in Quebec and also interested in “another round of CAFÉ”, please reach out to me, and let’s see where we can take this

J’imagine que mon prochain blogue sera en français et devrait toucher sur le même sujet, mais du point de vue québecois. À la semaine prochaine…

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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Spreading the Gospel vs. Cornering the Market

One day not long ago I was speaking to someone who had organized a “maker space”, which is a place where kids and teens can go to play around with stuff and make things. With 3-D printing becoming more mainstream, these spots are starting to pop up in various places.

During our discussion, it became clear that the people who run these types of operations are very cooperative with each other and like to help each other out by sharing what works for them.

I found myself combining a couple of metaphors into my explanation of what was going on. “You’re not trying to corner the market, you’re spreading the gospel”, I summarized. He agreed.

The next day somebody was explaining his current project to me over lunch. He was involved with a group of people that were developing an accreditation process for a particular type of professional, which does not yet exist.

He mentioned that they were collaborating with other organisations in other areas and that that was quite helpful to the cause. I found myself saying to him, “Well yeah, you’re not trying to corner the market, you’re trying to spread the gospel.” He also agreed.

Now I don’t know about you, but when I find myself uttering the same phrase two days in a row in two completely different circumstances, I remember it. I started to think that I might be on to something.

It seems to me that there are more and more people who are working at spreading gospels than cornering markets these days. Is it just my imagination?

Maybe it is because I am now involved in a service business and not selling a product. Maybe it is the social networks that I am plugged into. Maybe it is society with more Gen Y’s entering the workforce who work more collaboratively.

My father used to tell me that his father used to tell him that you can carry more sand in your hands with both your palms open than you can with clenched fists. For me, open and transparent has always been a more comfortable way to do things, so spreading the gospel is a much easier way for me to live my life.

The gospel that is now driving me is all about family business. They are very different from other businesses. There are no two the same. That makes them interesting to me.

But the more of them I see, the more I see missed opportunities. The fact that you have a business and a family interacting can have so many positives, but just as many negatives.

I feel like I can see the negatives so clearly sometimes and that I can help families to take the steps necessary to avoid some of the negatives and even turn some of the negatives into positives.

I will try to spread the gospel of getting business families to recognize that they need to look at their families separately from their businesses. Too many people concentrate so much on the business to the detriment of the family.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Maybe they just need someone to point it out to them. But few people from inside the family are comfortable doing that.

I will not try to “corner the market”, since there seems to be plenty of work to be done. I will try to spread the gospel that stepping back and looking at the family as a family should not be overlooked. Who is with me?

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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Québecois, mais aussi canadien, et nord-americain

Je suis né à Montréal en 1964. Mes parents, étants arrivés au Canada durnat les années 1950, ont appris la langue de la majorité du pays, l’anglais. Chez nous, en plus d’un dialecte de l’allemand, c’était en anglais qu’on se parlait.

En septembre 1970, j’ai commencé ma première année à l’école Ste-Odile, à Cartierville, en français. Mes grandes soeurs, elles, étaient à Transfiguration of our Lord, en anglais. J’ai pleuré tout l’été, sachant que je serai forcé à débuter mes études dans une langue que je ne connaissait pas.

Avec une quarantaine d’années de recul, je constate que c’était une bonne décision de la part de mes parents. Mon père était homme d’affaires, et il voyait que pour son fils, ça serait pas seulement un atout, mais une nécessité d’être bilingue au Québec. La crise d’octobre qui est survenu à peine un mois plus tard lui avait confirmé la pertinence de sa décision.

Revenons au présent. La réalité est que le fait d’être bilingue (ou même multilingue) est un plus. Je n’entrerai pas dans le discours de certains, qui craignent la disparition du français au Québec, je n’y crois pas. Je reconnais leur passion, mais je ne suis pas de ceux qui croient que c’est en mettant des restrictions sur les autre langues qu’on fait la promotion de la nôtre.

Aujourd’hui je suis marié avec une francophone aussi bilingue que moi, et nos deux enfants sont encore plus bilingues que nous. Nous bénéficions des cultures des deux côtés, et même encore un peu de celle de mes parents immigrants.

Mais encore plus que la culture, je remarque d’autres différences entre les Québecois et le reste de l’Amérique du Nord. Je parlerai d’un seul secteur, mais je suis certain qu’il existe des parallèles dans plusieurs autres.

Dans le domaine des entreprises familiales, dans les années 1980, notre compagnie s’est joint à CAFÉ, le Canadian Association for Family Enterprise. Cette organisme existe toujours partout au Canada, sauf au Québec.

Au québec depuis quelques années le CIFA (Centre International des Familles en Affaires) existe, mais autant que son but est d’aider les familles en affaires, son rôle ne réunit pas les familles comme membres, qui peuvent ensuite s’entraider, ce que CAFÉ a toujours bien fait.

Sur le côté éducation, je suis présentement inscrit au FEAP (Family Enterprise Advisor Program). Ce programme développé par l’University of British Columbia, est maintenant administré par IFEA (Institute of Family Enterprise Advisors). En plus du UBC, le FEAP sera bientôt offert en Alberta, en Ontario à Western et à Dalhousie à Halifax. Montréal? Pas encore.

Mais agrandissons l’échelle encore une fois. Au États-Unis le FFI (Family Firm Institute) existe depuis 1986. Cet organisme est dédié à tous les professionnels qui font affaires avec les entreprises familiales. Il existe un chapitre au Canada, en Ontario, sans surprise.

Le monde devient de plus en plus petit. Il y a plusieurs bons modèles ailleurs qui pourraient être copiés ici au Québec, mais nous n’avons pas nécessairement l’échelle pour garantir leur survie.
Par contre, pour ceux qui parlent anglais, ce monde est aussi ouvert à eux. J’en profite. J’espère que d’autres feront pareil. Le monde est petit, mais il est aussi grand.

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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