Posts

L’importance d’offrir un choix éclairé

Dernièrement, j’ai eu occasion de réfléchir sur l’importance des choix éclairés, ou avertis. En réalité, c’était en anglais, et l’expression “informed choice” était utilisée, et j’étais donc confronté avec le choix entre “éclairé” et “averti” comme meilleure traduction.

La semaine passée, je prenais part à un cours sur la résolution de conflits, où j’ai eu la chance d’agir comme médiateur entre des partis opposants, dans plusieurs scénarios.

La méthode préconisée était basée sur des principes de “interest-based mediation”, ou médiation fondée sur les intérêts. Un des enseignants avait mentionné qu’un des buts du médiateur était de toujours s’assurer que les partis puissent faire un choix éclairé.

Je n’avais jamais pensé à cela de cette façon, mais je l’ai pris en note, avec mon stylo, dans mon cartable. Je l’ai aussi encerclé, et ajouté le mot “BLOG!” à côté.

Je ne prends pas souvent des notes, puisque je crois que les leçons importantes vont rester dans mon cerveau, et si je les oublies, elles n’étaient peut-être pas si importantes après tout.

Mais l’idée que le rôle d’un médiateur était de s’assurer que les partis fassent le choix d’accepter ou non une offre, mais seulement après avoir compris tous les enjeux, c’était révélateur pour moi.

Ceux qui me connaissent bien savent que je crois que la communication est le sujet le plus important parmi les membres d’une famille en affaires. Trop souvent le manque de communication et la mauvaise communication sont des sources de problèmes majeurs parmi les membres de telles familles.

Le résultat de ces erreurs de communication est que les gens prennent des décisions qui sont basés sur une perception des faits qui est loin d’être éclairée ou avertie, mais plutôt érronée et basée sur des hypothèses farfelues.

Quand je travaille avec des familles qui ne sont pas au point d’avoir besoin des services d’un médiateur, je les encourage de partager leurs idées, leurs points de vue, et de communiquer régulièrement sur ces points.

C’est toujours axé sur l’idée que les meilleurs choix et décisions sont pris après réflection, dans une situation où chacun peut dire qu’il agit avec toute l’information, et que ce sont des choix éclairés et avertis.

Caché derrière ce sujet, il y a un autre point très important, et c’est que les partis dans une médiation typique sont souvent déconnectés les uns des autres, et donc il existe parfois un avantage pour un des partis concernant l’information, la compréhension de la situation, et les alternatives disponibles.

Quand il s’agit des membres d’une même famille, je crois que ça devient encore plus important de s’assurer que chaque individu ait la chance de prendre sa décision avec les mêmes faits.

Hier j’ai écouté une présentation sur le web donnée par un collègue de Toronto, Jeff Noble de BDO, qui parlait de convention d’actionnaires. Il avait mentionné une statistique étonnante, disant que d’après des avocats, 80% des conventions entre actionnaires que ces avocats ont rédigées ne sont jamais signées! Mais pourquoi?

Le but de sa présentation était de convaincre des familles en affaires de développer leurs conventions de façon coopérative, ensemble, en partageant leurs perspectives. Comme ça, elles pourraient en arriver à un document que chaque personne signerait.

Et c’est pour ceci que j’avais décidé de titrer ce blogue “L’importance d’offir un choix éclairé, et pas seulement “L’importance d’un choix éclairé”.

Ce qui est à la fois très important et très difficile, c’est d’assurer que chaque parti agit avec l’ouverture d’esprit et l’attitude de partage qui est nécessaire pour arriver à des décisions durables.

On pourrait croire que dans les situations avec des membres de la même famille, ça serait plus facile, mais malheureusement ce n’est pas toujours le cas.

Heureusement pour ces familles, il existe des gens formés dans la médiation, le coaching, et l’animation de rendez-vous de familles qui peuvent les aider.

 

/by
,

Off the Grid, Without a Paddle (Part 2 of 2)

Last week we finished up with my tech problem partially solved, but in a very sub-optimal way. The toll free number of the overseas company left me with a bad taste in my mouth (curry?) so I tried Microsoft’s support website again, because at least it was free.

There was a place to click for a “live chat”, and I wondered if it would actually work. I had used this type of feature a few times in the past, usually on websites that are trying to sell you something, as it is a good way for the company to answer questions.

What the heck, so I click on OK, and start typing my problem. It took a minute or two to get a reply from “Melinfor” (which I concluded was probably his real name, as the headshot of him did look like someone named Mel).

Live chats are much cheaper for the company than phone calls because the agents can work on a number of different customers’ issues at the same time, since there is usually plenty of downtime resolving these things.

I didn’t mind waiting for Mel to get back to me for a minute or so, because he quickly understood my problem, proposed the solution, and wrapped it all up in under 15 minutes.

He could not revive my old hotmail address, because it is technically impossible to do so. But he got me the next best solution. And I learned a lot of lessons through this ordeal, which I will gladly share.
1. You don’t need to speak to someone to get something accomplished. Technology today allows so many options that do not involve talking on the phone.

When I look back on my insistence on “calling someone”, I am reminded of my father, whose preferred method was to speak to someone, but those were the days when you could easily call and speak to a live person, and the alternatives were going to the store or writing a letter.

2. I don’t miss the spam. When you have the same email address for 15 years, you get a lot of spam. Most of it is easily filtered, but the best side effect of this incident is a lot less crap in my inbox.

3. When you die, you are dead. When I clicked on “remove” for my old address, after already having made the other address my primary one, it was overkill for what I wanted to do. I had not realized the implications of that one click, and after doing it, I was “dead”.

There are some actions that you cannot come back from. For every time I have seen those messages “Are you sure?” when I was deleting something, I would have appreciated at least one heads-up on this one. Moral: You don’t always get a heads-up or a warning. Be careful!

4. What you think you see is not always what it appears to be.

I called a toll-free number for support, which I had wrongly assumed was a Microsoft number. I was stressed by my situation, and fell for a trick, but I have to say that the trick is pretty clever.

If your company has people who can “help” computer users solve their problems, what better way to get them to call you could you come up with?

There are lots of forums online where people ask for tech help, and sometimes those people are looking for a phone number to speak to someone. So you go on these forums pretending that you are just a regular contributor answering a question, and post your number, and people call you.

I just wonder, though, if they put their company name there, along with their number, and told people it was support that they had to pay for, how many calls would they get? Answer: Fewer.

I won’t get fooled again.

/by
,

The Father-Daughter Ikea Assembly

Last week I came across a Tweet about how sitting can kill you, complete with all sorts of stats that made me think about my own habits and how sedentary they are.

A news report then followed, touting the benefits of treadmill desks that some companies have installed for workers, that has them walk slowly but for long periods of time, with great results.

In an effort to see if something like this was actually doable for me, I looked for a way to try this out with the treadmill that I already have at my office. So it was off to IKEA.

I purchased a small table that attaches to a wall, and brought it to my office. My 13-year-old daughter has assembled lots of her own IKEA stuff, and she offered to come to my office and do most of the work. What follows is our separate accounts of the experience.

His version:

What can you expect from an eighth-grader? Well, when she is MY daughter, I expect quite a bit. And she rarely disappoints, and she did not disappoint this time either.

She assembled the pieces perfectly with no instructions or supervision from me. So now it was time for me to get involved because it was time to attach it to the wall. It was also time for things to begin to go downhill.

“Oh, so those screws don’t come with it?” I asked. “No, I guess we need to go to the hardware store”. Off we went. But first I checked to see that I did have the plastic shields to put into the gyproc to make sure the screws would hold well. Check.

So we get there and I locate some good strong screws, ignoring the packs of screws that come with shields, since I already had those. Let’s go put in these 6 screws and our work will be done.

Except that the big screws did not fit with the shields I had installed, so we had to start over, with four big holes in the wall. We hit another patch of frustration due to one of my screw-ups, the details of which I no longer recall, resulting in more holes.

Long story short, we finally got the wall-mounted table attached, after more sweat (no tears or blood!) and a few muffled bad words.

She gets a 9/10, I don’t know if I deserve a 5/10.

Her version:

My father bought an IKEA desk, and seeing as I’m the IKEA expert of the family, I offered to go to his office and help him build it and hang it up.

When we got to his office, I decided to start off the building of the desk. I’d dealt with IKEA furniture before, so I completed it with ease, but it still needed to be mounted. The treadmill then needed to be turned 90° so that the desk could over-hang properly.

We realized that the screws required to hang the desk were not included in the box, so we were off to the hardware store!

We got big sturdy ones that could support the weight of the fixture. We came back and put in shields, but they didn’t go in properly, but we still tried to hang the desk and failed miserably. So we took them out, and moved it an inch to the right, and tried again. One of the shields broke, another one went straight through the wall.

At this point, I thought we were pretty much screwed. But then, we tried one last time, and we went a bit upward and took our time. It worked!

The desk is now hanging more or less properly over the treadmill (I’d give us an 8/10). I had an over-all great day with my dad, and I’m looking forward to having some feedback from my father about his brand-new treadmill desk.

/by
, ,

Geography 101: “Where” Matters

We all get stuck sometimes. We can be in a groove one day, and then suddenly find ourselves in a rut the next. It isn’t necessarily important to figure out what happened, but it is important to figure out what to do next. It isn’t what happens to us that matters, it’s what we do about it.

I am currently in the middle of nowhere, at our family cottage in New Brunswick. We got here a week ago, and we will be here for another week, and then we head back home and the kids start school, and everything returns to “normal”.

I don’t know what it is about this place, but everything just seems more calm and peaceful here. I came here by myself in January to get my book started, and I think that that was when I noticed how different everything feels here.

When I was doing the CTI Coaches training, I remember being sceptical when I first heard the term “geography”, and the concept that where you are, and even what position your body is in, can make such a big difference. But I can now say that I am a firm believer.

The best thing is that you do not have to drive 9 hours to my cottage to enjoy the benefits that Geography can give you. You could simply walk out the door and walk to the nearest park bench, or the local Starbucks. Or head to the airport and fly down south to sit on a beach, if you like.

The point is, where you are matters. It changes how you see things, how you think about things, how you feel, how you relate to others, and how you think about the future. When you bring along others you will learn things about them, and when you go alone, you will learn about yourself.

If your family is important to you, it makes sense to carefully consider where you get together. If you work in a family business, you probably have already experienced the fact that some people are better at separating “home” and “work” than others. When I started working fulltime for my Dad, I was still living at home, but within less than a year I couldn’t take it anymore and had to move out.

A family retreat is something that some business families try to incorporate into their schedules, as an opportunity to get everyone together, but in a different place, because they realize that “where” matters. The parents’ home is their place and their turf, even if you grew up there. The office is a place of work, and some of the stuff that needs to be discussed is not work related (even if it is some of the hardest work!).

Most families try to choose a resort location, and they try to make sure they have a variety of activities on the schedule, as well as lots of free unscheduled time, to allow people and smaller groups to interact as they please.

Whether your family is ready for this type of bonding activity or not is another question of course, but it will only happen when somebody decides that it is something worthwhile. And then it has to be followed up and repeated in the future in order to get some momentum.

Regardless of whether there are any family retreats in your future, I hope you will try out the geography theory that I am talking about. Notice how things look and feel different depending on where you are. And then when you get stuck, you will be able to try moving to a different space to change your perspective and get back on track.

/by
, ,

Patience: Important, mais le travail avant tout!

Plus tôt cette semaine, nous avons fait faire des travaux dans notre cour arrière par un paysagiste, avec qui nous faisons affaire depuis plus d’une dizaine d’années.

Après le départ des ouvriers, j’ai regardé les arbustes qu’ils venaient de planter, et pour un instant ou deux, j’étais un peu déçu par la petite taille de celles-ci.

Mais avec un peu de réflection, je me suis mis à sourire, en pensant que l’important soit fait: leur plantation. Pour le reste, il ne fallait que de la patience.

C’est important de faire preuve de patience dans plusieurs domaines, et aussi d’adopter une attitude positive, tout en développant notre capacité pour la gratification différée.

Mais la patience, l’attitude, et nos capacités d’attendre des récompenses ne sont pas suffisantes dans la plupart des cas.

Tout comme le paysagiste, qui avait fait le travail (et qui j’ai payé pour le faire), de planter ces nouvelles plantes, il est important de ne pas négliger qu’un certain effort est souvent nécessaire avant de pouvoir attendre patiemment.

Dans une famille en affaires, les parents qui font simplement attendre que leur enfant soit assez vieux pour venir travailler dans la compagnie, sans avoir pris le temps de l’éduquer et de lui préparer, seront sans doute déçus.

De l’autre côté de cette même médaille, le jeune qui s’attend à avoir un emploi, simplement parce qu’il fait partie de la famille, sans faire l’effort pour se faire éduquer et de se préparer pour ses fonctions, risque aussi la déception.

Quand viendra le temps de penser aux questions de succession de la compagnie, et/ou au transfert de l’entreprise à la futur génération, le travail de préparation devient encore plus important que la simple patience.

Si nous voulons une belle haie mature dans cinq ans, c’est aujourd’hui qu’il faut y penser. Ce n’est pas simplement en continuant dans les mêmes fonctions que nous allons éventuellement avoir développé les capacités de leadership et les structures de communications qu’il faudra.

Trop souvent la famille concentre ses efforts sur le côté de la “business” en croyant que toutes les questions du côté “famille” se règleront toutes seules. Ou, ils se disent qu’ils auront le temps d’y penser “plus tard”.

Si vous lisez ces lignes et vous reconnaissez des membres de votre famille, dites-vous que vous êtes loin d’être tout seul.

Mais dites-vous aussi que la patience ne règlera probablement pas la situation toute seule. Vous ne voyez peut-être pas les efforts que vous pouvez mettre immédiatement, mais laissez-moi vous donner quelques indices.

Pour moi le mot le plus important dans l’expression “entreprise familiale”, ce n’est pas “entreprise”, mais plutôt “familiale”. Quand on parle de famille, c’est parce que ce n’est pas simplement une personne, mais plusieurs.

“Ah oui,” je vous entend déjà, “mais chez nous, il y a vraiment seulement une personne qui prend toutes les décisions”.

Mais cette personne, (plus souvent qu’autrement c’est Papa), ne sera pas toujours là, et la famille a l’obligation de se préparer pour l’avenir. Oui, ça prend un effort, mais sans effort, la patience ne suffira pas.

Plusieurs personnes ça veut aussi dire plusieurs liens, et les liens peuvent devenir plus forts et plus serrés avec plus de communication. Parlez-vous des défis de la famille dans 5 ou 10 ans, dans divers scénarios.

Commencez à penser comment vous aller travailler ensemble quand Papa ne sera plus là. N’oubliez pas de parler avec Papa aussi! Il risque de ne pas vouloir en parler avec vous au début, mais s’il devient au courant de vos discussions entre vous, éventuellement il pourrait s’intéresser à vos pensées!

Attendre avec patience, même avec ses doigts croisés, ne donne pas souvent les résultats voulus. Mais avec un peu de travail, d’effort, de communication, de partage d’idées et de pensées, les chances que la patience soit récompensée sont beaucoup plus élevées.

/by

How the Family Governs the Family Business (Part 2 of 2)

We left off last week’s blog talking about some of the family members who are not employed in the family business, but whose lives are nonetheless affected by the business, as part of the general theme about how the family governs a family business.

Today we will use the airplane analogy to talk about how they can influence the business, as well as the responsibilities that come along with the benefits. We mentioned a few of the different generic players who might be involved:

– Alan/Alice (G2 child who is not employed),
– Betty/Ben (G2 in-law), and
– Chris (G3 potential future employee).

The day-to-day business is run by the employees, and the employees are usually managed by the senior executive(s) of the company. If there is a board of directors, the board appoints these executives.

Somewhere in that framework, there will be some sort of strategic plan that guides the company from month-to-month, quarter-to-quarter, and year-to-year. So what about the family? Let’s go to the airplane analogy.

The company is the airplane. It would seem crazy to simply allow Alan/Alice to decide that they wanted to fly the plane one day, by simple virtue of the fact that they are the child of the founder.

Similarly, if Betty/Ben were to insist that their family wanted to use the plane for a month for a long-dreamed-about trip around the world, this idea would be rejected.

And if Chris is thinking “It sure would be cool if I could borrow Grandpa’s plane to bring my buddies to Cancun for spring break”, this is probably not something that should be seriously considered.

But airplanes can be used in many different businesses. FedEx uses them to deliver packages, Doctors Without Borders uses them to fly to underserved countries to provide much needed medical services, and organized crime uses planes to move illegal drugs around from country to country.

What business is the family in? What business does the family want to be in? What business is the family good at? What business can the family be proud to be in? All of these questions are family questions.

When Grandpa started the company, these were not questions that were pondered. If, however, the family business is going to last more than a generation or two, these questions become crucial.

In order for the family to be involved in the answers to these questions, there needs to be some form of governance structure. How are decisions made? Who gets to have a say? How do we communicate? These are all really important questions that are part of transitioning from Grandpa’s start-up to the legacy, multi-generation company.

This is hard work, and when you think about it, not every company will have what it takes, and not every family will have what it takes, to make it happen.

While Alan/Alice, Betty/Ben, and Chris will rightly feel like part of the family and therefore part of the business, the benefits of ownership, if they are to enjoy them, come along with responsibilities as well.

The most common form of governance for the family is a sort of “Family Council”, which will represent the family’s interests regarding such questions as “what do we want to use our airplane for?” After all, it might have their name on it.

But for their say to be taken seriously, they must work together, in a formal way, to have their voice heard. And while initially Grandpa may have a hard time accepting that others want a say, the family’s best hope of being taken seriously is to work together, within a structure, as the family’s voice.

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.
/by
, ,

Creating the Family Business Legacy You Want

“>

I believe that just about every family business founder wants the same thing. In the short term, there are many ways to achieve it, but in the long run, due to human nature, not only business people, but all people, want to be remembered fondly and to have their efforts appreciated.

No, I do not have any statistical evidence, and I have not done any surveys, but if we just take a quick look at the opposite situation, how many people do you know who want to be remembered as a scoundrel and being despised? Yes, there are some, but thankfully they are in the minority.

What this blog is about in general is family business, and today’s topic is legacy. I truly believe that every family business founder wants to create a lasting positive legacy. Of course one of the traits that many of these people also have is that they believe that they are going to live forever.

Getting these people to actually commit to doing some serious succession planning, or as it is now more commonly referred to, continuity planning, is a huge problem, but we will get to that again in a future post. Today I want to talk about a pre-requisite that I believe must be present, but which is not spoken about enough.

So what is this mystery element that “must” be present? I like to call it Family Harmony. Despite their best attempts to avoid it, every single one of us will die some day, and there will be others that we will leave behind. It is up to those people we leave behind to ensure the positive legacy of the family business, and/or the business family.

This example has been used in this space before, but it was in one of my occasional French blog posts, and since I get more English readers, it is time to translate it.

Even those of us who have never been camping will surely have driven by a campsite or seen a tent structure before. In my analogy, your legacy is the tent. We can see the tent, how big it is, its shape, its colour.

The tent also provides lots of utility, in economics parlance. Shelter from the elements, safety, a place to gather and be together, often as a family.

Imagine for a moment that you only packed the shell of the tent, and you forgot the structural elements at home in the garage. Without any support to hold the tent up, without any pegs to hold it down in place, I think that this camping trip will likely be called off, or else be deemed sub-optimal. “Did we pass any motels lately?”

In my analogy, the pegs that hold the tent in place, and the support pieces that hold the structure up in a useful form, are the family harmony that you need to support the legacy that you want.

I realize that in this blog I have not proven this to be true, and those who do not want to believe it can do so if they choose. But please think about this, and share this example with others if you are a believer.

Too many business founders spend so much time making the proverbial pie bigger and bigger, without spending enough time thinking about how the pie will survive, how it will be grown or preserved after they are gone, and how those left behind can benefit from the pie for generations to come.

It does not happen by itself, and the harmony in the family is one of the biggest determinators of how well their legacy will survive.

Yes, it means that you need to discuss the fact that you will die one day. Get over it. Your legacy depends on 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.
/by
,

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.
/by

Cooking Meth is NOT a Good Family Business

Last week the TV series “Breaking Bad” wrapped up with its final episode, which featured one brief scene that most people probably did not really notice, but that struck me, as a family business advisor.

The show revolves around former high school chemistry teacher Walter White, who ends up becoming one of the biggest suppliers of illegal drugs in the southwestern US, thanks to his ability to “cook” very potent batches of crystal meth.

There are plenty of interesting twists in the plot over the 5 seasons of the show. The finale culminates in predictable fashion, with Walt becoming the subject of an international manhunt, set against his need to take care of some unfinished business before getting caught, succumbing to his cancer, or getting killed.

The show flew under the radar for its first few seasons, since it ran on AMC, a US cable network that could be considered HBO’s poor cousin. I learned about the show as its third season was winding down, thanks to my twitter timeline.

I follow a diverse crowd of people on my personal twitter account, covering sports, business, politics, and entertainment. On Sundays, I started to see tweets from a huge variety of people saying that they could not wait for tonight’s episode of Breaking Bad, or that they were closing down their computers so as not to be distracted during that evening’s show.

From those comments alone, I immediately ordered the DVDs of seasons 1,2, and 3.

I started watching the first season at the cottage, since I am the early bird in the family, and I could watch by myself before the others woke up. I should note that watching a violent show about illegal drugs is not something most people want to do as a family.

The show is addictive, kind of like crystal meth. Just kidding. Although one can assume that meth is also addictive, I am happy to say that I cannot speak from experience on this.

Sometimes my son would wake up early too, and join me in the living room, but I could not stop watching, so I kind of just hoped that he would not really catch on to what was happening on screen. That lasted about 5 minutes. Thankfully there was not a lot of foul language or nudity.

My parenting style is very open, in that just about anything that can be shared, is shared. The important part is that when it is shared, it is also explained. There are plenty of teaching moments in Breaking Bad, but you need to pause pretty often.

The Family Business angle that I mentioned earlier came when Walt went to see his wife one last time, and he started to repeat his old line about why he did everything he did. She interrupts him and says she can’t stand to hear him say it was for the kids.

Then Walt does something that too few famiy entrepreneurs ever do. He admitted that he did it for HIMSELF. He surprised me (pleasantly) by saying that he loved the power that he had, and that it made him feel good.

How many business people do you know that SAY they are doing it for their kids? How many of their kids would say, “What? He never asked me what I wanted”?

Walt brought his wife into the business, in order to launder all of the money he made, thanks to the success of his meth cooking. But Walter Junior did not learn of his real business until the end, and he was not exactly proud of his Dad.

My advice is to keep any family business on the right side of the law, but also to acknowledge for whom you are doing it. If it really IS for the kids, maybe you could ask for their input!

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.
/by

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.
/by