This past week our family was at the cottage, where we do not have all the comforts of home (although we are far from roughing it!)

I was washing the dishes after supper one night, and I had a flashback to my childhood, making me realize how much things had changed in just one generation. I started out thinking about doing dishes, but then thought about all kinds of other family issues too.

When I was a kid, we were the last family on our street to get a colour TV. I remember that we were lobbying our parents for that colour TV, but my mother wanted a dishwasher.

I don’t actually remember if we ended up getting the TV or the dishwasher first, but I do clearly remember the fights I had with my sisters over whose turn it was to dry the dishes each night.

All sorts of memories came back, about my Dad forcing us to create a calendar to keep track of whose turn it was; complaining that there were more dishes on the nights when it was my turn; thinking that maybe if I “accidentally” broke some plates, I might “get fired”.

So here I am at the cottage, washing the dishes by myself, and I never even asked my able-bodied teenagers to join me. Was I just sacrificing myself , so they could enjoy the last few days of their summer vacation, or was I trying to avoid the whining that would surely result in my asking for help?

After I had washed them all, they were drying in the rack, so I just left them there overnight, and put them away the next morning. This made me wonder why I was forced to dry dishes 40 years ago in the first place; did we not have the patience to let nature take its course and let them dry themselves? In retrospect, it seems like there was a lot of fussing over nothing.

But of course the real question that arises is whether we are we spoiling our kids by not making them help out more, or is this just the way people raise their kids these days, or both?

And what about that “colour TV” we wanted, not many families are having that discusssion nowadays, as TVs are becoming passé, with such a variety of screens all over the house.

I remember watching the old Spiderman cartoons with my young son a decade ago, where episodes featured the words “In Colour!” and I had to explain to him that back then, everything used to be in black and white.

We have come a long way with technology, and few would argue that so many of the changes have been positive.

What about the family, and not raising the kids to help out? I am not sure if that is such a good thing. We want our kids to become independent, but we don’t always help them by doing so much for them.

In wealthier families, this can be even more of an issue, as the kids can begin to think that household tasks like mowing the lawn, shoveling the snow, and keeping the house clean are somehow beneath them, as they are all things we pay “others” to do.

Back to me doing the dishes that night, at least my kids were not thinking, “Wow, Dad is doing the dishes!” as if it was something that should automatically be Mom’s job. That is one thing that has definitely changed since my father’s generation.

Somehow, though, I am pretty sure my son is hoping he will end up finding someone like his grandmother, who did view that as part of the woman’s role. But they don’t make them like her anymore, do they?

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.

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.

My family and I just returned from my favourite US city, Chicago, where we had a whirlwind 72 hours that will henceforth be referred to as “Dad’s 50th Birthday trip”, even though my birthday came and went a few days prior to our departure.

We hit all the stops from Navy Pier to Lincoln Park Zoo, from the Architectural Tour on the Chicago River to the John Hancock Tower Observatory, and even hit Soldier Field for a Bears pre-season game on Friday night. And of course we sampled some deep dish Chicago pizza.

But the part that I will not soon forget was the Cubs game at Wrigley Field, which we took in from the Skybox on Sheffield, one of the many places that have sprung up in recent years located across the street from the venue where the Cubs play their home games.

I had always said “some day I want to catch a game from one of those places”, so this trip became “some day”. The game was not memorable for what happened on the field, though, with the Tampa Rays winning 4-0. It was memorable because of the conversations I had with my 13-year-old daughter.

I attend many sporting events, mostly with my son, and only occasionally with her. She had not seen live baseball, and asked me to explain it to her. “Cool”, I thought, “this should be fun”.

The first thing that struck me was that the terminology can be quite confusing to those unfamiliar with the nuances. To her words like “throw” and “pitch” were interchangeable, and anyone who caught a ball was a “catcher”, as opposed to a fielder.

Just like family business, I thought, where succession planning and leadership can become confusing to different people in different positions and with different levels of “inside knowledge”.

As I explained the stuff about 4 balls for a walk, three strikes and you’re out, etc, it also dawned on me that everyone has a limited capacity to absorb new information in one sitting. After a few innings, the explanations became less frequent.

The next time we see a ball game on TV, I know that I will be able to explain a bit more to her, as what I helped her learn on Saturday has sunk in and formed a baseline (no pun intended), and we have something to build on, incrementally.

One step at a time is usually my favourite way to go about things, and when you are getting your family more involved in your business dealings, or getting them up to speed on how you are running your business and how and where the family fits into the picture, it is usually a good idea to go slowly and add more information with time.

The most important parallel that I felt was that spending time with the ones you love, helping them to learn and understand something that you know about and care about, is just about the most rewarding thing you can spend time on.

As a teenager, I played baseball, coached baseball, and umpired baseball. The Expos moving to Washington 10 years ago broke my heart, as I was a fan and had hoped to bring my kids to games. My son understands the game, and I have brought him to games at Fenway Park, Camden Yards, Philly, and DC, but I know that if we still had an MLB team here I would not have waited this long to explain the game to my daughter.

If you have a family business, don’t wait to explain things to the ones you love, start as soon as they show an interest. Go slowly, but then let them decide if and when they want to get involved further, and please don’t push them.

I know that my daughter learned quite a bit about baseball, but I am pretty sure she enjoyed the Katy Perry concert at the United Center on Thursday more than the Cubs game. And I was happy to be there with her too.

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

Jay Hughes is one of the gurus of family business whose thinking on business families and subjects like succession and wealth transfer has been followed for decades.

Yesterday, along with 200+ other attendees at the annual Rendez-Vous of the Purposeful Planning Institute, I had the pleasure of hearing him speak live for the first time, and he did not disappoint.

Hughes talked at length about a variety of subjects, his points of view being described as “spot on” by some, “controversial” by others, and “an evolution of his thinking from just a couple of years ago” when he also delivered a keynote at the PPI gathering.

But one thing with which nobody I spoke to could argue, was the terminology he was encouraging us to use with respect to the various generations in a family business. Practitioners have long used the letter G (for generation) and then the series of numbers to describe the different generations.

While useful for some purposes, the continued use of this system when discussing current and near future issues can lead to plenty of negative connotations, and the entire missing of the point of much of the exercise.

You see, it is all well and good to say that XYZ-company is currently being managed by G2, and the founder (G1) has recently passed away, and some members of the cousin consortium (G3) are currently beginning to join the operations while others are starting college.

But with this numbering system, if I am born into G2, I will always be a G2, and my kids will be G3 and my grandkids G4. The usefulness of this nomenclature is limited, as it describes people in a static fashion, within their family/company only.

If I have a family client being run by G3, with G4 up and coming through the ranks, that G4 will have more in common with another client where the founding G1 is running the show and G2 is preparing to take more control. The G4 and G2 labels lose their benefit very quickly.

So here comes the “Rising Generation” to the rescue. Hughes pointed out that when we refer to the rising generation, it helps keep everyone focussed on the fact that every person, and hence every family, and every business, has a life cycle.

Some founders need to be reminded that they will not live forever. If they aspire to have the business continue to future generations, there will be some work required to instill the changes in leadership from the current generation to the next, and then from that one to the following one.

They do not have numbers in common as we repeat the cycle, but what we clearly do have is a sequence of “rising generations” whose roles, challenges, and responsibilites resemble each other in sequence, scope, and detail.

Any vocabulary that helps emphasize the importance of involving the next generation is a plus.

I recall about a year ago, when first hearing the term “continuity planning” to replace the worn out and misconstrued “succession planning”, I felt compelled to write a blog about it.

Once again, I am compelled to show my support for new terminology, so let’s hear it for the “rising generation”.

And here is hoping that many families take this to heart and will also be able to soon say “let’s hear it for the rising generation” when speaking of how well their up-and-coming family members are succeeding in leadership roles in their family enterprises.

And here is to family business advisors use of the term to keep the rising generation at the top of the agenda in all of their work, for the good of the business, and the good of the family.

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.