When I turned 50 recently, I vowed not to wear a tie again, with the possible exceptions of attending a wedding or a funeral. Thankfully I have not been to either since, so I haven’t had to make that call.

The open neck look now seems to be more prevalent than wearing a tie, at least from my observations.

During my childhood, my father always wore a tie to work, and when I started working in the office full time, I too wore one daily.

One day we were walking to a nearby restaurant for lunch, and a local kid came by on his bike and asked us if we were detectives. I guess to him we looked the part based on what he saw on TV.

When I was kid, my parents sometimes gave my grandfather a tie as a gift. But he had never worked a white-collar job, and I found it funny that my father always had to tie the tie for him, and he would hang it up and keep it tied for the occasions when he needed to spiff himself up.

I don’t miss looking like a cop, and I never wore a bow tie either, with the exception of a photo I recall seeing of myself when I was about 4 years old, but in that picture I was also wearing a red blazer, so I was obviously not the one who picked the outfit.

Without a tie, though, what could I use instead to add at least a modicum of pizzazz to my wardbrobe? Enter the pocket square. As Huey Lewis told us all those years ago (1986, wow, that long, yes, I checked!), It’s Hip to be Square.

So I now have a small inventory of pocket squares of various colours and patterns, but far from the tie inventory that I had amassed. But with time, it may get there.

One of the things I like about the pocket square thing is the name, pocket square. It must go back to my Dad again, because as far as he was concerned, to be square was a supreme compliment, it was the opposite of crooked.

“That Bob is a real square guy” would be about the nicest thing he could say about someone. That’s not to say that he rarely paid anyone a compliment, just to emphasize how important squareness was to him.

Now I’ve stated that I like the whole pocket square idea, but it has raised some questions on what is OK and what isn’t with respect to wearing one. I have never been a fashion junkie, I have usually been content to find clothes that fit me and that don’t clash.

I like the fact that there are some alternatives to how you wear the square. Some guys go with the ironed square, where it looks pressed and it forms a perfect thin rectangle above the pocket line. It’s a classy look, but really not my style.

I prefer more of a freestyle look, but I am not sure if all of the variations that I have been trying are cool. I am getting more adventurous, with different ways of folding the thing so that a few triangles stick out, or just kind of fluffing it up and shoving it in however it comes out. It all seems pretty random sometimes.

Or is it okay to fasten it in place with some tape or pins inside the pocket, after all that work to get it to look just right?

One conclusion that I have come to, is that guys who wear both a pocket square AND a tie are probably trying too hard, but maybe that’s just me.

Of course, this is coming from a guy who has been spotted on more than one dance floor with a tie around his head. But never again, since I don’t do the tie thing anymore. I’m a square guy now, and I think my Dad would be proud.

 

The area of family business advising is considered by some to be a niche market, since there are not that many of us who hold ourselves out as specialists in the field. Family wealth, by contrast, seems to be a much more crowded area, perhaps because so many huge institutional players are involved in the area of wealth management.

Today I want to look at some of the similarities and some of the differences, and even throw in a couple of other terms to discuss variations of the two.

At its most basic level, the key difference is usually about the existence or absence of an operating business. When a family owns and operates a business, with facilities, employees, and the sale of goods and services, we would usually call it a family business.

In the case where a family has a good deal of wealth, but that wealth is mostly in the form of financial assets, and typically of the more liquid variety, we tend to describe them as families of wealth. There are even terms like high net worth individuals (HNWI) and ultra high net worth individuals (UHNWI) depending on whether they have $10 MM or $500 MM, for example.

There are plenty of families who do not fit so neatly into one category or the other, of course, as some are successful in exiting one line of business and turning that portion to liquid wealth, while maintaining another active operating company. Or a family may take some of its liquid wealth and invest in starting or buying another business.

What these families all have in common, though, is that the decisions that they make do not only affect their company or their money, but also many members of their family. When it comes time to think about how the business or the wealth will go from the parents’ generation to their kids, and then the grandchildren, there are many areas that can get tricky.

The Family Firm Institute, a global organisation based in Boston, offers courses and certification for those who advise these kinds of families. I recently completed the initial level of the Certificate in Family Business Advising (CBFA) as well as the Certificate in Family Wealth Advising (CFWA).

I will be doing their course on Family Governance beginning in January, as it is a requirement for both of the advanced versions of those certificates (ACFBA and ACFWA). Many of the courses for these certificates in Family Business and Family Wealth advising apply to both.

In Canada, IFEA, the Institute of Family Enterprise Advisors, offers the designation “FEA”, where they use the word “Enterprise” as more of a catch all, encompassing both business and wealth, because of the many similarities and the difficulty in labelling these families.

Much of the research in this area is currenlty focused on the area of entrepreneurialism, and creating “enterprising families”, which is often required to keep the assets of the family growing as quickly as the number of family members increases geometrically with each generation.

Tom Davidow, a veteran of this field and head of his eponymous advsiory firm, makes special mention of Real Estate families on his website, as he notes that they have many of the traits from the wealth realm but also an operations component and some tricky tax issues due to the way these assets are often owned.

I met Davidow this week at a conference for Family Offices, which is yet another term that is not always well understood, but which often operates at the intersection of family business and family wealth.

A family office is typically set up to handle the needs of one family (single family office, or SFO) or the needs of several families (multi-family office, or MFO), and can have anywhere from one employee to dozens of staff.

There are many names and not always a lot of agreement about what they mean. But when a family owns a large quantity of assets, that are destined to be kept in the family over coming generations, it is important to remember that the “family stuff” doesn’t always just take care of itself.

 

J’ai pris la décision récemment de faire traduire mon livre en français, et j’ose dire que je le fait “à la demande populaire”. Peut-être que j’exagère un petit peu là-dessus, mais nous verrons avec le temps.

Quand quelqu’un me décrit comme étant “parfaitement bilingue”, je ne suis pas d’accord, puisque je suis très conscient de mes limites en français. Oui, j’écris parfois des blogues en français, moi-même, tout seul, mais je ne les publierai jamais sans les faire réviser par quelqu’un d’autre avant de peser sur le piton “publish”.

C’est ma fille qui me rend ce service, et elle le fait avec plaisir, surtout depuis que je lui offre $2 pour chaque erreur qu’elle trouve et corrige. Elle n’est pas encore rendue riche, mais disons que j’ai déjà écrit quelques blogues qui m’ont coûté chers, à cause de mon inattention aux règles de grammaire que j’avais pourtant apprises au primaire à l’École St-Rémi dans les années 70.

Mais c’est une réalité qu’au Québec, avoir son livre en anglais, mais de ne pas avoir une version française, ce n’est pas idéal. J’hésitais de le traduire dès le début pour diverses raisons, incluant le coût de la traduction, la question de la distribution au Québec, et surtout la complexité de traduire le titre et les noms des chapitres clés.

Le titre anglais est “SHIFT your Family Business”, où les lettres du mot “SHIFT” sont un acronyme basé sur les mots Start, Help, Invest, Flexible et Talk.

Je n’ai aucune idée comment traduire tout cela de façon claire et précise, tout en créant quelque chose qui sonne bien et qui a de l’allure.

J’ai octroyé le contrat de traduction à une professionelle du domaine et je me fie sur elle. Une semaine après lui avoir donné le projet, je lui ai posé la question sur ses idées pour le titre, et elle m’a répondu qu’elle préfèrait attendre d’avoir complété le travail, pour bien comprendre l’étendue de mon message, avant de le baptiser.

J’ai trouvé sa réponse géniale; mais j’ai tellement hâte de voir comment nous allons l’appeller!

Retournant maintenant sur le titre du blogue, je procède aussi à la traduction non-simultanée de mon site web, de mes cartes d’affaires, etc.

La tâche de développer son identité et de faire son “branding” professionel est très important pour le marketing de services, donc j’ai décidé de faire ces démarches dans ma langue maternelle en premier.

Il y a un certain temps, je regardais la nécessité de faire traduire tout mes outils de marketing en français d’un point de vue négatif, comme un mal nécessaire. Avec le temps, et avec un peu de réflection, (et en parlant avec de plus en plus de gens francophones) je le vois d’un autre oeil.

Même si j’admets de ne pas être “parfaitement” bilingue, je suis facilement “assez” bilingue pour rendre mes services dans les deux langues. Et il n’y a aucun point négatif là. Si ceci n’est pas un atout, je ne sais pas qu’est-ce qui se qualifie comme étant un atout.

Ce blogue tire bientôt à sa fin, et je n’ai pas encore essayé d’y attacher un angle “entreprise familiale”, à part le fait de payer ma fille pour ses talents de rédactrice.

Allons-y avec celui-ci: Un entrepreneur qui bâti une entreprise a souvent tous les talents nécessaires pour créer quelque chose de valeur pour sa famille, mais il a parfois de la difficulté à TRADUIRE ses efforts de façon que ses enfants, et ses petits-enfants, pourront continuer à en bénéficier.

En cas d’urgence, j’aurais pu traduire moi-même mon livre. Mais je connais mes limites, et j’ai décidé d’engager une professionelle, une spécialiste, qui connait ce métier beaucoup mieux que moi. Au bout de la ligne, le résultat sera sûrement plus satisfaisant.

NDLR: ce blogue a coûté à mon père 14$.

This week’s blog is inspired by a quote that I came across on Twitter a couple of weeks ago. It was tweeted out by the Business Families Foundation, but ironically it does not come from someone in a family business.

It comes from Anne Mulcahy, the former head of Xerox, who Chief Executive magazine named CEO of the year in 2008. Without further ado, here is what she said:

“One of the things we often miss in succession planning is that it should be gradual and thoughtful, with lots of sharing of information and knowledge and perspective, so that it’s almost a non-event when it happens”.

There is so much that I love about this quote, so let’s get started and see if I can share all the reasons that I love it. To simplify the task, I will break it up into four parts.

One of the things we often miss in succession planning

–      There are MANY things that get missed in succession planning;

–      Things are OFTEN missed;

–      Succession planning happens in ALL businesses, not just family businesses.

 is that it should be gradual and thoughtful,

–      GRADUAL is preferred, versus all at once;

–      Before doing it, lots of THOUGHT should go into how it will be done.

with lots of sharing of information and knowledge and perspective

–      LOTS of sharing is better than just a little bit;

–      Sharing of INFORMATION is important, but it is not the only thing;

–      KNOWLEDGE must also be shared, and that is NOT the same as information (i.e. not just WHAT, but WHY and HOW);

–      PERSPECTIVE sharing is also important, and this implies listening to the points of view of,

and getting input from, MANY parties.

so that it’s almost a non-event when it happens.

–      What do we hope the result will be? Almost a NON-EVENT. Nobody should really notice when it happens.

Allow me to digress to make a key point here. As a kid I remember seeing a “Under New Administration” sign at a local business, likely a restaurant, and I asked my Dad why they would put up such a sign.

I don’t recall his exact explanation, but it’s not important, because everyone reading this understands what those signs are meant to convey.

But when you are planning for the succession of your family business, I daresay that you would prefer NOT to emphasize that there is someone new in charge of the place.

It is still the same family running the place and it is just as good as it has always been, maybe even better.

I had lunch recently with a friend who also grew up working for his father, and we talked about how his Dad still used to come in to the office every day for many years after handing over control to his sons.

I mentioned that he was lucky that his father was the type who could let go and let the next generation run things, as this is not always the case. In fact, when I first started dealing with their company, I am pretty sure the father was still nominally in charge of things.

But I can honestly say that I am not sure when my friend “officially” succeeded his father. It eventually became clear that the younger generation was in charge, but I still saw Dad there almost every time I visited.

They seem to have created the Non-Event Succession, and good for them. Some people are more naturally inclined to be good delegators, good teachers, good parents.

Gradual, thoughtful sharing of information, knowledge and perspective. You do not have to have read Mulcahy’s quote to do it well, far from it.

But if you know people who are struggling with their succession issues and you can only give them one quote to help guide them, you can start with Mulcahy’s.

But why limit yourself to just the quote? Please feel free to share this blog post with them too!

The professionals who provide services to family businesses come from a variety of fields, but even so, most of them have a lot in common. Whether they are accountants, lawyers, tax specialists, wealth managers or insurance specialists, they typically deal with business and financial issues.

If we are talking about family businesses, why aren’t there any who deal with the family? The truth is that there are some people who specialize in the family circle, but not nearly as many professionals who advise the business and ownership circles.

The field of family business advising as a sub-specialty of business advising is relatively new, but it is growing and slowly being recognized as an important area. Most people can quickly see that there are lots of business issues that affect the family, but fewer have actually thought about the fact that there are family issues that affect the business too.

The people whose serve the family side of things more than the business side have a number of obstacles to overcome; let’s look at some of them, in no particular order.

Content vs Process

A lawyer will prepare a shareholders agreement, an accountant will prepare a set of financial statements and a wealth manager will make an investment for you. They are all discrete transactions, all of them are tangible; each is one piece of content.

Facilitating family meetings, mediating a dispute between siblings, or helping bring a family together to work on their values, vision and goals, for their part, are more process related. These functions can be very important for long-term family business success, and as such, they are often longer term in nature.

Transaction vs Relationship

The content pieces I mentioned above are typically done as separate transactions. Yes, relationships are also important to work on for accountants and lawyers, but in the family realm, it is almost all about the relationship, and the advisor needs to develop a good working relationship with everyone, not just the person who signs the cheques.

Soft vs Hard

Some people like to talk about hard skills versus soft skills, and I suppose that is one way of looking at it, but let’s not forget that the “soft” stuff is often actually much HARDER to deal with. Few of those who work on the transactions are trained to deal with these soft issues, and many families don’t want to talk about their family problems with those who charge them several hundred dollars an hour.

Business is about $$$ vs Family is about Love

Business is usually very much about making money and creating wealth, while family is all about love. It is the head versus the heart, and they do not necessarily always agree.

The advisor who can show you how his tax strategy can save you $XX,000.00 has an easier sale than the one who tells you that he can help make sure that your family has conflict-free Thanksgiving dinners in the future. How much is that worth?

Art vs Science

What it comes down to in many ways is that it is an art to deal with the family, while dealing with the business is more of a science. To be a good family business advisor, you need to be able to bridge both of these, art AND science.

There are some family therapists who help families deal with conflict, but very few of them understand anything about business, so it is hard for them to provide that bridge.

I have come up with an analogy, but I am not sure how good it is, but here goes.

Paint-by-Numbers

When I was a kid, I did a few paint by numbers, and while it felt like I was an artist, I was just filling in spaces with pre-decided colours of paint, which is more like science.

We need to be able to show our client families the canvas with the outlines of what we can do, and tell them what colour we can help them put in which spaces. This way, they will better understand what we can do for them, in a way that helps them see the value we can bring.