“Who You Are” versus “What You Do”

A few weeks ago I came across one of those “motivational quotes” that various people like to post on social media, and for some reason, this one resonated with me. It was on my Twitter timeline, from Dan Rockwell, whose Twitter handle is “Leadership Freak”.

Here is the quote:

“Who You Are Is More Important Than What You Do”

At the time I was in the process of finishing of my latest “white paper”, Sticky Baton Syndrome, ask Prince Charles, in which one of the issues I dealt with was the way a business founder will often have difficulty letting go, precisely because so much of their identity is tied up in “what they do”.

How can you transfer your business to your offspring and then “retire”, if you think of it as the equivalent of dying? If they stop “doing”, they believe that they also stop “being”. But is “what you do” really that important?

The concept of contrasting “doing”, versus “being”, is in no way novel, in fact the coolest twists I have seen on this come when you add in a third element, such as “fitting in” or even what a person “will do”.

But how is it that some people are more concerned with how they are seen by others for their “role” compared to their true “self”?

The owner of a family business will often be somewhat of a “public figure”, depending on the size of both the business and the community in which they live, so often “everyone” knows what you do.

But of all the people who know what you do, only a much smaller number, those with whom you have the closest relationships, will really know “who you are”.

So which is more important?

Think about the last time that you actually met someone famous. When that person’s name comes up in a conversation, you will likely say something like, “Oh, I met him. He seemed like a really nice guy”.

You actually feel like you have some special viewpoint on the person’s character, even if it is only based on a brief exchange.  But that is exactly my point. It is feeling like you know “who they are” that is special, even if everyone knows what they do.

When it comes to the rising generation in a family business, it is also a very important thing to keep in mind. Are you raising Junior to be the next President of the company, or to be the best person they can be?

Are you parenting your children to play key roles in your family business, because that would suit you, or are you trying to raise future responsible adults who will find something that they would like to do, based upon who they are?

Some people expend a great deal of effort clarifying what they “do”, because it is important for people to understand your abilities, especially if you are hoping for them to pay you to do those things.

In many ways, I envy those who have careers that are simple to describe. A guy shows up at your door dressed in white clothes with paint splattered on them, a roller in one hand and a can of paint in the other, it is not hard to guess what he “does”.

But if you are part of a business family, and you need to bring in someone to help prepare a generational transition, or you have communication problems, or you have a situation that needs an outside mediator, I suggest that you spend some time figuring out who that person “is”, before allowing them to “do what they do”.

A major reason why I write these posts every week is to help people figure out who I am, even if they can’t always put their finger on what I do.

 

/by

Transition Planning: No Day at the Beach

We are in the dog days of August, and I am currently at our cottage, just trying to unplug a bit. We are experiencing unseasonably hot weather here on the Atlantic coast, so I am thankful for the air conditioning system we had installed in our new place.

The other day we went to the beach, an easy 5-minute drive, or a leisurely 20-minute kayak paddle via the Chockpish River. It was really hot that day too, but the water was great, even if I only waded in knee-deep.

So what better time for me to unveil a recent evolution of one of my favourite analogies, which just happens to involve a beach?

I say it is an evolution, but I am not sure that is the correct word. My point is that I have often used a swimming metaphor to describe one of the differences between my father and me.

He had much more impulsive tendencies, and was often tempted to dive right “into the deep end” of the pool with new ideas, while I preferred to “get my feet wet”, and then walk progressively deeper into the water, slowly but surely, like at the beach.

I am sure that I am not the only person who uses a “phased in” process of going for a swim at the beach. In my younger days, my preferred entry was to run into the water and dive in as soon as the water was deep enough to safely take the headfirst plunge.

Ten to fifteen seconds, and I was in, soaking wet and cooled off from head to toe.

Nowadays, my entrance is much more relaxed, and there are even a few discernable stages:

– Walk in slowly, up to about my hips.

After getting used to the water temperature around my nether regions for a couple of minutes…

– Wade in a bit deeper, slowly but surely getting in up to about my armpits or shoulders.

After another body temperature adjustment phase…

– Finally taking that final step, diving in head first and finally being “all in”.

I promised you an analogy, which I haven’t forgotten, and as regular readers know, I like to tie things in to issues that business families are living through.

But please recognize that while I was working my way IN to the water, the image I want you to picture is someone working their way OUT of their business.

The 180-degree switch will admittedly change the perspective, but let’s concentrate of the three phases, because that is where the value of this comes in.

My view on the exit of a founder from his or her business also has three crucial steps:

  • Handing over day-to-day Management
  • Turning over the long-term Leadership
  • Transferring all of the Ownership

You could imitate the teenage me, and do all three at once, getting it over with as quickly as possible, but these complete transfer “events” are most often associated with scenarios involving unexpected death, and would not be recommended by anyone.

Alternatively, if you sell to an outsider, you can also have a much quicker exit.

But transitioning a business from one generation of a family to the next should not be viewed as an event, but as a process.

Ideally it is done over a few years (minimum 5?) one step at a time, just like gradually walking into the ocean at the beach.

– Knee-deep is handing over day-to-day management.

– Shoulder depth is leadership and medium-term decision- making.

– The final plunge is share ownership from one generation to the next.

There are no hard and fast rules to all of this, of course, but open communication and thorough discussions, including regularly scheduled meetings to discuss your progress are a must.

For more about this subject, including a variety of perspectives on the challenges involved, please click here to read, download, and share:

“Sticky Baton Syndrome – Ask Prince Charles”

(The most recent “whitepaper” in my Quick Start Guide Series)

 

/by

I’m Not the Only One

Last week I mentioned that I had attended a Sam Smith concert in Colorado with my daughter, and then this week in Toronto I was attending a course where one of the instructors was talking about a client who had had an “A-Ha” moment, which culminated in the woman exclaiming “I’m not the only one!”

If you are not a fan of Sam Smith, allow me to explain why I found this relevant; “I’m not the only one” is the title of one of Smith’s first hit songs, so the timing of this exclamation makes this mandatory blog material for me.

Smith’s voice is incredible and I love his songwriting too, but they will only serve as the intro to this week’s blog.

My stay in Toronto turned out to be very interesting and will certainly be quite useful to me going forward, helping me to do a better job of engaging client families in the difficult work they need to do around the subject of transitioning their businesses to the next generation.

I spent four full days with a couple dozen people who were attending the course,“The Role of the Most Trusted Advisor” given by BDO and their SuccessCare Program.

SuccessCare is the brainchild of Grant Robinson, who teamed up with Daphne McGuffin in the late 1990’s, and they have been working non-stop ever since, “training competitors” to help spread the word about how important this work is for families to plan and execute their generational transitions.

McGuffin was relating a story about an event where they were explaining the importance of getting families to have the crucial conversations required to put the issues on the table so they can be dealt with.

One woman, after hearing other people ask questions about their own situations, which had some remarkable similarities to what she had been living through (silently), suddenly exclaimed, in a joyful voice, “I’m not the ONLY one”.

How nice it is to realize that others are going through the same difficult dilemmas that we are.

More often than not, people in business families imagine that their situations are unique. In one way they are, of course. No two family situations are identical; the sheer number of permutations and combinations of children, in-laws, birth order, gender, etc. are enough to guarantee that, and we have not even factored in any business issues.

But even though the family is unique, and the business is unique, and their ownership structure may also be unique, that does NOT mean that the issues they are faced with are also unique.

The obstacles that business families face when working through their inter-generational transitions are very predictable, and they have been for hundreds of years.

It is a huge undertaking, filled with complexity, and the stakes are high. Not only that, it is NOT something that you get to do over and over again until you get it right; it is kind of a “one off”.

The good news is (you knew that I would get to the good news, didn’t you?) that there are people out there who have been down this road before, who know the ropes, and who can help you.

And more and more of them have been trained to help families work on the subject in ways that address the family’s unique circumstances, desires, and goals.

They are being trained by great people, through SuccessCare (now part of BDO), and IFEA (Institute of Family Enterprise Advisors) and FFI (Family Firm Institute).

Their programs are all a bit different, but what they have in common is that they recognize a few key points:

  • Every family is unique
  • A multi-disciplinary team of advisors is best
  • Transitions take years to undertake properly

The key is for the family to find the right person to lead them through process. There are people who can help, and “I know I’m not the only one”.

 

/by

Rendez-Vous with a Purpose

This week was a very interesting one in my life, as I enjoyed some time in one of my favourite states, along with some of my favourite people.

The state is Colorado, and the occasion was the annual “Rendez-Vous” of the Purposeful Planning Institute (PPI). It was my second time attending the Rendez-Vous, following up on the 2014 edition last July.

The people that I met there in both 2014 and 2015 were without exception fantastic collaborators with whom I look forward to exchanging again and again going forward. Of course that doesn’t automatically qualify them all among my “favourite people”.

Last year I made the trip to Denver (actually Broomfield) solo, but this year, I travelled with my own collaborator, my 14-year old daughter. She also helped me celebrate my birthday the day before Rendez -Vous, which included a visit to the Broncos training camp in the morning and a Sam Smith concert at the Red Rocks amphitheater at night.

She also proved to be an excellent navigator using the maps on my phone, getting us everywhere with very few missed turns. But let’s get back to the PPI conference.

PPI has only been around since 2010, but already boasts over 350 members, including some 200 who were present this week, which is an impressive turnout. I recognized a few dozen names on the attendee list from last year, and a couple dozen faces as well.

Along the way I met even more interesting people, all of whom shared one common characteristic: A willingness to share and to learn from each other, about the subject of helping families plan their wealth and busness transitions, while focussing on the FAMILY.

As usual, the Rendez-Vous featured a couple of inspiring keynotes: Ian McDermott on Developing an Innovation Mindset on Thursday and Matt Wesley on the Power of Family Culture, on Friday. I heard nothing but positive comments about each of them.

On Thursday afternoon, we were also treated to a panel featuring Jay Hughes, Joanie Bronfman, and Stacy Allred, discussing Fiscal Unequals in Relationships, about couples that feature a woman with much larger wealth than the man. It was fascinating stuff, moderated by John A. Warnick, the founder and “heart and soul” of PPI.

Along the way, there were 4 rounds of break-out sessions, and the only complaint I heard was that it was so hard to choose which ones to attend, since there were so many interesting topics, put on by so many great speakers.

For my part, I truly enjoyed Buddy Thomas’ “Beyond Collaboration: Advisory Team Coordination as a Specialty Profession”, as well as my friends Karen Laprade and Kyle Harrison’s “Reveal or Conceal: a High Stakes Game for the Whole Family” in which we experienced the “Samoan Circle” method of discussing important topics in a large group.

As a student of (and big fan of) Bowen Family Systems Theory, I also got a lot out of Elaine King and Marianna Martinez’s “Establishing Family Governance Strucutures using BFST” on Thursday, before the final breakout session on Friday AM.

For the finale, I chose to attend Rodney Zeeb’s “Developing Leadership in the Rising Generation” which was a great choice for me, as it allowed me to hear and learn from someone who has been at it for a couple of decades longer than me, but whose ideas, methods, and philosphy are very much in line with my own.

I have now been to 2 Rendez-Vous events, and the combination of the high caliber of speakers, the fascinating topics, and mostly the spirit of sharing and collaboration of every last person with whom I engaged, all add up to the fact that I have already marked July 27-29, 2016 on my calendar.

I will not miss it, and I look forward to meeting many other great new people there too, as well as renewing and deepening relationships already begun in 2014 and 2015.

 

/by

What Colour Should We Paint Our House?

Back in June our family was getting ready to take delivery of our new cottage, and it brought up a number of questions that we needed to work through together. Naturally, this situation also had a side benefit (which was NOT unexpected) which was that it gave me a juicy blog topic.

The actual building was put together in a factory and delivered to our lot in two pieces, where it was then put onto the foundation that had been poured a few weeks prior. All this was part of the plan that was set into motion last fall.

What we had not thought through at the outset was painting the inside of the house. Honestly I half assumed that the walls would be white and that eventually we might add some colour to some of the rooms.

But then a couple of weeks before we were to take delivery of the final product, we got an email from the company who had sold us the house and taken care of everything else.

We were being asked to provide them with our colour choices for each room, and they wanted our answer quickly, since the painter wanted to start our job really soon. No problem, my wife told them, we will give you an answer by Monday. I’m pretty sure it was Friday when she told them that.

Okay, so we had some work to do, but just how were we going to do this quickly, fairly, and nicely? As a family, we had a few days to get this right.

I will get back to how we handled the task a bit later, but the point of this blog has nothing to do with choosing colours, and a lot more to do with working together to make acceptable choices.

Let me tell you a few of the things that we did NOT do, and which we frankly never considered.

  • Just leaving all the walls white. When we learned that painting two coats of colour was included in the price we had already agreed to, it was a no-brainer to say, OK, let’s get some colours in there now.
  • Picking ONE colour for the whole house. The price actually included up to four different colours, but when I asked how many we could have, I was told that it was theoretically unlimited, but that for each one over four, there was a slight additional cost for mixing another can of paint.
  • Asking the people who sold us the house to choose the colours for us. While I am sure that they would have done a fine job since they had helped us choose matching counters and tiles, they would not have to live in the place.
  • Asking our accountant what colours we should go with. I don’t think I need to explain this one.
  • Asking our lawyer what colours we should use.
  • Asking our wealth manager, or our golf buddies, or, God forbid, someone at the bank.

Now if you are wondering what the heck I am getting at, recall that I normally blog about matters relating to family business, and hopefully I don’t need to tell you that every family is different.

We decided to let each of the kids choose the colours for their own rooms. I added my ideas about using an accent wall of a different colour in every room, and Mom spent a number of hours putting together some nice choices for the rest, and we all came to agree upon them.

When it comes to figuring things out for your own family, you may already know lots of experts that you use for your business questions, but does that mean that you should listen to their advice for your family decisions?

Of the options I outlined above, the most reasonable would have been to rely on the interior decorating advice of the company who sold us the house, since that is part of their specialty.

If you were tempted by any of the other choices, don’t be surprised if some family members begin clamouring for a fresh coat of paint real soon.

 

/by