Understanding AND Agreement

Understanding AND Agreement

One of my guilty pleasures is to look at different words, whose meanings are often confused, and to take the time to analyze the subtleties in their differences. Sometimes the consequences of this confusion are humorous, and other times they can be more dramatic.

As you can guess from the title of this post, today’s words are understanding, (the noun, i.e. “an understanding”) and agreement. The two words jumped of the screen at me yesterday during a PowerPoint presentation, so I quickly took a picture of the slide with my phone, and I knew that I had my weekly blog topic.

The context within which this subject came up was a course I was attending in London, as part of the annual FFI (Family Firm Institute) conference. FFI offers a great education program, and this class was part of the final course in the ACFBA vertification. (Advanced Certificate in Family Business Advising).

One of the first slides used outlined the “Core Issues underlying Problems in the Family Enterprise System”. The line below this title stated, “Lack of Understanding / Agreement on:…” , following a list of subjects, including “where are we going”, “what is important to us”, “who does what”, “who is the boss”, etc.

The class was only 6 hours long, and there were plenty of important things to cover in our group of about 20 students from at least 10 different countries, so I did not even feel we had time to address my penchant for parsing the differing meanings of “understanding” versus “agreement” with the group.

But I have this blog as an outlet, where I can do this at my own pace, so I was alright.

We can take a few examples right from the slide. In a family business, some family members may not have an understanding of where they are going, and that is an issue worth addressing. Other families may understand perfectly well where they are going, but that doesn’t mean that they agree with the direction!

Along the same lines, a family may “understand” full well “who is the boss”, while completely disagreeing on the choice of that person. I hate to think of how often this is true in real life.

The two examples so far may lead one to believe that understanding must always precede agreement. After all, how can you agree on something without first understanding it? In a logical world, this thinking makes perfect sense.

But we are looking at the world of family business, where logic is often absent. The people who inhabit this world are usually so immersed within it, that they do not even realize how illogical it can be, and they operate on a day-to-day basis not even seeing how some things that others take for granted are completely missing.

My point here is that many family businesses will operate for years (or even decades) based upon full agreement on questions about “who is the boss” and “where are we going”, without having even a basic “understanding” about the underlying questions like “why”.

They will agree to go along, without the foggiest notion of where they are going. They may not care, they may not think they will be told the truth, they may not think that their questions will be deemed worthy of a response, or someone may be deliberately misleading them about these answers. (Or they may ALL be clueless).

Yesterday’s course was called “The Professional’s Toolbox”, and was designed to equip us with tools that we can use with enterprising families. We looked at ways to help them figure out “where they are going” and “how they planned to get there”.

And I also wanted to add my observations about the importance of having everyone agree on the answers, but also to understand the answers.

Or was it that it is important to understand the answers, and then agree on them?

In a perfect world, they all understand AND agree. That should be the goal. We want to have both the chicken AND the egg.

 

 

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

 

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Que faire avec les jeunes?

En juillet, j’avais écrit un blogue qui répondait à une question posée par une participante lors d’une session du cours Triomphe, de l’École d’Entrepreneurship de Beauce, à laquelle j’ai eu le plaisir de participer comme invité.

Cette semaine, en emménageant mon nouveau bureau, j’ai tombé sur le dossier dans lequel j’avais gardé les autres questions auxquelles je n’avais pas eu le temps de répondre, et le “timing” était parfait, puisque j’avais déjà décidé que j’étais dû pour écrire un blogue en français, et je n’avais pas encore trouvé un sujet à mon goût.

J’ai choisi une question venant d’un homme qui approachait la soixantaine, et qui avait des enfants adolescents.

Voici la question: “J’ai deux enfants qui sont trop jeunes pour la relève, mais qui sont intéressés aux affaires, et à être dans l’entreprise dans le futur. Que faire?”

J’aime beaucoup cette question, surtout parce que le questionneur l’a déjà séparée en deux pour moi, ce qui la rend plus facile à répondre. Je m’explique.

Les jeunes sont “intéressés aux affaires”, et ils ont un désir à “être dans l’entreprise” un jour. Remarquons les différences.

Aider nos enfants à développer leurs intérêts, que ce soit aux affaires, aux sports, à la musique, etc., est un des plus gros plaisirs qu’un parent puisse avoir, surtout si le sujet en est un dans lequel le parent a aussi un fort intérêt.

Mais soyons clairs ici; un intérêt “aux affaires”, c’est-à-dire le commerce, les finances, l’achat et la vente de produits et de services (en général), ne doit pas être confondu avec MA compagnie, qui produit et vend quelque chose dans un marché (en particulier).

Je vous suggère fortement d’aider vos enfants à developper et explorer leurs intérêts et leur compréhension de tout ce qui est connecté avec les affaires, l’argent, leurs finances personnelles, le marketing, l’immobilier et les hypothèques, etcetera, sans les limiter aux activités de votre entreprise.

Les opportunités pour ce genre de discussion se produisent litéralement à chaque jour, et dans une variété de circonstances. À la maison, écoutez la télé ensemble, prenez le temps d’enregistrer les épisodes de “Dans l’oeil du dragon” ou Dragon’s Den ou Shark Tank.

Il existe également des émissions axées sur la restauration, l’immobilier, et toutes sortes d’activités commerciales. Il y en a peut-être moins de ces programmes à la télé francophone, mais c’est une autre bonne raison et occasion de faire un peu d’immersion anglophone, ce qui les fera aussi du bien à long terme.

Quand vous vous promenez en ville, en auto ou à pied, remarquez les annonces et les commerces, et parlez ensemble des enjeux, des stratégies, des prix, de tout ce que vous voyez.

Les occasions de découvrir et de développer les forces et les intérêts particuliers de chaque enfant ne cessent de se produire. Il s’agit simplement de les reconnaître et d’entamer une discussion.

“Pourquoi McDo met l’emphase sur ses trios? Est-ce qu’on sauve vraiment de l’argent en choisissant le trio versus l’achat des trois items séparément?” Et, “mais pourquoi ils veulent me faire ‘sauver’ de l’argent quand ils essayent de ‘faire’ de l’argent sur la vente?”

Avec ces discussions, vous apprendrez beaucoup sur vos enfants, et aussi à vos enfants. Et en même temps, ils deviendront, malgré eux, ce qu’on appelle en anglais “financially literate”, c’est-à-dire, ils seront plus à l’aise avec tous les sujets entourant l’argent et les affaires.

Selon moi, c’est un des plus beaux cadeaux qu’on peut offrir à nos enfants, même s’ils décident un jour de poursuivre leur carrière dans un autre domaine.

Si les enfants démontrent un jour un désir de devenir entrepreneur et de se lancer en affaires, vous pourrez certainement regarder la possibilité de les engager dans votre entreprise. Mais ne soyez pas surpris ou déçu s’ils décident plutôt un autre marché ou opportunité, qui s’enligne plus avec leurs intérêts et forces.

Votre entreprise est un actif que vous pouvez vendre à quelqu’un qui ne fait pas partie de votre famille. Après, si vous voulez aider vos enfants à se lancer en affaires dans une business qui les motive vraiment, allez-y. Et ça sera leur entreprise! 

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There Is No “Fast Forward” Button

Last week we looked at the fact that people sometimes wish that they had the ability to hit the “Rewind” button in their life, but that outside of Hollywood, this was not something that is available to ordinary people (or even extra-ordinary people).

As I wrapped up, I promised to follow up with the mirror image of the Rewind button, which as we all remember from our 1970’s tape recorders or our 1990’s VCRs, is the “Fast Forward” button.

There are likely more people who wish they could hit Rewind than Fast Forward, based on two simple facts: our own mortality often makes us prefer to slow things down rather than speed things up, plus the fact that what has already occurred in the past is known, while the future is at best an educated guess.

Last week I made the tie-in to business families by talking about how family relationships sometimes get “stuck” because some family members hang on to past issues far longer than they probably should, and well past the point of their usefulness.

Some of you may be wondering how I am planning to make the family business question tie in to the Fast Forward button. Here goes…

Unfortunately, this subject forces us to look at a topic that most people prefer to avoid discussing, and it is one that was mentioned in passing a bit earlier. If you guessed that I was talking about mortality, take a bow.

Before I get to the ultra-frank wording of the manifestation of this problem, I want to tell you that it is something that I have seen far too often, and it breaks my heart every time.

For the past few years, even as my kids were only reaching their teens, I told them many times that even though I don’t yet know specifically “how” I am going to do it, I am determined to arrange my affairs in such a way that they will never be placed in a situatiuon where they will be hoping for me and their mother to die.

And that is the big Fast Forward button that too many people secretly wish that they could push.

Of course nobody will admit this, at least not out loud. Most will not even admit it to themselves. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening all around us, every day.

I did not wish for my father to die, as he left us, seven years ago, at the age of 72, but I sometimes wonder what my life would be like today if he were still with us. I truly hate to admit this, but I honestly do not think that I would be as happy as I am today if he were still around. (Wow, did I actually really just write that?)

There must be a really good reason for me to share this with readers, and there is. Knowing what I know now, about the importance of allowing each generation to rise and become everything they can be, is what I truly want and need to share.

This is not saying that my father was a bad person, in fact, in many ways, it says more about me, and my part in my relationship with my father, and my not having the courage to put what I needed on the table for discussion.

We did not have anyone that we knew at our disposal to help us have the important conversations that we should have been having.

It’s not that I would have pushed the Fast Forward button, but how many people out there secretly wish they could?

You don’t have the excuse that I did, about not having anyone at your disposal to help you have those key conversations, because you do. You are reading his blog right now.

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There Is No “Rewind” Button

Those Hollywood movies that involve the ability to go back or forward in time rarely catch my interest, to the point where I would be hard pressed to name one and say anything good about it. Whether it be a romantic comedy or a sci-fi thriller, I just cannot suspend my disbelief long enough to make it work in my head.

In the same way, if you ask me the proverbial “if you could do it all over again” question, you would probably have to push me pretty hard to get me to say anything besides “I wouldn’t change anything”.

When it comes to looking to the future, I must admit that I have a tendency to start to plan a few steps ahead of everyone else, and it drives my wife crazy. It isn’t always easy to “stay present”, but when you think about, that’s where everything happens.

The title of this post refers to an expression that I often use when talking to families about where they are, and how they got there. Some members have difficulty letting go of their feelings about past events, when someone else “wronged” them.

If we did have that Hollywood “Rewind” button, things would be so much simpler, right? You could just press the button and that stupid thing you said, that accident that you had, that decision that you made a bit too quickly, could all be erased, and you could go back and make things better.

I have not found that button anywhere, and I don’t think anyone outside of Hollywood has either.

One of the problems with dwelling on the past is that it often allows old feelings to stay with you well beyond the point where they are useful or helpful to you. This happens way too frequently with people in a family business, whether it is between siblings, or among members of different generations.

Let me address this issue of “useful” and “helpful” a bit more. If someone says something or does something that you don’t like, it is can be very helpful to remember it in the short term, because your immediate response and reaction should keep these recent events in mind, for your own good.

But twenty years after your sister said something off the cuff that was meant as a joke, you may want to cut her a bit of slack if she has otherwise not been mean to you. (If she could hit “rewind”, knowing how much it hurt you, she just might.)

Many years ago, Dad may have told someone that he did not think you had what it takes to follow in his footsteps, and maybe you weren’t even supposed to hear it. Letting that affect you and hold you back ten years later is not very helpful. If you have been making great progress, and even if he never complimented you on it, well, that just might be his style and his way of keeping you hungry.

Too many business families get “stuck” and have trouble moving forward because some family members are still dwelling on things that happened many years in the past. These people often tend to blame others for their misfortunes, and think about how “if only” something else had taken place, they would be much happier today.

There is no Rewind button. You can’t go back and change the past. Sorry, this ain’t Hollywood.

So what can you do? Today really is the first day of the rest of your life, and only you can make the rest of it better. If you can start to change your attitude, and focus on how you can help yourself TODAY, you can start to move in the right direction, day by day.

And please don’t start looking for the Fast-Forward button, because that doesn’t exist either.

(I will tackle the Fast Forward button in next week’s blog.)

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