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Tell it to the Judge (Part 2 of 2)

Last week my intention was to write a single blog about this subject, but then things didn’t go as planned, because there was just too much “stuff” I needed to cover to do the topic justice.

So I cut things off at a point where I was hitting my self-imposed word limit (around 700) and figured that sleeping on the subject for another 6 days would truly inspire me to wrap things up in a fantastic crescendo finish. We shall see.

At the end of part 1, Tell it to the Judge (Part 1 of 2) we had begun to look at how parents are judged.

My argument was that the only people who are truly in a position to judge the parenting abilities of anyone, are their “subjects”, i.e. the children that they raised.

In the same way that my sisters and I are the best possible judges of the parenting abilities of our mother and father, my parenting abilities can only really be properly judge by my children

Assuming you buy into my argument (thanks!), let’s look at some of the issues this also brings up. The first one is the timing. When are they actually in a position to judge?

An infant will judge Mommy and Daddy by how quickly they change a soiled diaper or give them a bottle when they are hungry. Many years later in life, they may judge their parents by what has been left to them in the parents’ last will and testament.

That potentially leaves a LOT of time in between, and there are many points where their opinions of their parents can and will change.

Many people agree that the teenage years are the most challenging for parents, and so asking teens to judge and evaluate their parents could lead to some interesting responses.

A lot of adults will look back at the time when they were teens as a period when they did not appreciate their parents enough. It takes a certain amount of maturity to fully get the fact that discipline imposed by parents pays off in the long run.

By the time you hit the point where you realize that you need to worry more about your parents than they do about you, you are certainly mature enough to judge the job that they did raising you.

So what is this fascination that I have with judgement of parents all about? Allow me to try to sum it up. I believe that the “job” of parents is to take parenting seriously, and to make rasing their children a top priority in their lives.

As an advisor to business families, I get to meet with many people who have made running and growing their business a higher priority than parenting. I also believe that many of the people who have put business above family will eventually regret it.

The book I wrote in 2014, SHIFT your Family Business, had this as its secondary title: “Stop working IN your family business, Start working ON your business family. It is kind of my “go to” message.

The good news is that it is never too late to make that shift. But it does require courage. Running a business also takes courage, but sometimes it is easier to be courageous in the cutthroat world of business than amongst your family.

I don’t know why that is, but I just feel like I see it too often for it not to be true.

It also takes courage to ask your children to give you feedback on your parenting. I know that most parents will never ask their kids this type of question, and I suppose some people would call me crazy for even suggesting it.

I like to think that I am doing a good job as a parent, but if I never ask my kids what they think, how will I know?

Why should I care? Because I take my job as a parent seriously. And their feedback can help me do it better. But do I have the courage to ask them? Stay tuned to this space for the answer.

 

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Tell it to the Judge (Part 1 of 2)

Lately the subject of “judging” has been recurring in my life and thoughts, and therefore also in my blogs. Since there are so many ways to look at judges and judgement, my view is that discussion of this subject will always be worthwhile.

Three weeks ago, we looked at being “judicious” versus being “judgemental” in the blog Judgement, Not Judgement. A couple of weeks prior, I related the wonderful experience of serving as a judge in the Family Enterprise Case Competition, in Vermont, a Global Hub? What the FECC?

There will also be an upcoming blog about a court case, featuring a real judge. I actually went and sat in the courtroom at a murder trial for a day, a few months ago. It was a case of patricide that made national headlines, and I am looking forward to sharing that experience with readers.

This week’s post is about who gets to judge, and in what context. Pope Francis, before getting involved in the US Presidential campaign, was becoming known for saying the phrase “Who am I to judge?” when asked about various people in various circumstances.

Some people were not happy with this seeming abdication of the “responsibility” to pass judgement on what is right and what is wrong, but I think that he may be on to something.

So if even someone as high up the totem pole as the Pope is able to withhold judgement, who does get to judge?

As is so often the case, it is all about the context. One of my favourite mantras is “Give me context”. This is where our friends the economists would substitute, “It depends”.

So let’s leave behind the warm and fuzzy “listen without judgement”, “who am I to judge”, and “stop being so judgemental” and move to what is ultimately THE context that I take closest to heart, that of a business family.

In Parenting and Family Business Leadership, we looked at how people play the dual roles of business leader and parent. Today I want to extend that concept to how these separate roles are judged as being fulfilled successfully or not.

The easier place to begin is with the business. It seems pretty simple to judge the performance of a business, because there are a multitude of quantitative factors that everyone and anyone can easily see.

Is the business profitable, is it growing, are its customers satisfied? How many people does it employ, how many locations does it have, how many countries do they do business in. The list is literally endless.

So it is relatively easy to judge a business, but does that mean it is just as easy to judge the business leader? I think not. Now it can get trickier, because when you want to look at the personal leadership qualities of the person leading the business, the things that people consider become much more qualitative in nature.

Let’s jump over to the family side before we run out of racetrack. The dual roles of business leader and parent are difficult to balance, most people will agree with that.

But how do we judge the role of the parent? As a parent, when I observe other parents dealing with their children, it is sometimes hard NOT to judge them, at least internally, and compare how they handle a situation with how we would have done so.

Ultimately, the best judges of anyone’s parenting abilities are their children.

That is the biggest, deepest thought that has struck me recently, and I haven’t seen it, read it, or heard it anywhere.

If, and it is a big “if”, parenting is something that you wish to do well, the only true judges that matter in your evaluation are your own children. Their judgement is the only one that can ever matter.

Of course this now gets us into so many other questions, especially around the timing and methods of getting their evaluation and judgement of us, their parents.

We will pick this up again next week. Meanwhile, hug your kids and try to stay on their good side.

 

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Brainstorming your Family Legacy

The word “legacy” can conjure up a variety of thoughts and opinions, because everyone has their own take on what it is, as well as what it should be.  When you add “family” to it, and raise the subject of “family legacy”, there is even more disparity in the responses evoked.

I recently took part in a training program at the Canadian Institute for Conflict Resolution, during which we took turns leading a group brainstorming exercise. Given free reign to use the subject of our choice, I decided to pose the question “what is family legacy?” to see what I might learn from my small group.

As someone who thinks about (and talks about) this subject on a regular basis, I thought it would be interesting to hear what a group of strangers, most of whom did not come from a business family, might have to offer on the topic.

They were all between 25 and 55, most worked for the government (this was in Ottawa), and I am reasonably certain that none of them came from what one might term a “legacy family”.

The exercise was a success, insofar as I filled up five sheets of flipcharts and stuck them to the wall, with around 40 different words that came up from the group.

When brainstorming, one of the main rules is that there is no debating what is a good or bad suggestion, it’s just an open “brain dump” where what one person blurts out will hopefully tweak something in the brain of another, and spur even more ideas.

Some of the expected and positive words that came out were:

–         Traditions; Reputation; Loyalty

–         Money; Memories; Trust

–         Supportive; Caring; Community

Of course there were also some negative ideas that surfaced, such as:

–         Dysfunction; Limiting; Stressful

–         Gossip; Meddling; Conflicts

–         Secrets; Façades; Bullshit

A brainstorming exercise is normally just the first step in a longer facilitated process, designed to get people working together, overcome inertia, and put a bunch of the pieces of the puzzle on the table to get going.

The real work comes next, when you take the ideas gathered and start organizing them, debating their merits, and figuring out what you are going to do with that information.

Working with a real family, the follow up question, “what is OUR family legacy?” would have been an obvious next step.

There is a big difference between personal legacy and family legacy, but when the founder of a business family is still around, a large portion of the family legacy naturally comes directly from that person.

In order to create a true family legacy, the key is to start when the founder can still contribute, and in fact OWN the process.

The family needs to capture the major values, traits, and principles of that person and then figure out how to make sure that they are preserved and transferred down to the following generations. If this is done correctly at this point, the succeeding generations will then have the task of maintaining the legacy that has been established.

Of course none of this just happens all by itself.  Someone needs to care enough to first stop and think about it, talk about it, figure out what needs to be done, decide who needs to be involved, and get things moving forward.

In the long run, the family must also figure out how they are going to make decisions together, how they are going to communicate, and how they are going to solve problems together. All of this generally falls under the heading of “family governance”.

If you are the founder, what you do before you go is really all you can do. Once you are gone, it will all be in the hands of others. If you want to leave a family legacy, building the financial assets is just the first part, and some say the easier part.

Keeping the family together after you are gone, wow, that’s the tough part.  It can be done, but like I said above, it won’t happen all by itself.

Essentially, you need to stop working in your family business, and start working on your business family.  Intrigued?  Check out: www.ShiftYourFamilyBusiness.com. It is my #1 book recommendation.  I also like the website.

Need help getting started?  sl@stevelegler.com

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Né pour un moyen pain?

Il existe une expression québécoise, “né pour un petit pain”, qui est assez bien connue, je crois. Mais peut-être que je me trompe.

C’est peut-être tout simplement parce que je me retrouve souvent dans des discussions entourant l’argent et les façons dont les familles le traitent, que je l’entends plus souvent que d’autres.

Ce que je peux vous dire c’est que l’attitude québécoise envers l’argent est effectivement distincte de celle qu’on voit ailleurs au Canada et aux États-Unis.

Venir d’une famille anglophone (mais quand même assez à l’aise en français) me donne une perspective différente que je remarque assez souvent, et que j’aime partager de temps en temps.

J’écris une grande majorité de mes blogues en anglais, puisque je considère que mon marché est “nord-américain”, et parce que je m’exprime beaucoup plus facilement en anglais.

Je suis un gars du West Island, marié à une femme de l’Abitibi, donc nos deux ados sont assez biculturels, en plus d’être bilingues.

Quand je décide d’écrire un blogue en français, c’est souvent quand je veux traiter un sujet entourant notre réalité québécoise, et qui intéressera moins mes lecteurs anglophones.

Cette semaine, j’ai lu un article dans l’Actualité sur Mitch Garber (Mitch Garber: le «dragon» mordu de Montréal) que j’ai trouvé assez intéressant.

Il mentionne que les québécois n’aiment pas parler d’argent, mais que lui, il aime en parler. Il disait aussi qu’il voyait cela un peu comme son devoir, d’habituer le monde d’en parler, puisqu’on en parle ailleurs.

Je suis d’accord avec lui, et je trouve son attitude rafraichissante. Cet automne, il co-présidera la campagne annuelle de Centraide, et son but est de motiver les plus fortunés à augmenter leurs dons et de promouvoir la philanthropie, en général, au Québec.

Voilà une autre partie de notre société distincte en ce qui concerne l’argent.

Les familles fortunées se lancent de plus en plus dans des activités philanthropiques depuis un certain temps, surtout aux États-Unis. Au Canada, ça commence aussi à se développer. Au Québec, il semble qu’on tire encore de l’arrière.

Les entrepreneurs québécois sont souvent moins intéressés par l’idée de transmettre leur entreprise à leurs enfants, et ceux qui vendent leur compagnie, ne sont pas aussi aptes à créer un bureau de patrimoine familial (family office) pour assurer la continuité de leur richesse.

Je ne suis pas en train de dire que ce qui se fait chez nous est inférieur à ce qu’on voit ailleurs, mais en parlant avec des familles d’ici et d’ailleurs, il y a beaucoup de différences, et ce n’est pas seulement la langue qui change.

Nous pouvons apprendre beaucoup en regardant ce qui se fait dans les autres régions et pays. Au bout de la ligne, chaque famille prendra les décisions que ses membres jugent appropriées.

Éventuellement, avec la mondialisation, les réseaux sociaux, l’immigration, les familles biculturelles, ainsi de suite, des changements viendront, et les différences entre ce qui se fait ici et ailleurs devraient diminuer.

En terminant, j’aimerais clarifier le titre de ce blogue. J’ai choisi “Né pour un moyen pain?” parce que les changements qui viendront ne se feront assurément pas très vite, et nous n’irons pas d’un “petit pain” à un “gros pain” si vite que ça.

Ça pourrait même s’échelonner sur plusieurs générations. Mais pourquoi ne pas commencer avec la vôtre?

 

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