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.

 

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)

 

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”.

 

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.

 

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.

 

J’ai eu le plaisir dernièrement de passer du temps avec plusieurs couples qui étaient tous au stade de leurs vies où la planification d’une transition inter-générationelle de leur entreprise familiale était un de leurs plus gros défis.

Le tout faisait partie du programe Triomphe de l’École d’Entrepreneurship de Beauce, où j’avais été invité pour discuter de mes expériences et de mon livre, Changez votre vision de l’entreprise familiale.

En fin d’après-midi, je me suis présenté au groupe, et ensuite ma tâche était de répondre à quelques-unes de leurs questions. N’ayant pas eu la chance de répondre à toutes leurs questions, j’ai décidé d’en faire le sujet de quelques blogues.

Cette semaine, c’est la question d’une mère, qui s’inquiètait sur la relation entre son fils et sa fille, mais pas pour aujourd’hui. Je vous laisse lire le texte de sa question:

“ Comment peut-on s’assurer que la relation entre les deux relèves, frère et soeur, vont continuer en harmonie, au fil du temps, à travers la difficulté, quand on y est plus?”

Wow, toute une question, une chance qu’il me reste encore plusieurs paragraphes pour tenter une réponse! Mais elle n’est certe pas le seul parent à avoir ce souci non plus.

Et une chance aussi que je n’ai pas essayé de répondre sur le coup, puisque c’est une question qui demandait beaucoup de réflection pour donner une réponse complète, et j’aurais sûrement manqué au moins une partie de ce qui suit.

En effet, ma meilleur réponse contient trois volets;

  1. Des conversations, 2. Une cédule, 3. Un parti neutre.

Conversations

Nous avons tous des soucis pour nos enfants, et trop souvent nous les gardons à l’intérieur. Je recommande fortement de prendre le temps et de faire l’effort d’en parler ensemble, en famille.

Si c’est plus facile d’aborder le sujet un-à-un, faites le ainsi, mais parlez-en. C’est presque toujours les non-dits qui causent les plus gros problèmes.

Et n’attendez pas la chicane avant d’agir, c’est toujours mieux de parler ensemble et de partager nos pensées quand tout va bien.

En discutant ensemble, vous avez la chance de réussir deux chose. Premièrement, vous allez vous soulager d’avoir lancé le sujet pour qu’on puisse en parler ouvertement ensemble.

Et deuxièmement, les paroles de vos enfants, qu’ils vont prononcer devant vous, seront très difficiles pour eux à oublier quand vous n’y serez plus.

Ça vaut la peine, et c’est bon pour toute la famille.

Cédule

D’autres experts iront plutôt avec un mot comme “gouvernance”, mais je n’aime pas ce mot parce que chaque personne y attache une définition différente, et souvent ce mot fait peur aux gens.

La cédule, et surtout ce qu’on va faire avec, va accomplir les débuts de la gouvernance pour l’entreprise familiale.

Pendant que Maman et Papa sont encore impliqués, je recommande fortement de prendre le calendrier annuel et de céduler au moins 2, ou peut-être même 4, rendez-vous familiaux, où vous aller discuter uniquement du sujet suivant:

Nous possèdons une entreprise familiale, mais encore plus, nous sommes une famille entrepreuriale, et c’est la famille qui doit remporter.

Ce sont les débuts de votre “conseil de famille”. Vous développerez votre propre ordre du jour, vous ferez un compte rendu, vous allez céduler votre prochaine rencontre, etc. Mais vous allez formaliser un processus pour discuter des sujets importants dont on n’en parle pas tous les jours.

Parti Neutre

J’en parle souvent, mais à long terme, il est primordial d’avoir une personne externe, avec un nom de famille différent, à qui la famille a accès, et en qui ils ont tous confiance, pour discuter des sujets inter-personnels.

Ça pourrait être un employé sénior, un professionnel externe (avocat, comptable), un ami ou voisin, ou peut-être une personne d’une autre famille que vous connaissez qui a déjà fait face à ces sujets.

L’important c’est de commencer à inviter cette personne à vos réunions de conseil de famille au moins une fois par année, pour qu’elle puisse suivre le fil des sujets importants.

Ça prend les Trois

Je sais très bien que la grande majorité des familles ne suivront pas les conseils ci-hauts, mais je sais également que pour chaque famille qui décide de tenter de les suivre, les chances de faire un succès de leur transmission inter-générationnelle seront grandement améliorées.

[Si vous avez une question sur les entreprises familales que vous voulez me lancer pour en faire le sujet d’un blogue, allez-y. Merci!]

 

Spending quality time planning for the future is something that just about everyone should do, but which very few actually do in sufficient quantity and detail.

There are so many reasons why this is the case, like the fact that:

  • we are very busy putting out today’s fires;
  • we kind of think we know where we are going, and we figure that everything will kind of work out anyway;
  • we really aren’t sure how or where to begin.

In most cases, it is some combination of all of these elements, and even a few others.

To their credit, many advisors who specialize in helping people with long term planning have developed various approaches and processes to help engage clients in these important tasks.

Coming at this as I do, from a holistic family point of view, where I specialize in helping business families and families of wealth with their long term “Continuity Planning”, the process can get a bit hairy. Let me explain.

There are a lot of moving parts in a family, where each person is important and has their own views, priorities, and desires. There are lots of stakeholders, if you will.

Add in things like different generations, gender differences, in-laws, those working in the business versus those not, and you can start to see how complexity rears its ugly head.

Now let’s look at some of the subjects that need to be addressed:

  • Who will manage the business in the future?
  • Who will “lead” the business, how will decisions be made?
  • How do we get from today’s realities to the best set-up in the future?
  • Just when will the leading generation cede control to the rising generation?
  • Who will own how much?
  • What are the legal, accounting, tax, and insurance questions that we need to address as part of this planning?

Most of the answers to these last questions are found with the help of specialists in the various domains. The advice industry, however, is still very much based on a “silo” approach, and while everyone says that they “collaborate” with professionals in other disciplines, they do so with varying degrees of ability and success.

OK, so I am sure that some of you are saying, “Yeah, yeah, I know that, but what about your “dreaming” and “planning” stuff that you teased us with in your headline?” Here goes.

I have been developing a process to address these issues for families, and in so doing I came to an “A-Ha!” moment of sorts a couple of weeks ago, based on the planning and dreaming points of view, and which I am convinced will be the heart of its success. Here goes:

  • You do NOT plan your dreams, but you MUST discover them so that you can then plan on achieving them.
  • When the dream is for a family, and not just an individual, communication is vital for the co-creation of the dreams.
  • Just as you do not plan the dream, you do not dream up a plan either, you must develop the plan, which then helps you arrive at your dream.

The tool, or process, that I am currently putting the finishing touches on, is based on a “Business Model Canvas” that I found on my wife’s desk at home. It is a tool that she uses in her job coaching social entrepreneurs.

Rather than calling mine a Canvas, I have entitled my tool a Blueprint, as in “a photographic print that shows how something will be made” and “a detailed plan of how to do something” (a couple of definitions I found via Google).

The Blueprint looks at the three circles important to Business families: Family, Business, and Ownership.

We look at where they are now, the dream of what they could look like in the distant future, and the plan for the transition to get them there.

It may look simple, but it is actually quite a detailed process to help families discover their dreams, and work together to develop the plans to achieve them.

 

Last week’s blog about “Exit Planning” elicited some confusion, and this week’s post will try to clear things up.

To actually exit a family business, especially one that you founded, nurtured, and grew, is not something that is taken lightly. To do so on one’s own terms, and to the satisfaction of all stakeholders, is truly a rare feat. But just because it is difficult, does not mean that we can’t try to pull it off.

One reader questioned the fact that setting an exit date that is too far in the future might actually “de-motivate” the rising generation, if that date was too far in the future. Another asked which date I was referring to when I spoke of the “exit date”, was it management of the business, or ownership?

These are both valid questions, of course, as they invite further discussion. There are no “stupid questions” in my book, the only stupid question is the one that you are afraid to ask, for fear of looking stupid.

The point of last week’s post was that IF we are able to get the founder to choose a date (actually, just a year) in the future, where he would no longer be involved in the company he founded, we could use that year as a reference point, or an anchor.

The idea is that just getting “engagement” is an important starting point, and if we don’t get to the point of engagement, then no real, worthwhile discussion of the issues will ever happen.

The title of the blog, “Under-Promise and Over-Deliver on your Exit Plan”, was used to highlight the fact that once a date is set, the engagement in the process can begin, and THEN, with time, the person would grow into the idea that there would be a future phase when he would leave the business to others.

As the person begins to “get” the fact that he will one day no longer manage, lead, and own the business, he will (hopefully) also buy into a future of great possibilities for himself, and look forward to this reality, and eventually agree to leave sooner than originally planned.

If you are really paying attention, you will have notied that the previous paragraph is actually a segue to answering the second question, that of understanding which date we are referring to.

That is where the title to this week’s post comes in.   An exit door represents a “one step” exit process, whereby the owner sells his business and in one fell swoop goes from “all in” to “all out”.

This does happen on occasion, of course, but is not common in the family business arena. More often than not in business families, when this does occur, it is almost always the result of an untimely death or other tragic circumstances.

A better scenario is almost always a phased approach, where the “exit door” is replaced by an “exit corridor”

The corridor is a place that one goes through on the way to the exit. The first door (to enter the corridor) is most often the day-to-day management of the business. The six-day work -week becomes five days, then four, then three. Eventually, coming in once a week is sufficient.

After management comes leadership; approving all major decisions is often the norm as you enter the corridor, but by the end, there is sufficient trust and confidence in the successor(s) to allow them free reign.

The final hurdle is usually ownership, where the person who was at one point the 100% owner of the business actually gets to be 0% owner.

That is the final exit, and does not always occur while the founder is alive, but that’s okay too. Just getting a founder to understand that they will not live forever can be a big step.

Traversing the corridor is a process that is usually measured not is weeks or months, but in years. That is also okay too, so long as there is a plan.

 

The concept of under-promising and then over-delivering is not a new one, not by any stretch of the imagination. However, early this morning upon waking, I believe that I came up with a novel application of the idea.

My usual weekly blogging schedule has me selecting a subject on Thursday or Friday, writing on Saturday, reviewing and posting to my website on Sunday, and putting up a link on LinkedIn and Twitter on Monday.

I am composing this on Wednesday, July 1, which happens to be Canada Day. Perhaps it is the fact that as day off work, it felt a bit like a Saturday, which may have inspired me. But I think it was more a case of the confluence of a few things that I have been working on that so inspired me.

I recently committed to writing some longer content pieces, which I have dubbed the “Quick Start Guide Series”. The first such Guide is entitled “My Kids in My Business?”, and it is available on the Resources tab of my website.

It seems kind of lame having a “series” in which only the first output is available, so I have quickly begun working on the second piece, which will be called “Sticky Baton Syndrome – Ask Prince Charles” (working title), and which is slated for August 2015 release.

Let’s just say that I have been reading a lot of stuff that is out there about how to encourage the senior generation of leaders in family businesses to loosen their grip on passing the baton to the rising generation.

Simultaneously, I have recently been spending a good deal of time working with a colleague, who works the “wealth management” side of the street, and together we have been developing a methodology and tool for working with business family clients.

We are trying to find the most useful way to help them begin the process of planning for the intergenerational continuity of their enterprising families and the wealth contained therein.

We are tentatively calling it the “Blueprint”, and we are just entering trial mode with a select number of families as we work on the exact application and sequencing of the intervention.

What I can tell you for now is that I had a bit of an A-Ha moment when trying to figure out how to piece together the “Current Situation” part of the Blueprint and the “Next Era” portion.

(Basically, the Blueprint is a three-part affair: 1) Where are we now? 2) Where do we want to go? 3) How do we get there?. No reinventing the wheel, just structuring the discussion).

The trick, I discovered, is in setting the date for the “Next Era” part. You see, asking a business founder to picture things after they are gone is always a dubious proposition at best, so there are many nuances that need to be thought through.

For the purpose of illustration, we might exaggerate and invite the person to look at things in 2065. Can we agree that you will not be running and owning your business in 50 years? Unless we are dealing with a young entrepreneur, we all know what the right answer is.

So if 2065 is surely part of the “next era”, what about 2055? 2045? I think that you can see what I am doing here. But how far do you reel it back? As you get closer, you can step back in 5-year increments.

And where do you stop? Glad you asked, because this is where the “under-promise and over-deliver” comes in.

Why don’t we let “Dad” under-promise and choose a year that is “too far off”, and then as the plan comes together, and he can see how the rising generation is pulling up their socks and getting ready to take over, we can always let him “over-deliver” and in fact leave a few years ahead of the plan?

It sure beats the other way around.

 

J’ai récemment eu la chance et le privilège de passer une période de 24 heures dans la compagnie de plusieurs personnes assez extraordinaires, et le tout s’est passé à St-Georges-de-Beauce.

Mais avant de vous raconter ma visite, je dois reculer dans le temps. En octobre 2014, durant une formation de la Business Families Foundation à Montréal, j’ai rencontré Jessica Grenier, de l’École d‘Entrepreneurship de Beauce (EEB), qui est devenue une amie.

À l’époque, je ne connaissais rien de l’EEB, mais je suis maintenant prêt à louanger cette merveilleuse institution pour son originalité et son audace, en plus de ses programmes uniques.

Vous pouvez visiter leur site web pour toute l’information sur ce qu’ils offrent, et moi je vais me concentrer sur mes fameuses 24 heures les 14 et 15 juin derniers.

Le plus récent programme de l’EEB s’intitule “Triomphe”, où les clients ciblés sont des entrepreneurs qui ont eu du succès en bâtissant ou en grandissant leur entreprise, mais qui sont maintenant prêts à passer à autre chose, et à passer le flambeau à la prochaine génération.

Quand je dis “plus récent programme”, en réalité ce que j’ai appris c’est qu’ils étaient en train de finir leur première “mini-cohorte” de 7 entrepreneurs et leurs conjoints lors de ma visite, et que la version complète de Triomphe sera lancée en 2016.

Jessica est responsable du programme, et elle m’avait contacté quelques semaines avant la troisième et dernière session de 3 jours de ce premier groupe à vivre l’expérience de Triomphe signé EEB.

Elle m’a confié qu’elle avait eu “un feeling” que si elle m’invitait à prendre part à quelques-unes des activités du début de ce troisième séjour à l’EEB de ce premier cohorte, ce sera un Win-Win-Win pour l’école, les participants, et moi. Je ne peux pas parler pour les autres, mais pour moi, je peux vous dire que j’en suis sorti gagnant.

L’expérience que chaque entrepreur vit, quand vient le temps de planifier sa sortie de son entreprise, est unique à lui-même, mais ceci ne veut pas dire qu’il ne peut pas bénéficier d’un groupe de pairs avec qui il pourra vivre la planification et les premiers pas de cette expérience.

Ceci résume assez bien la raison-d’être de Triomphe. Chaque programme de l’EEB fonctionne selon la formule de cohortes de participants, qui passent à travers plusieurs étapes tous ensemble, mais j’imagine que les liens formés entre ceux et celles de Triomphe seront parmi les plus puissants et profonds.

Pour débuter le dimanche après-midi, il y avait une scéance de “réchauffement” avec un accompagnateur-coach expérimenté, suivi par une session de “L’athlète sur le podium”, où quelques participants partagent un défi auquel ils font face actuellement, et les autres leur offrent leurs suggestions et points de vue.

J’ai eu la chance de passer, moi aussi, où j’ai raconté mon histoire personnelle et j’ai répondu à quelques questions des particpants.

Lors de la soirée, durant le souper, les entrepreneurs et conjointes ont chacun fait une présentation de 10 minutes au groupe, et il semble que le devoir de préparer ce discours avait causé du stress à certains d’entre eux au courant des semaines précédentes. Mais c’était tellement émouvant comme spectacle!

Lundi matin, c’était au tour d’une invitée spéciale, la conjointe d’un entrepreneur très connu, à venir nous conter son histoire, avec ces hauts et ces bas. Encore émouvant et révélateur pour tous.

À tout celà s’ajoutait une scéance sur les génogrammes, donnée par Jessica elle-même, en utilisant sa propre famille.

Le partage de tous ces éléments personnels est au coeur du succès de ces interventions. Les participants vivent tous leur propre version de la vie entrepreneuriale, mais ils s’inspirent les uns des autres.

J’ai eu la chance de partager mes perspectives sur le Modèle des 3 Cercles, et j’ai donné une copie de mon livre “Changer votre vision de l’entreprise familiale” à chacun des participants.

Je devais quitter après dîner, et laisser ma place à Placide Poulin, qui était arrivé pour partager ses perspectives pour le bénéfice de tous.

Je n’étais présent que pour 24 heures, et je suis sorti avec beaucoup d’idées et d’histoires. Pour les participants, il leur restait encore une journée et demie. Je ne doute pas qu’ils étaient tous épuisés, mais motivés, en partant mardi soir!