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Money makes the world go around, they say. And it truly is a very important element in our lives, although sometimes it takes on a much bigger role than it needs to.

Plenty of people believe that having more money would solve all of their problems. Most of them are likely correct that more money would make some things easier, for a time, but they often over-estimate the ability of the money alone to solve everything, forever. Others are reluctant to spend any money when it could help them greatly.

I have dealt with people from all over the wealth spectrum, and I find it interesting how those on the higher end sometimes seem as if they have more money problems than those on the lower end. Could it be that it is not the amount of money you have, but how you use it, and how you think about it?

I came across a video on Twitter last week, where a guy was going around giving $100 to homeless people, and it was incredible to watch their reactions. The guy got plenty of hugs, thanks, and “God bless you’s”, but I could not help thinking that those people were likely not much better off a few days later. I only hope that one or two of them managed to find a way to use their windfall in positive way to improve their long-term situation.

When dealing with families in business, money is often at the root of their issues, and it is not always the lack of money that stands out. Very often, problems arise around the use of money, and perceived fairness surrounding money, rather than not having enough of it.

I recently had one of my occasional brain malfunctions, when I locked the keys inside the cab of a truck that I had just rented, as I parked it in front of my office. The plan was to load up some furniture, go home and load some more stuff, and then head off on the first half of a 10-hour drive to the cottage. The extra hour or so that it would have cost me, to get a lift back to the rental company to get another key, was not in my time budget.

I called my wife and once again she had the solution: she called a cab and sent it to my office, and the cab driver used a tool that he had in his trunk to “break in” to the truck, while my partner Tom and I brought the furniture down using the elevator.

It cost me $25 and I gave him a good tip too, since he saved me from an extra hassle when I could not afford it. That’s when I said to Tom, “When money can solve a problem, then it’s not really a problem. Provided you have the money”.

I wrote down that quote, knowing it would come in handy some day, at least for a blog post.

How many problems do you think you have, that you could afford to pay someone to take care of for you, but you don’t? Instead, you continue to live with the problems, because you don’t want to spend the money?

Some people go through their lives being so frugal that they are miserable, even though they could well afford to spend some money that would actually make some of their problems go away. I have trouble understanding those people. You can’t take it with you when you die.

I do not suggest you spend every last cent, so that you become homeless, and need to depend on the kindness of strangers giving away money, but to spend a reasonable amount, to improve your quality of life, can make a huge difference in your happiness level. Can you think of some areas in your life where this might apply?

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.

Last week the TV series “Breaking Bad” wrapped up with its final episode, which featured one brief scene that most people probably did not really notice, but that struck me, as a family business advisor.

The show revolves around former high school chemistry teacher Walter White, who ends up becoming one of the biggest suppliers of illegal drugs in the southwestern US, thanks to his ability to “cook” very potent batches of crystal meth.

There are plenty of interesting twists in the plot over the 5 seasons of the show. The finale culminates in predictable fashion, with Walt becoming the subject of an international manhunt, set against his need to take care of some unfinished business before getting caught, succumbing to his cancer, or getting killed.

The show flew under the radar for its first few seasons, since it ran on AMC, a US cable network that could be considered HBO’s poor cousin. I learned about the show as its third season was winding down, thanks to my twitter timeline.

I follow a diverse crowd of people on my personal twitter account, covering sports, business, politics, and entertainment. On Sundays, I started to see tweets from a huge variety of people saying that they could not wait for tonight’s episode of Breaking Bad, or that they were closing down their computers so as not to be distracted during that evening’s show.

From those comments alone, I immediately ordered the DVDs of seasons 1,2, and 3.

I started watching the first season at the cottage, since I am the early bird in the family, and I could watch by myself before the others woke up. I should note that watching a violent show about illegal drugs is not something most people want to do as a family.

The show is addictive, kind of like crystal meth. Just kidding. Although one can assume that meth is also addictive, I am happy to say that I cannot speak from experience on this.

Sometimes my son would wake up early too, and join me in the living room, but I could not stop watching, so I kind of just hoped that he would not really catch on to what was happening on screen. That lasted about 5 minutes. Thankfully there was not a lot of foul language or nudity.

My parenting style is very open, in that just about anything that can be shared, is shared. The important part is that when it is shared, it is also explained. There are plenty of teaching moments in Breaking Bad, but you need to pause pretty often.

The Family Business angle that I mentioned earlier came when Walt went to see his wife one last time, and he started to repeat his old line about why he did everything he did. She interrupts him and says she can’t stand to hear him say it was for the kids.

Then Walt does something that too few famiy entrepreneurs ever do. He admitted that he did it for HIMSELF. He surprised me (pleasantly) by saying that he loved the power that he had, and that it made him feel good.

How many business people do you know that SAY they are doing it for their kids? How many of their kids would say, “What? He never asked me what I wanted”?

Walt brought his wife into the business, in order to launder all of the money he made, thanks to the success of his meth cooking. But Walter Junior did not learn of his real business until the end, and he was not exactly proud of his Dad.

My advice is to keep any family business on the right side of the law, but also to acknowledge for whom you are doing it. If it really IS for the kids, maybe you could ask for their input!

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.

Today, I want to try to tie together a couple of themes that occurred to me this week. I began the week in London Ontario, where I attended the Ivey Case Teaching Workshop at my alma mater.

Then after I got back to my office I came across an interesting report about how and when wealthy families handle information about their wealth. I found it alarming and really difficult to comprehend.

Back in the spring, I shared in this space that I had been bitten by the teaching bug. As part of being a student in the Family Enterprise Advisor Program, the return to the classroom had me feeling that I had more in common with the people at the front of the room than the people who were there to learn.

Having done my MBA in a “case school”, where business cases form the vast majority of the learning, I resolved that when I did get into teaching, my preferred instruction method would to use cases for most of the learning.

For the final day of the workshop they asked for a volunteer and I am so glad that I stepped up and lived the experience. It is interactive learning at its finest, where the teacher is more of a discussion facilitator than anything else. It is a really cool feeling to have a bunch of bright students all wanting to contribute, and just trying to coordinate it all in some meaningful way.

I loved it and I want to do more of it. And I will.

Now, on to the wealthy families report I came across. Here is a link:

http://familyofficenews.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/wealthy-parents-fear-kids-cant-handle-family-fortune/

Let me pull out the two most alarming stats from this survey. Only 42% of the over 700 respondents believe that their children are well prepared to handle their inheritance. About 20% believe their children should wait until they are 40 before the family fortune is disclosed.

Yes, you read that right, DISCLOSED. Not that they should wait until they are 40 to handle the “family fortune”, which would be interesting in its own right. But these people think it is normal and appropriate to keep their children in the dark for 40 years.

Okay, so just how does that work. You live a low-key lifestyle and pretend that you are just another upper-middle class family, I guess. And then one day, once your kids are finally “old enough”, you will let them in on the family secret. “Surprise! You are going to inherit tons of money some day!”

And they wonder why their children are not well prepared to handle the inheritance.

I get the “aversion to discuss wealth”, and I get the “not wanting to negatively impact their work ethic”, believe me I do. But there are other ways to take care of those issues.

It all comes down to open and honest communications. They are your children. You are their parents. You are a family. The parents are supposed to teach their children all the stuff that they don’t learn at school. This includes work ethic and how to handle money.

Back to the teaching workshop, I said it was interactive learning, with the teacher acting as a facilitator. I guess I didn’t realize it until I sat down to write this blog, but that is almost a description of my parenting style.

Thankfully I have a co-teacher called Mom, and the class size is only 2. But if our kids are not prepared to handle information about our family wealth until they are 40, then somebody will have screwed up somewhere, it in won’t be the kids.

 

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.

I am often prone to thinking about abstract concepts, and lately my brain seems to be in overdrive in this area.

Hopefully, I will be able to tie things up into something relevant and useful for those who are interested in business families and the succession issues that they face. Ultimately, that is the goal of this blog.

We have all heard that ignorance is bliss. What that statement means to me is that sometimes when you are unaware of something (usually something bad), you are actually happier than you would be if you were aware of it.

Say you are in a foreign country where you do not understand the language. You pass a sign that says that you have just entered a dangerous area. Assuming you survive, would you have been happier knowing that, or remaining ignorant of the fact?

Now being ignorant of too many things is not necessarily wonderful either, in fact, the term “Ignoramus” is not usually used for flattery.

We are all ignorant of many things, due to the simple fact that no person can know everything. Some people act like they know everything, but that is another subject. They don’t. Nobody knows everything.

But there is another form of ignorance that is slightly different, and it is oblivion. To be “oblivious” is to be unaware. It is not a lack of knowledge of a subject in general, but a lack of realisation in a particular situation.

I get frustrated when I shop in stores with narrow aisles. I like to move quickly, find what I need, get in, and get out. But there are always (well not always, but it seems like always) oblivious people in my way. They stand in the middle of the aisle, sometimes with a shopping cart left in a spot that makes them even harder to get around, and they seem to be there to thwart my progress.

That kind of oblivion (the word “obliviousness” seems better in some ways, but is really not very elegant to say) is relatively benign.

My father was less ignorant than most people. If a subject interested him, he could study it quickly and get a deeper knowledge than many who were much more familiar than him.

But oblivion? Wow, what a difference. Maybe it was his entrepreneurial nature, always moving forward, always focussed on getting something done. Too much focus on one topic almost lends itself to being unaware of other things going on around you at the same time.

How many business families can relate to this one? Dad is hard at work, building the business for his family. What other things is he missing? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

So if ignorance is bliss, what is oblivion? It could also be bliss, but my take is that it creates blind spots in some family areas that should not be neglected. And those who are in the family do not always find it easy to confront Dad about these subjects. They have learned that it is best to stay out of his way.

So what do you do if you are in a business family with an oblivious older generation? What is the point of even bringing it up, he probably won’t even listen. Right? You may be surprised.

Start. Start somewhere. Anywhere. Get together and talk in a group. Start conversations about how things are being done and how that affects everyone else. Bring in someone from outside the family if you need to.

Ignorance can be solved by knowledge. Oblivion requires awareness. Too many people are doing too many things while UNAWARE of the unintended consequences of their actions. They need to be made aware, to shake them out of their oblivion. It is never too early to start.

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.

At our house, in addition to Mom and Dad and the two kids, we also have 3 cats and 2 dogs. Like most dogs, ours do not like thunderstorms.

We live in a nice neighbourhood that happens to be relatively close to where our local NHL hockey team has their practice facilities, so quite a few of the players live nearby.

One of these players is an all-star goaltender that we will call “Larry Nice”. He is also the owner of a couple of dogs, which I know since I follow him on Twitter, where he recently posted a photo of his two pals.

I volunteer at a Montreal charity called Share the Warmth, and can usually be found there on Thursday afternoons when we give out boxes of food to the local folks. When I leave the house on those days my wife will often say “Have fun sharing your warmth today”.

During the food bank, we give out pet food when we have it, but we ran out a few months ago and have had to say “Sorry, we don’t have any this week”, when people asked.

I recently contacted someone I knew who worked for Hagen, a local pet food manufacturer, and through her and Hagen’s generosity, we finally managed to have lots of dog food on hand for a change.

So on a recent Thursday, I was “sharing my warmth” and we were giving out lots of dog food, probably more than we should have, since it had been so long and we really had quite a bit of inventory for a change. At the same time, storm clouds were brewing (literally).

Back at home, the dogs were in the backyard. The one who usually freaks out during storms has been known to break through or dig his way out from under our fence. It is for this reason that I got him a dog tag with my cell phone number and address on it.

The people coming in for food were dripping wet from the rain. I am hoping that the bit of thunder that I heard in Montreal did not mean that my dogs were getting scared in the yard.

At about 2 o’clock, my phone rang. The guy on the other end told me he had my dog. He said he could meet me at a nearby parking lot and give him back to me. I explained that I couldn’t get away and my best-case scenario would be to meet him in about 20 minutes.

Then the nice man noticed our address on the dog tag and offered to bring him back home. I said, yes, please, and thank you, and informed him that there would be another dog there waiting for his vagabond buddy.

I got home a couple of hours later and found both dogs safe, sound, and quite dirty. Later I sat back and checked my Twitter timeline to see what I had missed during the day.

What’s this I see? “Larry Nice” has tweeted that he “picked up a fugitive today”, with a link to a photo that he posted.

Curious, I clicked on the link, and almost fell off my chair when I saw my dog in the back seat of Larry’s Ford pick-up. Thanks Larry, for a story that I have already told quite a few times, and will continue to share. The dogs sure hope you never get traded, especially not to the Lightning.

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.

When we think of family businesses, many of us picture the Mom and Pop operation, or the hard-driven entrepreneur who spends long hours at work for the sake of his family. It certainly is a reality for a large number of traditional first generation (commonly called “G1”) companies.

As some of these grow, expand, and mature into what we would normally call SME’s (Small and Medium Enterprises), they become more of what we might call true family businesses in the sense that some members of G2 will often start to assume positions in the company.

The bigger the business gets and the more family members are involved, the more fun for everyone. Or that is the hope. Of course it does not always work out that way in the end.

There is an analogy that some use to describe how each generation differs as the business ages and goes from G1 to G2, and then from G2 to G3. I do not know the exact origin of it, but I learned it in the Family Enterprise Advisor program in which I am currently enrolled.

It is a sports analogy that goes like this. The G1 is a tennis player. Tennis is an individual sport, they are all alone, them against their opponent. They are responsible for their success or failure.

G2 is a different sport. Mom or Dad the tennis player is not what works best anymore, although many hope to find a son or daughter who is just like them to take over, believing that that is what is required. But now the game is basketball, a team sport with a few players playing, as a TEAM. And the leader is not even a player anymore, but the coach.

Playing tennis and coaching basketball are not that similar. When we go from G2 to G3, the analogy continues, we get to what is commonly called the “cousin consortium” stage, where there may be various branches of the family involved. The game changes once again.

Basketball has only five players on the court at a time. The G3 cousin consortium is soccer or football. There are a lot more moving parts that need to be coordinated if the team is going to succeed. Look at the sidelines at a football game, and you will see lots of coaches, with one head coach who must coordinate them all.

We are pretty far from the tennis player and the one-man show now. My Dad was the prototypical entrepreneur and I was very diferent from him. He worried about that and deep down I am sure he had his doubts about how I would be able to succeed him. In the end we sold our operating company and that was fine with me since I did not have the passion for that end of the business.

Generational differences show up in other ways as well. G1 may be more about growth and G2 may be more about maintaining the wealth. Or G1 may be more about growing slowly with little risk, and G2 prefers to pile on risk and grow too fast.

This week I was fortunate to be invited to attend a local gathering at which 3 local family businesses received awards for having successfully transitioned their businesses to another generation. I got to speak with a couple of people who were at the G2-G3 stage in their businesses.

I sensed that just by their presence at this event, they were much more in tune with what is involved in these transitions than those who are in G1 and preparing for G2. It is a lot of work and very complex, and the G3’s seemed to really appreciate how fortunate they were to be in the positions they are in.

Here is hoping that many others get to this stage as well.

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.

In a blog post a couple of months back I mentioned that LinkedIn was becoming a really good resource for me. It continues to be a treasure trove of information and contacts.

I recently discovered a LinkedIn group called “Business Succession Planning Group”, so I joined and it did not take long for it to pay off. A group member from Minneapolis, Daniel Kurth of Human Performance LLC, made a post to the group that caught my eye.

I will use the key point of his message as the starting point to my blog this week. He introduces us to the “Three P’s of Transitioning Owners”.

Without further ado, they are: Paycheck, Purpose, and Place. Kurth’s thesis is that the exiting owner will only readily move on from the business once he has been able to replace those three P’s that the business has been providing.

Anyone who has ever worked in a business where the owner does not seem to be ready and willing to even entertain the thought of retirement can probably identify with at least one of these P’s being a major factor in the hesitation.

If the business has been successful for a number of years, the paycheck should be easy enough to replace. There is an entire industry of financial advisors and insurance product reps that will gladly help the future retiree ensure that monthly income to spend is replaced in a satisfactory way.

Let’s skip ahead to the last P, Place. Keeping and office, setting up a new office somewhere else, or simply getting into a new routine of meeting friends and colleagues somewhere on a regular basis, are all ways that people have gone about making sure that they “get out of the house” after retiring.

I really think that the toughest P to replace after selling or passing down a business, or even retiring from any job really, is Purpose.

I remember some friends of my parents who had 9-5 jobs who said they were looking forward to retiring, but once there, it almost drove them crazy. Somehow sleeping in, reading the paper, going for a walk, etc. can only cut it for so long.

For type “A’s” like most business owners and entrepreneurs, I wouldn’t give it more than a week or two before they would start going stir crazy. Folks who disliked their jobs look forward to retiring from the “grind” and they have trouble, imagine those who have a company they built to inspire them every day when they wake up.

Their business is often the driving purpose of everything, and has been for a long time. It cannot simply be switched off overnight. It can’t be expected to work that way. In theory, sure; in practice, no.

So for all those who want to help encourage someone to think about retiring some day, sooner rather than later, I suggest that you help them replace that P, the sense of Purpose that the business gives them.

Whether you are the succeeding generation waiting to take over, or the spouse who would rather spend more time together or take longer vacations, this is the place to concentrate your efforts.

But do not expect things to happen quickly. Start early and try to help them find hobbies, causes, worthwhile organisations, boards of directors, anything that can get them excited and where they can put their skills, energy and desire to good use.

There are surely other purposes that can slowly but surely become more and more important in their lives, and eventually allow them to exit the business because they have found a new sense of purpose. If they don’t get there, they might stay around forever.

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.

Si vous vous sentez beaucoup plus à l’aise dans les situations où vous faites parti de la majorité, vous êtes comme la plupart des gens.

Façon compliquée de dire que presque tout le monde préfère la sensation d’appartenance qui vient en agissant de manière “normale”. Plus souvent qu’autrement, ce confort est justifié, puisqu’en general, les gens ont tendence à bien faire ce qu’ils ont à faire.

Mais c’est loin de dire que c’est toujours meilleur de faire “comme tout le monde”. En fait, je crois que pour certaines personnes, le contraire est vrai.

Mes blogues sont souvent destinés aux gens qui comprennent la difference entre les occasions où c’est mieux de faire comme les autres, et les situations qui demandent de faire le “Zig” quand les autres font le “Zag”.

Si vous vous sentez visé, c’est peut-être parce que vous comprennez déjà très bien qu’il existe beaucoup de choix à faire dans la vie où il vaut mieux prendre le temps d’aller dans les sens contraire de la foule.

Et il me semble que le plus souvent qu’on prend les sens inverse, avec succès, le plus qu’on s’amuse à le faire. Gagner “en gang” c’est très amusant, mais gagner et être un des seuls gagnants parmi une foule de perdants, c’est encore plus satisfaisant.

Parfois quand je discute avec des gens qui ont eu du succès dans leur vie, tout en respectant cette tendence de faire ce qu’il était nécessaire à faire, même si ce n’était pas ce que la majorité aurait fait, je constate qu’ils ont quand même le réflexe d’agir dans le sens de la majorité dans d’autres domaines de leur vie.

Je m’explique. Un entrepreneur qui a eu du succès en bâtissant une entreprise dans un secteur qu’il connait, aura sûrement agi de façon non-conventionelle. Mais quand vient le temps de prendre des décisions dans sa vie personnelle, il suivra souvent ses amis.

Une personne qui a bâti une PME familiale, en allant dans le sens inverse de la plupart des gens qu’il connait, n’hésite pas à faire comme eux dans d’autres circonstances.

Si vous avez eu beaucoup de succès dans votre vie en agissant “pas comme les autres”, pourquoi est-ce si difficile d’agir ainsi dans d’autres aspects de la vie?

J’ai grandi dans une entreprise familiale où c’était mon père qui menait tout, et il n’était pas gêné de faire comme il voulait, sans égard pour ce que les autres faisaient ou ce qu’ils pensaient.  Il n’avait pas toujours raison, évidemment, et il n’aimait pas admettre quand il avait tort, mais ça ne l’empêchait pas de se ré-essayer la prochaine fois, à sa façon, la prochaine fois.

Récemment, j’ai accompagné ma mère à une rencontre lors de laquelle nous avons investi de l’argent dans un fonds où le gérant avait mentionné que la plupart des investisseurs dans son fonds étaient des institutions, et pas des particuliers.

J’ai mentionné que cela ne nous dérangeait pas, puisque ma mère avait vécu plus de 50 ans avec quelqu’un qui ne s’arrêtait jamais au fait qu’il était le seul de sa catégorie, et qu’étant donné que c’était lui mon “mentor” et celui qui m’avait entrainé, j’étais habitué d’être le seul aussi.

En m’habituant à être “pas comme les autres”, c’est devenu presque préfèrable de continuer de façon “pas comme les autres” dans bien des circonstances.

Avez-vous peur d’agir “pas comme les autres”? Est-ce que vous ne risquez pas de le regretter?

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.

Just about everyone I know has too many things going on and not enough time to get everything done. I am not sure if it is worse now than it was in the past, but it sure seems that way.

If everyone were simply a self-contained organism, without any interactions with others, this would not really pose a problem. If you got 8 out of 10 things done on your to-do list today, and I only accomplished 4 of my 7 items, no big deal.

But few if any of us live lives without interactions with others, and the resulting inter-dependencies are at the root of many potential conflicts. When you do not get back to me about something (failing to complete just one of the things you were supposed to do), the result could be that I am unable to take care of a few of the items that I was hoping to get done.

In many ways, life is all about managing our priorities, and it seems that the less we need to rely on others, the simpler life becomes. Unfortunately it just is not possible for most of us to run our lives without having to depend on anyone.

So we try to find people who are dependable. Over time, if you weed out the less dependable ones and bring in some more of the dependable type, things should get simpler for you. But what happens when you have depended on someone for a long time and now they have let you down?

I am currently in a situation where I have worked with someone off and on over many years, and things have always gone well, until recently. You see, this man has had some recent changes in his life that have forced him to reorganize things and re-assess his priorities.
As for the area of his life that impacts mine, I had assumed that despite the changes he has faced, the work he did with me would continue to be a high enough priority for him, so that he would continue to do a great job insofar as I was concerned.

But I am now learning that I was probably wrong. Lately when I send him an email or leave him a voice message, I wait several days or even weeks before getting a response. I often end up following up an email with a call or a text before he gets back to me.

The excuse that invariably comes up in such instances is “I was going to get back to you, but I didn’t have time, because of such and such and I was busy dealing with so-and-so”.  Ugh. Yeah, it is probably true, in some respects. But what does it really mean?

Well it reminds me of a relationship book that became popular a few years ago called, “He’s just not that into you”. It was aimed and women who lament the fact that after what they felt was a great first date with a guy, he often did not follow up.

What it means in your work life when these things happen to you is similar. Yes, give someone the benefit of the doubt. Once. Maybe twice, assuming the relationship was good and has been in place for a long time. (And assuming the explanations are believable and acceptable).

But what it means to you in practice is that this person’s priorities have changed, and you had better realize quickly that you are no longer as close to the top of the list as you were before. So you would probably do well to start to plan your next move without having to rely on that person.

The sooner you start to realize that there is a new reality in place and that you need to make some changes, the sooner you can start to regain control of the situation.

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.

When I first heard the word “proactive”, about 20 years ago, I really did not like it. It sounded funny and awkward. It sounded made up. But I have learned to like it, mostly because it fits so well with my way of thinking.

The easiest way to help someone understand it is to contrast it with the word “reactive”. You react to something after it happens. When you are proactive, you plan and act before something happens.

Anyone can react. All of us do, every day. We start doing it from the day we are born.

But not everyone gets to the stage where they do things proactively. It’s almost as if there is some sort of maturity required of people to get to where they consistently look ahead at what is coming, and try to get things prepared in advance.

In some ways, I wonder if the ability to see the “big picture” is somehow correlated with how proactive people will be. When you see how the large pieces of the puzzle fit together, you are more likely to anticipate many of the steps in advance.

So why am I even talking about being proactive? Well, in large part it is because I don’t think enough people do it naturally, and there are some people for whom it is really really important.  Can you guess that I am talking about family business owners?

Founders of businesses, entrepreneurs, first generation family business people become successful thanks to certain traits that they have. Whether we are talking about drive and determination, knowledge of their industry, or the willingness to take risks, there are key traits that almost all of them share.

They often become consumed with running their business on a day-to-day basis, fighting fires, making their next payroll, getting the big order out the door. Long range planning? Who has time for that?

Succession planning? I don’t need that? I am never going to retire anyways. And entrepreneurs live forever, don’t they?

In second- or third-generation family businesses, planning, whether for succession or other major transitions, is usually much more structured and formalized. Could it be that the ability to make long-term plans has contributed to the fact that these businesses survived into a following generation?

Maybe being proactive does not come naturally to everyone.  Even those who acknowledge that it is important are often not able to get themselves to take a longer-term view. Some people are natural procrastinators, who only do those things that are marked URGENT, at the expense of things that are truly important. (Note to self: there is a whole other blog right there).

Let me conclude with an idea that I think can be helpful. We have all heard that people who start an exercise program with a partner are more likely to stick with it. We also know that there are some people who only succeed when they have to answer to someone else, such as a personal trainer, who keeps them on track and motivated.

I believe that being proactive, especially when we are looking at major transitions like business succession, is easiest when someone from the outside is brought in to help organize, lead, and steer the process.

Let those who run the business run the business. But in order to make sure that the long term is not an afterthought, someone needs to pull those people out of the trenches and force them to think through, discuss, and plan what needs to be done for the long term.

It’s called being proactive. I hope this blog elicits an appropriate reaction, and starts you thinking about this important subject.

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.