From Societal Transformations to Intergenerational Transitions

Thanks to the pandemic, there’s no denying that the whole world looks very different today than it did just a few weeks ago. 

Few could have predicted how quickly and profoundly things could change, and so far, most of what we’ve seen has been for the worse.

But while most of us haven’t figured out what it’ll all mean in the long run, some families have already started making some big moves to try to get out in front of the tectonic shifts that are happening.

From societal changes that are happening in plain view of everyone, right down to key transitions within families, it seems like everything is in motion right now.  

As a family enterprise advisor who lives and breathes the world of business families and their family offices, I want to share some of what I’ve already been noticing.

 


Broad Societal and Industry Moves

Let’s start with the things that we’ve all been seeing on the news. 

With shortages of necessities like personal protective equipment (PPE) for medical personnel, hand sanitizer and ventilators, many companies, including plenty of family businesses, have begun to shift their production from their usual products, to helping fill the sudden demand for what frontline responders need right now.

There are examples, big and small, from all over the world, because every country is being affected by the current pandemic. 

On a more local scale, many family-owned restaurants and grocery stores are moving to deliveries to deal with the new reality of the “lockdowns”, as well as getting food to overworked medical personnel and to food banks having trouble keeping up with local needs.

 

Family Offices and Impact Investing

At another level, looking at things with a longer lens, family offices are already lining up future investments in industries poised to be part of the long term solution and new realities that the world is suddenly facing.

This crisis is presenting all sorts of opportunities, not only from an investment perspective, but also for the betterment of society. 

The field of impact investing, often a favorite of the younger generation of successful intergenerational enterprising families, is also rightfully excited by the chance to get involved on the ground floor of some of these widespread changes.

This ties in nicely with a piece I wrote last year on the natural fit between family offices and impact investing.  See Family Offices and Impact Investing: A Great Fit

Pandemic Creates Spectrum  of Opportunities  for Enterprising Families

From Macro to Micro

Within any given family, as much as the societal and industry shake-ups affect their businesses and the assets they own, there’s typically an upcoming generational transition that’s never more than a decade or so away.

Enterprising legacy families always need to look at the long term trends in the world at large, while making sure to never lose sight of the life cycle realities in their families.  

They need to look at the macro world and its opportunities with one eye, without forgetting about the micro reality and potential threats that might present themselves if they don’t sufficiently prepare the members of their own family to be ready to take the reins one day.

As the world faces major shifts, it becomes more important than ever for families to seize these opportunities while proactively involving the younger, rising generations of their family.

 

The Strengths of Each Generation

While the senior generation has the experience, wisdom, and patience to run the operations, the next generation of the family will normally be much more tech savvy, have more energy, and be well connected to peers all over the world.

Yes, the generations have different strengths, but in many ways, they have even more things in common.   See: Is There a Generation Gap in Business?

While the MIT-Sloan article above isn’t aimed at #FamBiz in particular, the similarities between members of various generations are even greater when we consider members of the same family.

There are so many opportunities to mentor and “reverse mentor” each other in such families.

 

Opportunities Abound – Will Your Family Capitalize?

This pandemic will create some enormous opportunities for those families that are poised to capitalize on them.

Families in business together can move into action more quickly than most corporate entities, because they’re more flexible, they aren’t focused on the next quarter’s results, and they understand the values that have made them successful over generations.

These crazy times are turbulent for everyone, and smart family enterprises are already beginning to capitalize on them.

These days there are many uncertainties surrounding the potential outcomes we’re all facing, along with lots of people in leadership roles being put on the spot for unknowable answers to questions that were inconceivable a few weeks ago.

At times like these we can learn a lot about leaders by how they address these questions, and whether they’re more inclined to skew their answers to one direction or another, depending on both their understanding of the situation and their propensity to lean either towards more optimistic or pessimistic outcomes.


A Huge Learning Opportunity

The current situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, as scary as it is, will also be great opportunities for all of us to learn, if we are so inclined.

We’re already learning a lot about viruses and how they spread, as well as how some rather simple hygiene measures go a long way toward curtailing that spread.

But we’re also learning a lot about society, how different groups react to news depending on their culture, and how political leaders react under pressure, and whether or not they properly rely on the experts who advise them.

There are also plenty of things we can tie in to the world of enterprising families, which I normally cover here, and some lessons that family members will also hopefully learn as we work our way through this global crisis.

 

“Don’t Set Yourself Up to Be a Loser”

If my Dad were still alive today, he’d be proud that I haven’t forgotten this mantra of his, which I heard him say over a hundred times in various situations.

Many of our political leaders have been guilty of putting their heads in the sand, hoping this would simply go away, making statements to that effect, and being wildly optimistic, because in the short term, that plays better politically.

In the long run, any trust that people had in such leaders is bound to be diminished as the truth comes out and reality sets in. 

This happens in society with politicians, and occurs in family situations too, where one family member makes overly optimistic claims about the family’s wealth, or their personal abilities, to siblings, cousins, or others.

 

Delayed Gratification

I often state that many family business problems are simply parenting problems that manifest themselves a few decades later, and this often comes down to whether or not parents tried to instill the value of delayed gratification in their children.

I wrote about this in Marshmallows and Filet Mignon about a year and a half ago, and I think it’s clear that some of our political leaders did learn these lessons early on and continue to reap the benefits, while others, well, not so much.

Last week I used a song as a blog title, and this week the song “Teach your Children” comes to mind as I think about this.

Many of us our now suddenly surrounded by children in our homes and there are plenty of lessons to be learned under the subject of “current events”

I hope that you’re benefiting from the opportunities to teach them important lessons based on the news.

 

Not Overpromising as a Coach

One thing I like about being a coach to families is that it’s actually difficult for me to overpromise what I can deliver.

You see, any well-trained coach will not only realize but will also share with their clients that the coach is not the one who does the work in such a relationship, it is the client (or clients).

The coach is there to provide some structure, process help, guidance, and accountability, but not to “do the work”; that is ultimately up to the clients.

This is a big part of why the “deliverables” are not easy to discuss or promise, because they’re out of the coach’s hands. See: Intangible Deliverables and the Family Circle

 

Promises to Family Members

Let’s finish off by tying in the idea of promises to the family, since many of us are suddenly in close quarters with family members, and may be for a while still.

Are there any promises that you made in the past that need to be reviewed? Maybe they were implied, or not defined well enough?

This may be an opportune time to clear those up. Maybe some assumptions around wealth need to be revised and updated too.

It’s safer to under-promise and over-deliver than the reverse.

Most of us are living in a new reality, temporary as it will (hopefully) be.  There have likely been many adjustments in your day-to-day lives, some of which are unwelcome.

While nobody knows for sure how long this will last, it’s very unlikely that we will get back to exactly the way things were anytime soon, if ever.

That last part, “if ever”, is not meant to be alarmist, I’m just making the point that when such fundamental and widespread events happen in society at large, they create some displacements that end up being permanent in nature

We just don’t know what they’ll look like yet.

 


Not the Beginning, Not the End Either

So it’s safe to say that we’re not at the end of this ordeal yet, and we are no longer at the beginning.  You could say that we’re somewhere “in the middle”.

Unfortunately, I think we’re still way closer to the beginning, but hopefully I’ll be proven wrong (it’s been known to happen).

It’s a process that we’re moving through, and while decades from now it will seem like an “event”, right now, while we’re in it, it feels like it’s moving quickly, while in other ways it feels like it’s going too slowly.

 

Extreme Reactions, or Middle of the Road?

Another way to think about this week’s theme of “the middle” is that “Goldilocks” place I think we should all be striving for, in terms of how we’re responding to things.

Last week I went to my local liquor store, and had to wait in line outside, since they were intentionally limiting the number of customers inside, to increase personal space for everyone.

The man minding the line-up was asking us to be nice to the employees, because evidently some customers were less than nice earlier that day.

He then shared his thoughts about the kinds of people he was seeing. I’ll give it to you in colloquial Quebec French first, then translate:

“Y’en a qui s’en foute, y’en a qui capote, et il y a le reste, dans le milieu”

Loosely “There are those who don’t give a crap, those who are freaking out, and the rest, in the middle”.

Sometimes it’s good to be in the middle.

 

Middle of the Crowded House

Another change that many of us are being forced to deal with is the “crowded house” phenomenon arising from so many “stay-at-home” orders.

I was on a Zoom call recently with 16 people from nine different countries, and the vast majority were working from home, while the few exceptions were in very small offices.

The “stuck in the middle” title of this blog came from this idea that many people are now suddenly all being forced into staying together for much longer periods of time than usual, typically for longer than they’d prefer.

Luckily some warmer weather is finally arriving, even in Canada, that will allow us all more opportunities to at least get some fresh air from time to time.

 

Feeling Stuck – Usually Not Good

Enough about the middle, which isn’t necessarily a bad place to be.  

But feeling “stuck”, well, that’s rarely good, and for some people, that might be a feeling that is currently resonating with them, and not in a good way.

I want to share some thoughts on this, that can hopefully offer a new perspective on looking at our new reality.

There is clearly some upheaval going on everywhere right now, which means that things are changing.

If everything in your life was going well before, then change is not something you were necessarily hoping for, I get that.

But it’s here now, so it makes sense to acknowledge that things are changing and trying to think about what you can do now to be prepared.

 

Where Is This Going?

Unfortunately, nobody knows where this will end, and the only person I can control is me.

I’m spending a lot of time reflecting and being grateful for what I do have, and trying to think of ways to be a resource to those who could benefit from what I have to offer.

The rest will take care of itself.  Stay well, stay safe, be kind.

Feel free to reach out for a Zoom call to chat. Yes, I mean it.

 

“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am….”

These past couple of weeks have been anything but “business as usual”, and so I’ve decided to break from my usual pre-set blog calendar and venture into the many discussions that are taking place in society and in the family enterprise space, on the many impacts the sudden uncertainty has us all facing.

I still have plenty of blog subjects that I want to get to about business families and their challenges in transitioning their wealth to the next generation, and we’ll get back to those in due time. 

But lately, as I’ve come across “regular” content in my inbox or on social media that seemed to act as if we were all still in the “same old, same old”, I’ve had an almost visceral reaction to some of it, as it struck me as tone deaf or just a little too oblivious for me to spend any time on, you know, right now.

 

Inflection Points – No Going Back

This past week, I was speaking with my coach, Melissa, about the new realities we are facing because of Covid19.  I was pleased and not too surprised when she told me that I am by far her calmest client right now, as most others are freaking out.

I shared with her my belief that we will be learning a LOT over the next few months; about the world we live in, about people, and about leadership.

We’ve hit a number of inflection points, and while it’s way too soon to predict how this will all shake out, I can state with great confidence that many things will never be the same again.  

But most of us will be just fine.

Family Timemathematical graph

One of the unexpected changes many of us are being confronted with is more family time.  

My wife and I have been “empty nesters” for almost five years (thanks in large part to boarding school) but we are now back into “full house” mode with both of our college undergraduates at home, likely finishing up their school years “online”.

It’s too early to tell how it will all work out, but so far, so good, everyone seems to have the right attitude, even with the “self quarantine for 14 days” part that they’re expected to respect after returning from the US.

 

Isolation and Distancing

This call for social distancing and isolation is being received better in some places and by some demographics than others, which is not unexpected either.

What it will do to the economy is still unknowable, but the variety of  timelines we’ve been hearing as people make their guesses as to how long until we’re back to normal is causing tremendous market turbulence.

In the future it will be easy to see where we should have been buying back in, but for now, it’s anybody’s guess.

 

Leadership – Good, Bad, Ugly

The leadership that we’ve been seeing on our TV every day has varied tremendously, from good, to bad, to downright ugly.

I won’t weigh in on who I think fits into each category, suffice it to say that I’ve seen a few in each category from politicians.

But I guarantee you that there will be some people that nobody knew before this crisis who will end up being heroes, and others who will get rich, and still others whose reputations will never recover.

But the jury is still out on all of that, and may be for a few months more.

 

Technology and Connection

Some of the good news is that technology now makes remaining connected so much easier than ever before.

As I wrote a few months back in Who’s Zooming Who?, I’ve become a huge fan of using the Zoom platform for online face-to-face meetings, both for 1-on-1 and group meetings.mathematical graph

More and more people are slowly learning about the benefits of such meetings, because they really don’t have much choice.

 

Reach Out, Just to Check In

One thing I’ve been doing (and promise to do more of) is to reach out to people, including clients and colleagues, from the past and present (and future?).

Reaching out without any particular angle or purpose, but simply to check in.

Connection is always important, and when times are filled with uncertainty, it becomes even more clear.

See you next week. Excuse me now, I’m going to call my mother. 

Off the top, I realize that my title this week is a little less clear about my topic than it normally is, so thanks for getting past it and reading anyway.

We’re going back to some grammar school stuff, and then we’ll move pretty quickly into more advanced topics. It should be an interesting ride.

 

La Conjugaison des Verbes

My elementary schooling was in French, unlike my older sisters who attended English school. (They weren’t expected to take over Dad’s business, I was; but that’s another topic for another day).

During class, and for homework, we spent a LOT of time conjugating every verb we encountered, always following the same sequence: 

                                          Je, tu, il;     Nous, vous, ils.

We started with singular, first person, second person, third person; and we continue through them again in plural, first, second, third person.

So for “le verbe avoir” it was: J’ai, tu as, il a, nous avons, vous avez, ils ont.  

For « aimer » it was J’aime, tu aimes, il aime, nous aimons, vous aimez, ils aiment.

 

Comparing Homework Among Siblings

My sisters were sometimes curious about my homework, as their English school did not seem to obsess over conjugating verbs nearly as much as my French school did.

But of course you never know when this might come in handy, say 45 years later when writing a blog about business families.

Somehow I never imagined any of this in my future.

What this repetitive work did give me, was an appreciation for the whole concept of “First person”, i.e. me, “second person”, i.e. you, and “third person”, i.e. he/she, along with the corresponding plural versions of “we”, “you” and “they”.

 

Cultivating Better Interpersonal Relations

Much more recently, having done more than my share of training in coaching, facilitation, mediation, and family systems, some common themes have emerged within my mind.

One of those themes is the importance we should place on how we direct comments to others, in ways that are more conducive to harmonious relationships, compared to other, less skilled ways that may produce sub-optimal results.

You guessed it, thinking about all this in terms of “first person”, “second person”, and “third person” can be helpful.

 

Feeling “Accused” Prompts Reactivity

I’ll start with a basic principle that most of us can vouch for from personal experience.

When you feel like you are being accused of something, you will typically react in some way, and in many cases, that reaction will be less than friendly or positive.

We don’t necessarily do this in a thoughtful, conscious way, it just happens, as our emotions get triggered. I touched on some of this a couple of years ago in Your Response Is Your Responsibility.

And when do we typically feel like we’re being accused? 

I think that when someone starts with the word “You”, that’s often a huge part of it.

 

Dropping “You”, Using “I” and “He” or “She”

So how hard would it be to drop the habit of using “You”? 

My take is that it’s something you can learn to do, with time and practice, like other speech habits.

I know lots of people who’ve learned to substitute “and” in place of “but” in many instances, with positive results.

I’ve seen suggestions to talk about one’s own reaction to things as a way to lessen the blow of the “you” accusation, for example, “When I hear the word _____, I feel _____”, as opposed to “When you say ____, you _____”.

My favourite example of the plural version was use of “you people” and its negative effect on Ross Perot during his Presidential bid in 1992, when he continually said “You people should….” during a speech to a room full of African Americans.  It did not go over well.

 

What About He or She?

As for using the third person, this naturally fits with situations when more people are in the room, and is something a good facilitator or mediator would commonly do.

Having the people tell the story to the third party, while the person in question is present, can really allow that person to “hear” the story in a way that they can respond, instead of reacting.

In any case, just learning to drop the second person mode will be a huge improvement.

Learning to state things from an “I position” can also help, as can using a trained neutral third party.

As part of my work with business families, I get to interact with other professionals who also serve these families. 

There are usually plenty of complexities to be managed, so it’s normal for them to employ the services of a variety of experts in different fields at various times.

My specialty is working in what I call the “family circle”, which comes from the ubiquitous Three-Circle Model (Taguiri & Davis) that highlights the overlaps in the Business, Ownership, and Family circles.

While most of the work in the other two circles is largely “content-based”, i.e. tangible, most of what I do is much more about process, and therefore intangible. 

This brings with it a number of interesting side-effects.

 


Making Promises

The first difference that becomes apparent when meeting a family is what kind of promises I can make to them.  

If I were an accountant or a lawyer, it would be easy for me to promise that I could create whatever structure or agreement they might need, now or in the future.

But, alas, I am neither an accountant nor a lawyer, in fact my business card and email signature both say that I’m a Family Legacy Advisor, which has been known to raise an eyebrow from time to time.

I certainly can’t promise anyone that I can provide them with the legacy that they hope for.  I can only promise that I will do my utmost to guide them and their family members in their creation of that legacy. 

In fact, it’ll be the family members themselves who’ll be doing most of the work.

 

Recycling Work Product

Another area where I sometimes feel a bit jealous of my colleagues who work in the more “technical” specialty professions is that of what I like to call “recycling”.

Now I realize that it’s often a gross oversimplification of what’s involved in most of the complex cases, but at the end of the day, that legal structure or agreement that they just completed for the Jones family will have a lot of the same content as the one they did last month for the Smiths.

In contrast, the work that I do with the Brown family rarely looks anything at all like the work I did last month with the Johnsons.

I suppose that’s part of why I really like this work, because no two families are the same.  They face many of the same challenges, but the circumstances and the way issues come up are as varied as you could ever imagine.

 

Content Deliverables vs. Process ______________

Those who are fortunate enough to be in a business where they are providing “content solutions” have an easier time figuring out what their true “deliverables” are, which is a huge advantage when making the promises we were talking about earlier.

It also helps you know how far along you are in your work, when the work is done, and, even more importantly sometimes, how to price the services that you’re providing.

In fact, I often struggle to find the best corresponding word for “deliverable” for this process work. How do you qualify what you bring to the table when it’s more about process and relationships between people than about a “finished product”?

 

Coaching, “En Français” ???

Regular readers know that I love to look at how terms are translated into different languages to see if we can learn something from that. 

Sometimes the word in one language offers a much more vivid or accurate description than the English word.

“Coaching” is such a word. It’s true that some simply add a “le” to the front of it to get “le coaching”, like “le parking”, but I’ve heard a much better word used here in Quebec.

That word is “accompagnement” which you may have already figured out translates to “accompaniment”.  It has a bit of an awkward ring to it in English, I admit, but it really describes the situation well.

 

Advisor, Coach, Guide…

The deliverables in the family circle are essentially intangible. 

But I bet most people can still judge the value that they’re getting from an advisor, or coach, or guide.

It’s just a bit tougher to put it into words sometimes, but that’s okay.

The good news is that families know when they’re being served well, once the relationship takes off.

This week we’re going to look at something that came up in a non-family business context, and apply it to our usual domain of businesses that are run by multiple generations of the same family.

It goes back a couple of months to a luncheon I attended that was hosted by a successful local private wealth advisory firm. 

I’ve attended a few of their events over the past few years, and it’s always nice to stay plugged into the financial asset world, even though my work with families is now almost exclusively on the family side of things, as opposed to how they invest their liquid assets.

 

Successful Succession

The company in question is now owned by a number of their “second generation” partners, who bought into the firm over the years, and the original founders now no longer own any shares.

As I sat there and listened to them share this part of their story with the audience, which included mostly clients and potential investors, I couldn’t help thinking that some business families I know would be envious of their successful succession.

But my favourite part of the story was about one of those founders, now in his 80’s, who still comes to the office every day, and acts as “wise counsel” to the others.

 

When You Like What You Do

Apparently he likes to come in and be with his peers and friends, “without the pressure of performance”.

But the real money quote was this, which is what that man added, 

                  “When you like what you do, you do it 

                       long after you still need to do it”.

Hmmmm. I began to think about how this whole situation might apply nicely to some of the business families I know.

So many of the senior leaders of family businesses still really like what they do, yet they often feel like they still need to do it, even long after their successors have shown that they are more than capable of handling the work.

If only there were a way for them to keep doing some parts of what they love, while allowing others to take over other responsibilities.

 

An Opportunity to Co-Create Something

Handing over the reins of a business is almost never a simple exercise.  It takes lots of planning and the execution is rarely as easy as expected or hoped for.

However, with lots of dialogue and sharing of ideas, a great training program to ensure that the rising leaders are equipped to handle larger roles over a number of years, having new leadership ready to assume top roles can certainly be accomplished.

Sometimes, especially in family businesses, it’s having the old leader step aside that’s the biggest obstacle. But there is definitely an opportunity here, if the two generations work together to create a Win-Win.

Family Ties: Easier or More Difficult?

Some may think that this process should be easier in a family business, where the exiting leader has more confidence in the new person or people, because they are literally a “chip off the old block”.  Indeed, sometimes it does work out that way.

Anecdotally, though, it seems like family situations often make it harder to execute such a transition.

Perhaps this biased view comes mostly from founders or wealth creators who are the first generation (G1), and they notably have more difficulty bidding adieu and leaving things to G2 than occurs in subsequent generations.

 

Doing What You Like, Lots of Options

But let’s go back to the title and quote, about doing what you like, and wanting to keep doing it. As the leader for the past few decades, the number of roles that person held and the tasks for which they were responsible was likely pretty diverse.

Wouldn’t it make sense to try to discover which of those roles and tasks they particularly enjoyed, and find ways for them to continue them, yet, “without the pressure of performance”, as the example above noted?

It strikes me that there’s a huge opportunity here, for members of both generations, to co-create the conditions where they actually co-exist for a certain number of years.

It probably won’t be something that happens overnight, of course, and the longer the plan is in the works, the more likely it probably is that it will be a success.

It all starts with a discussion…

Asking for What You Need in the FamBiz

This week I want to look at what seems like a pretty simple topic, but after we get through it all, you may agree that it’s not as simple as you first thought.

We’re going to look at the subject of asking for things, which some people do with ease, while others do with trepidation.

When you’re dealing with family members, it should be easier, right?  Well, not always.

 

Asking for Help

The first way that this topic landed on my potential blog post list came last year, when I attended a coaching workshop and someone asked one of the course leaders for ideas on how to get clients.

The answer was “if you want to coach someone, ask them”, which seemed both too simple and too difficult all at the same time, to the questioner and many others.

Then a couple of months ago on LinkedIn, I came across a quote from Simon Sinek, which read:

 

                               “To overcome our challenges, all that is 

                                 required is the courage to ask for help”

 

OK, that sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it?  But remember, simple and easy aren’t the same thing.  If it were that easy, and it worked, the world would be a happier place. Oh yeah, and there’s that part about “courage” that’s often in short supply.

 

“Help” Versus a “Resource”

This post’s title is about asking for “what you need”, while Sinek’s quote encourages us to “ask for help”, so there’s a nuance there, unless what we need always comes down to help.

I’ve written about asking for help before, notably here, 5 Things to Know: Asking for Help for a FamBiz, but the context there was mostly about a family situation, where they get to the point where they realize that they need help from the outside.

People who interact with me regularly, and those who’ve read Interdependent Wealth, will know that I’ve been trying to eliminate the word “help” from my vocabulary lately.  I find it has too much of a “One up vs. One down” connotation, and that sometimes causes its own issues.

I seldom offer to help anyone anymore, preferring instead to offer to be a resource to them.

 

Help Isn’t Always Helpful

I wrote about this almost two years ago in When Is Helping Not Helpful

Yes, it usually feels really good to help someone else, and more people should do it. I can assure you, though, that when you do the exact same thing, only framed as being a resource, it feels just as good.

And while it feels just as good to the “helper”, I think the person who was helped probably feels better about it.

This gets close to another topic, the one where we feel like we need to “fix” someone, which brings with it a whole slew of other issues that are beyond the scope of today’s post.

 

“What You Need” Versus “What You Want”

Anyone who’s a parent is probably familiar with the importance of making the distinction between what you want, and what you need.

It’s a basic concept that many parents try to explain pretty early on in the lives of their children. It’s also a concept that can be taught in conjunction with the idea of delayed gratification. See Marshmallow and Filet Mignon.

So I mention teaching this to children, and that may make you think of youngsters, but I can assure you that there are plenty of “adult children” (a.k.a. “former children”, or, my favourite label “offspring”) who could use some brushing up on the differences between wants and needs.

 

The Business Family Version

We’ll wrap up with some thoughts on how this topic relates to business families, especially as they mature and prepare for intergenerational transition.

Too many subjects are left too late in such families, and I always encourage them to begin talking about important subjects early on, rather than waiting too long.

One of the simpler ways to do that is to ask people for what you need from them.  I said it was simpler, not necessarily easier.

 

It Works in Both Directions!

The good news is that this works just as well for parents asking things of their offspring as it does for the younger ones to ask their parents.

Sure, it takes a bit of courage to get started, but once you begin, it’s a lot easier to keep it going.

You might even start by asking someone to read this post, and go from there…

Some words in English carry either a positive or negative connotation for the most part, yet there are some contexts where this can be turned on its head.

The world of family enterprise seems rife with examples, making it a favourite target of mine here.

One such word is “surrender”, and regular readers won’t be surprised that I’ll look at some French translations along the way.

 

Surrendering:  Abandoning or Yielding?

So let’s start with the French translation we get from Google, where the first word we get is “abandon”. This was also my wife’s reply when I asked her how to say surrender in French.  My reply to her was, “Um, that’s not really what I’m looking for”. 

Of course after I told her that Google corroborated her answer, she gave me “the look”.  I guess that “abandon” has as much of a negative connotation as surrender does.

The second option from Google was “céder”.  For those like me who learned to drive in Quebec decades ago, we know that the triangular yellow road signs we see when merging used to say “céder/yield”.

I’d contend that “yielding” does not carry as much of a negative feeling as surrendering.

 

Negative Examples from Family Business

I’ve got a couple of stories that I can share on this just from the last few months, from families who’ve reached out to me.  I’ll change some details for obvious reasons, but I want to make sure that the feeling of surrender comes through.

Jack and Rhonda contacted me about their manufacturing business that they had started some forty plus years ago.  Their son Frank was now running things, and had been for the past half decade. Frank’s wife was also involved at a pretty high level in the operations.

Meanwhile, Jack and Rhonda had been slowly but surely marginalized into very minor roles, which at first they did not really mind.

It seemed that things were in good hands with the next generation, and they welcomed a more relaxed lifestyle.

 

On the Outside Looking In

The parents remained majority owners, but having now surrendered pretty much all of the day-to-day running of the company, they were having difficulty making progress with their son on the ownership transition, since he saw no reason why his sister should even be in the conversation.

The parents’ surrender in the operations was causing unintended consequences on the ownership discussions.

Let’s switch gears now to another family, where three siblings all co-own a company started by their father, who passed away a long time ago. The company has a full independent Board of Directors, on which the siblings all sit.

 

Surrendering to your Sibling?

One sibling, and not the oldest, happens to be CEO, while another is a VP and the third runs a separate division.

When things were going well, everyone was happy. When things began to go sideways, the siblings who aren’t the CEO had difficulty surrendering the running of the company to the CEO.

In theory, the Board should provide a buffer here, but when there are three equal owners who are also on the Board, that sometimes doesn’t work as well in practice as it does in theory.

 

Positive Surrender… Is that Possible?

As I think I’ve hinted above, there must be some examples of surrendering in a family enterprise that are positive.

The idea for this came in a meditation recording I was listening to called “Learning to Surrender” (by Sarah Blondin; I’m a big fan).

The key to a positive surrender is your attitude, and an attitude of equanimity is what it really takes. See Equanimity: Yours for only $250 Million.

I’ll close with a story about a family I’ve been working with for a few years now.

 

Serenity Soon (If Not Now)

At a recent Family Council meeting, Dad informed his 4 children that he would soon be announcing that he would be stepping back from the Presidency of the business. 

He then added that a few months later, he planned to announce to employees that the rising generation were moving into ownership positions and more senior roles.

Their mother sat beside him with a proud smile, as they talked of plans to travel more while they could still really enjoy it, and to spend more time with their growing number of grandchildren.

I think we can all agree that this sounds like a positive surrender, one many others would love to emulate.

This post has been a long time coming, because the idea for it actually first came to me a few years ago, but somehow it never made it to my blog calendar.

The idea resurfaced again recently in some work I was doing with a family, so that was the clincher; it’s time.

 

Doing your “Values Work”

When working with people from business families, many consultants, myself included, emphasize the importance of working together to define and clarify the values that family members have in common, because once that work’s done, many decisions become easier to make.

Likewise, when I first entered this profession, I began to work on constructing my first website, and the coach I’d been working with insisted that I do my own personal “values work”, so that we could make the decisions we needed to make, so that my website properly reflected me, and what I find important.

For what it’s worth, the three core values I came up with were:

                        Authenticity  – Belonging –  Empathy

Because one’s values are typically pretty consistent over time, it should not be surprising to learn that I think that these still “fit” me pretty well.

And, noting that “belonging” is one of them, it shouldn’t be surprising that writing a blog about this topic is important to me, even if it’s something I could have (should have?) done sooner.

 

Standing on the Shoulders of a Giant

I don’t often share the names of people who inspire my posts, but I’ll make an exception here because I really wouldn’t have learned the importance of this without Aron Pervin, who shared it with me a few years ago while we had breakfast together in Toronto.

I was still new in this game, and I think I noted something about the importance for people to understand not only “what you do” in your FamBiz, but also “who you are”.

I thought I was pretty clever, highlighting the “Doing” and “Being” aspects, to this man who had been doing this work for decades before I began.

 

“I Also Add ‘Where Do You Fit’

That’s when Aron replied that I was actually missing a pretty important piece, about “Where do you FIT”.

Hmmm. I thought.  That’s good. That’s really good.

I haven’t forgotten it either, but I do realize that I’ve been remiss in not sharing it here.

Because as much as I like it and think it’s important, I’m not sure that I’ve seen anyone else express it this way, this clearly.

 

Two Aspects, Two Steps

When I think about this question as it relates to enterprising families, it actually comes down to two separate components, or two aspects.  

The first part is all about “DO I fit?”, as in, am I welcome here, and it’s essentially a Yes or No question.  

It may seem like a small detail, but I can assure you that it’s not a negligible question.  Oftentimes, family members who aren’t employed in a business that is owned by the family will have trouble answering this question clearly and honestly.

There’s actually a degree of uncertainty in their minds, and it can sometimes be the subject of confusion.

 

OK, So Now Where Do I Fit?

The second part, assuming we have now answered that YES, we do fit, is to clarify exactly where we fit.  When answering Yes to the first part, it can sometimes become obvious that the second part of the question remains problematic.

There are many families where this line of thinking takes them “outside the box”, quite literally.

When a family business is still in its early decades, the idea that employees of an operating company have a place, and owners have a place, but that’s about it, can be prevalent.

The family members who don’t fit into those groups, but who are nonetheless “stakeholders”, can feel left out to some degree, and it can be a challenge to change that kind of thinking.

 

Family Council?  Board? Philanthropy?

For anyone reading this and scratching their head, I’ll leave you with a few possible ideas where non-employee family members might possibly fit into the family business.

Do you have a “family council” yet?  Is there a board of directors for the business, where some non-employee family members could add value?  How about family philanthropy?

These ideas work for some families, how about yours? Are you thinking outside the box?