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Learn more at thegoldhillgroup.com website where you can schedule your free strategy session. Hi, it's Jonathan Goldhill and welcome back to another episode of the Disruptive Successor Show.My guest today is Charlie Leichtweis.
He is the founder of Experts in How LLC, a business consultancy focused on family businesses, helping them create a successful legacy.
Charlie, likewise, is one of those rare individuals who can help you understand what your organization needs to be doing and how to do it.For over 40 years, he's been helping family businesses as a C-suite executive, advisor, and board member.
He's also the author of two books, The Power of Respect in Business and The Power of Legacy.And he has served on more than a dozen board of directors for family businesses.Welcome to the show, Charlie. Glad to be here, thank you.
That is a very modest bio for what I suspect, and I think you'll share with others, your real background and what have you been doing over these past 40 years?
Why don't you give our listeners a little bit of sense of where you're coming from, your orientation, your CV, however you want to call it.
Sure, I'd be happy to. As it turns out, like many careers, it wasn't necessarily planned specifically in terms of how it turned out.So when I started an industry out of college, I started actually at a public accounting firm.
But from there, I ended up being involved with and encountering a lot of different family businesses.So I've been all the alphabet soup titles, CEO, CFO, COO kind of thing as a non-family member in family businesses.
So Rust-Oleum was owned by the Ferguson family. ran McNally by the McNally family and I can go on and on in terms of the companies that I served as a senior executive.
And as I got near the end of the process of working in industry, I look back on what I've done and I've learned from all the mistakes I've made and successes I've had relative to the work that I've done and said to myself, you know, it's been primarily family-owned businesses and I'm in a position where I can share that understanding and learning
with others to help them be better.So one of the things that I always did, even as a senior executive, I had the theory or the mantra of helping organizations with the how.
So in terms of it's not just what to do or why to do it, but helping them with how, because that's something that takes interpretation and not everybody necessarily gets off the top of their head.
So as I stepped out, I kept that mantra of helping with how, And the title of the business experts and how fit in with that.And so family owned businesses is a significantly large marketplace.It's somewhat underserved in my opinion.
And I thought with all the things that I've learned, I could certainly help them be better.
All right, so I'm gonna ask you a bunch of how questions, but let's first start with the other ones.I remember when I was a child in school, they always said, you know, go through the who, what, why, when, and how.So let's start off with the who.
Who are the types of clients that you're working with?Rust-Oleum, Rand McNally, these are multi-generational, probably very large, or were very large businesses.Is this your target audience for your work?
Well, it's funny, my target market is what I call the ubiquitous middle market.So my clients range from $10 million in revenue to $2 billion in revenue.So that's sort of what a lot of people would describe as the middle market.
And they can be anything from initial startups, first generation, to companies I've worked with or sit on the board of now that are in the fifth or sixth generation.
So, and primarily many of them are second to third and looking to be able to say, how do I sustain my legacy?And that's really where my expertise comes into play.
Great.All right.Let's talk about what, what is the difference between a family legacy and a family business legacy?
Well, actually the two of them need to be in parallel. The family business legacy is related to the business, and the family legacy is related to how the family views their governance structure and how they want to handle that business going forward.
So in terms of the family, they may have the family council as part of their structure.And then as far as the business goes, they may have a fiduciary board that works with the management team to make decisions on the business and its strategy.
They're definitely interrelated and they come together at a certain point.The family legacy is related to the family values. It's related to their understanding of what their purpose is and how to carry that forward.
That has to be translated into the family business legacy as well.
Now, the actual steps that the business goes through are definitely determined to make sure the business survives going forward because that's what provides for the family in the future.So, they're definitely related
They're two parallel paths of understanding the business, the values and the purpose of the business and commenting frequently between each to make sure they're on the same path.
And I'm going to come back to a how question, which is like, how do you do this?Do you workshop this stuff?
But let me first before get to some of the other five W's, which is why is it important in your opinion for family businesses to understand their family business legacy?
It's important because that's what drives their understanding of going forward as a family.
So when they think about it, and this is where some of the major conflict comes into place, some of the statistics are that less than 3% of families make it to generation four.
And there's elements of family conflict that come into play that basically cause that to be the case most of the time.And one of them is on the purpose. disagreement on purpose, disagreement on direction, or disagreement on legacy in and of itself.
So it's important for the family to understand and agree upon, or at least have a consensus on, what is their purpose?Why are we in business?Why are we doing this?
And the direction is related to where are we going and what risks are we willing to take to get there?And then the third one, legacy, is do we really want to be in business here to provide for future generations or not?
And so those decisions have to be something that the family needs to be aligned on going forward in order to be able to translate that into the business structure that goes forward.
Yeah, so this is really interesting and it brings up the notion or the question of when should generational engagement begin in a family?How young?And as a parallel, when do you start teaching certain values, maybe even around finances?
really young children and in family businesses?Have you been part of them going down to sub-teenage and trying to work with the children?
Let me just step back and say, when should generational engagement begin in a family and maybe how far back have you gone with it?
Yeah, that's a great question.It's an ongoing process, first of all, to keep in mind.It can start as soon as you want to. When we talk about it starting, we're talking about getting the family together.
We're not talking about taking four and five-year-olds and try to show them engineering drawings of the products they produce, et cetera.So the point is, have a family picnic once or twice a year.
Begin to let the cousins get together, the adults get together, but all the children play together.Because what this is about is building relationships among the family.
And in this day and age, obviously, there may be a geographical dispersion of the family.So making an intentional attempt to get them together in these circumstances is a great idea.
What that allows people to do is learn over time what each one of them is like, and what their likes and dislikes are, and what they like and dislike about them, meaning the other folks.
So the important thing is to begin to build the relationships in the family. You'll find out when somebody says, well, Susie always pulled my hair when I was 12, so I still hate her, and those kind of things.And why is that important?
Because later down the road, those emotional elements that are in people's minds are going to have a bearing on when they want to voice their opinion on what to do with the business, or who's in charge of the business, who gets to be in charge, and all the conflict that goes with the succession planning.
So it's important to understand that going forward. in order to build communication processes later that help mitigate that.
Now, in terms of the next phases beyond picnic and five-year-olds running around and aunts and uncles is when they get to be an adult age, and I'll just call it for argument's sake 18 years old or older.
That's when you can begin to engage what I call the adult or pre-adult members of the family in what the business is really about. Again, back to the purpose of the business, helping them understand what types of products do you produce?
How does that help people?What are your associates like?What are the communities you serve in this process for the business in terms of employment and delivering products to customers?And so getting an understanding of that starts at 18 or later.
The processes, and we have a whole program on that, just to give you a quick example, can be where they do a plant tour. They come out to one of the plants or locations or warehouses and they get a tour by the senior staff there.
They get to meet some of the associates.They get to see the operation and begin to understand quite frankly, a little bit how it operates, but also how they feel about it, what they like or don't like about it.Is that something I want to do?
Do I want to be involved in this business?Cause that's an important decision later.If you wait till later without any exposure and just tell them, well, your voice is not important here.
they're gonna start thinking, well, there's something going on here that I need to know about or be involved in, and I don't like what's going on.
If you brought them up through the process where they understand, you know, I didn't really wanna be in that type of business, but I understand what you're doing now for the next generation or the next succession or the next event if it's a liquidity event for the company.
And so they can be in a position where there's an understanding of how that all came about as opposed to thinking they were excluded and there's something behind the curtain here relative to what's going on.
So this is really interesting to listen to you describe all this because as I'm listening to it, I'm reflecting on my own family experience and the journey I went through.And if I can just share for a moment, I was 11 years old.
looking back, I didn't know it, when my grandfather and his brothers sold their business.Now, they stayed in that business.Apparently, the research I came across showed that they got lifetime employment contracts.
And so, they stayed in the business, but they had, I guess, what do you call, just basically the you know, defunded themselves.I mean, they recapitalized the company, right?They took a lot of money.It was a very large company.
And so what I noticed though was that all the family gatherings, maybe sometime around the age for me, 11, 13, I was in the middle of the pack of 19 grandchildren on that side of the family.
But sometime maybe around 11, 13, it seemed as though the family gatherings became like less important.People started to scatter.Some members of family had drug or substance abuse problems.I moved to California.
And so the family didn't really stay together.The cousins didn't stay connected that well. because the business was no longer in place.And yet my grandfather and his brother still went to work, but they developed dementia.
And so they weren't all that engaged.And so really by the time I was 20, there was no opportunity to go and work in that business.And so
It's interesting how connected the family business and the legacy is and how intertwined they are because I would have had a very different experience had my grandfather and his brother's children really decided to continue with the business because there was no heir apparent.
the business was sold and then just operated as a, you know, under a CEO, CAO, like paid employment.So it's a pretty interesting story for me.
What you're bringing up is one of the key importances of generational engagement. It informs succession planning, it informs leadership development potentially, it informs the pivoting as I call it within legacy.
So legacy doesn't necessarily mean it's you have this one company and it's only that company and that's all it's ever going to be.And if that goes away or gets bought, that's the end of the legacy, especially from the family standpoint.
The wealth event that comes out of that can indeed also be used for legacy purposes in determining what comes next.Do you buy a different business?Do you open a philanthropic organization?Et cetera, et cetera, depending on.
And again, the generational engagement will help inform who's interested in that and how that might happen in the event that the company is sold.
I don't know if we talked about this before but one of them one of the more classic pivot examples in history of Generations and changing was now for noble.
He was the inventor of dynamite and So he became very wealthy as a result of that and his brother died in France and the France and French newspaper mistakenly thought that Alfred had died so the obituary said Alfred noble dies the the
the master of death has died."And he saw that as his legacy in writing, and he was horrified.And so he said, I don't want this to be my legacy.
So he said, I'm going to sell all my holdings, and I want to repurpose that wealth for something that will benefit mankind.And he did that.And that was the birth of the Nobel Prize.
You know, it's really interesting also the stories that I've heard at family business conferences where families like, I may not have the name right, maybe it was the Modavi family, but in the winery where the families branch off into so many different units and branches where some are making wine, some are in another related business, maybe they get into hospitality or, you know,
The conflict that can ensue across family branches can be very severe as they go in different directions.One of my guests in a prior show, Mike Gelati, he's involved in a very large construction business in Northern California.
And there are four companies with the name Jiladi in them, because the history goes back 100 years.And oftentimes, these businesses are competing against each other for public works contracts.
So the directions that a family business can go can be really interesting.And so I imagine you've had to deal with some of these conflicts and challenges.
No, absolutely. Conflict is going to be normal in any circumstance, let alone in a family circumstance.There's a lot of emotions involved.
And again, I come back to generational engagement as a way to make sure we begin to understand where those might be coming from and by whom and when.So in terms of examples, there's a famous restaurant entertainment organization in Chicago.
And the immigrants came over from Italy and formed this place, and their goal and their vision and their legacy wanted to be to provide entertainment and fine food for people.And it was very successful.They were almost always sold out.
And by the time we got the third generation, the boys involved in that thought, well, you know, all this cash, I think we're interested in Ferraris.So they went out and bought Ferraris.
And then they bought a building to put them in and this cash drain on the business resulted in the business having to be sold and closed.
Now, the good news is fifth generation has come along now after 10 years of it being closed and decided to try to restart the legacy and the purpose of that business.
But that's an example where people get into a discussion and they go in different directions and they don't understand. how it should be connected to what the original purpose was.
Now, if there was a need for cash to be generated for some other reason, that could be part of the plan.
Whether it was a buyout fund that somebody says, I need to put a buyout fund in place because I know sooner or later Uncle Joe is going to want to cash out. And we don't want that to trigger the sale of the business.
So understanding those needs, as strange as they may sound, even if it's somebody's interest in a friar, okay, you need to know those things or whatever they're going to see as their purpose to see if you can provide for that.
Because again, the business comes first in decisions, but the business is there to provide for the family and the family needs.So connecting those dots in advance is important.In the example you gave of your family.
You were never really involved, and it sounds like a lot of folks weren't even involved in that decision, or the idea that they could do something with a legitimate piece of that business as well.
If you get into the situation you just described with the Jilatis, and I don't know them, so I can't comment specifically, but if they're competing against one another,
in the same market, and I don't know if it's in the same market, but if it's in the same market, that tells you something about potentially some of the emotional connections between those folks.And again, understanding what those are.
I'll give you another story.It's an eyewear business, and the father was the founder, and then his grandson and his grandson's cousin were then brought up into the business to be running part of it.
And at one point in time, they said, well, you know what? We see this company in France we want to go talk to about eyeglass design.It's called Bolle, which most people know as the ski goggle business originally. Well, the grandfather was so furious.
He says, what are you talking about?He says, we don't go anywhere outside the United States to do this.We do eyeglasses.And he stormed off, and he disappeared.He wouldn't come back.He wouldn't come back to the business.He thought they were insane.
And about six months later, when he started seeing the sales reports, because they went out and created designs and incorporated them, he came back. And so he did not agree with them and wasn't going to support them.
And then when he saw that there was some element of success to it, he came back.That at least came back together.A lot of times that diversion doesn't come back.
Like the House of Gucci, if you recall that story or saw the movie.Yes. I mean, very interesting.
And I think there's a lot of studies or cases where families go off in different directions and they have different ideas and they don't work through these challenges.
And so it begs the question, do you put the business first or do you put the family first?And so I've had a guest once say, are you a business first family or a family's first business?Which is it?
Because that's going to determine the direction that we go.
Well, that's the $64 million question that everybody asks.And the reality is the business is there to provide for the family.So the business needs to survive and go forward.And the reality of that means that then the business comes first.
And again, that sequence, if you will, of decision making and the effect on it is something that people need to understand.What is the business for and how can it be done?
So I'm curious, one of the questions I wanted to ask was, how do you give voice to all the members of the family?
And as a secondary question, what happens if the board that is making the decisions is an even number of people, and they're evenly divided, maybe either along family lines or just along generational lines?
This is a real challenge and this is an area of conflict is in the boardroom.We're making strategic decisions about the future of the business come to play.
Well, there's no doubt that decision making process is one of the points of conflict in any business, let alone family business.
And when it comes down to a board of directors, if they have one, it's important to have voices of the family on there, but it's also important to consider independent voices as well that have some expertise that's related to the needs of the business.
And I think that's really where the key comes into the ability to discuss things in an objective manner.For me, it starts with respect.
And what I believe in is that respect builds trust, trust builds relationships, and relationships are the key to leadership.So in terms of the leadership from the family perspective,
or the business perspective, it's important to make sure that you show respect, allow people to speak.It's not about consensus in terms of everybody having to agree.
It's about making sure people feel like they had a voice, even if at the end they disagree.
And then in terms of the decision making, it has to be a consensus among enough members of the board of directors and or the family to make the decision to go forward.
Ultimately, the family can overrule any board of directors because they're the shareholders and that's who the board reports to.
But if they're willing to listen and the board's willing to show respect back to them and management as well, even if they're not family members, then you have an open communication that allows people to make informed decisions and move forward, even if they don't like the result.
Respect, trust, communication, these are all foundational elements that are required to keep a partnership, a family business together, a marriage together.
And in a marriage, the outsiders that might be governing might be therapists or financial advisors as opposed to, you know, people who are industry folks advising people on the business.But these are challenging situations.
Just looking at divorce statistics, we know that approximately 50% of all marriages end in divorce.And you and I know the statistics on family businesses, very few single digits make it into the third or through the third generation.
And so one of the things I think that's challenging is And the concept behind my book, Disruptive Successor, is that the next generation has to disrupt the status quo and there has to be a handoff.
And so one of the things that's challenging is that the business might have to pivot.There might be an inflection, a change.Certainly if you were working with Rand McNally, they were printing maps.
They had to shift to digital if they were going to survive. And so the tension that happens between the generations on when to make that switch, how much money to put towards the new technology, the new developments.
And this is where you develop, I guess, a sticky baton between one generation and the next.And so I imagine you've had more than your share of dealings in this environment.
Well, it's interesting because in the used example of Rand McNally, and you're actually right on relative to the going from huge web offset presses, rolling out books and manuals forever to digital.
And the whole process that involves in terms of making plates for the web offset press versus digital files coming in.
The fact that the family members need to even know what that is, or that's coming, or that's a trend, is a key part of this element.
If you said to them, for example, oh, we're just going to make this change, and it's going to cost you $3 million, and that's all you need to know, you can imagine they're going to be sitting there going, wait a minute, why? How does that work?
What should be the analysis here?One of the things you're bringing up is the decision-making process and how people participate in that.It's also a matter of making informed decisions.
So family members typically, as they grow up, don't necessarily have the experience or the background relative to the specific family business over time. They may have gone to school for something else.
They may have interest in other businesses or other subject matters.So there's a need for an additional component of information to share from other experts or people that can tell you, OK, look, we've got mechanical printing now.
We need to go to digital at some point in time.And here's how we go down that path.And here are the risks.Here are the investment potentials.
So the family can participate in that decision with knowledge that helps them understand what they're getting into. And it's important that that communication be something that the family members get to push back on.
And if they don't understand, you know, what does that mean?Tell me more, because ultimately they are the arbiter of the decision.
So it's a combination of information from the right people and the family members involved who are responsible for making decision as shareholders to get together and go down that path together.
Let's talk about governance a little bit.Most of my clients are first and second generation only.Maybe they're third, but it's a really tenuous connection to the first because it was more of a hobby business when it was started.
And so the question really is, when do you begin introducing the concept of governance in a business, and how does it differ in a family-owned business?
And in the example that you just described with Rand McNally, is that decision about moving to digital done at the governance level or at a board level or an executive team?So walk us through your thoughts on governance as a whole.
Sure.Well, from the standpoint of governance, there are different structures of governance that relate to the evolution of the business and the phase the family is in.
So we'll go back to the first or second generation of the business of the client you're talking about.
And i'll go back to just first generation so that's the first person who understands the purpose they got into business for, they understand the products they may be even technically proficient on what the product is because they understood how they would meet the needs of customers for that product.
So, in reality, the governance structure is one.One person.It's my way or the highway.And that's legitimate.And they make the decisions.They're at risk.
As you go through generations and you add generations to that, now you can imagine all the other potential thinking processes that go into play.
In terms of that structure, again, I think there's a family structure, which I'll call for lack of better term, a family council.
You could call it a family board, only made up of shareholders and family members to talk about issues that they have relative to understanding the business, to talk about issues they have with respect to making decisions about the business, and making capital allocation decisions in particular with respect to where does the money go.
And then a parallel structure is a board of directors, typically.The board of directors is the process that makes the decisions from a fiduciary standpoint for management.They work with management.They review the strategy.They review the proposals.
They should be asking the hard questions of, what have you made an assumption here about return, payback, et cetera, et cetera?Where are you getting your information from?
Is this really the assumption you're making, the legitimate basis for this investment? And then they provide that information, in their opinion, to the family counsel who makes the ultimate decision.
So there's two structures, and that's how they intersect.And there should be constant communication between the family structure and the business structure relative to those decisions.
But the reason for the board, separate from the family, as I explained before, a lot of times the family members aren't necessarily experienced in that particular business or those markets or oncoming technology.
The board of directors is intended to be a skillset-based group of people who have that experience, so they can provide that information for the family to make a decision.
Whether it's attractive or not in terms of the investment, if the board says, we've looked at it, we've worked with management, here's our recommendation to the family, the family still has the right and ability to say no.
That's one of the misconstrued things about governance in family businesses.Families are concerned.The word governance sometimes is a bad word. Because there's like, I don't want somebody coming in here telling me what to do.
I don't want somebody coming here looking at all that I have and perhaps telling other people about it.So the key is, I distilled the word governance, it's decision-making.
So you have to have processes in place for that decision-making in order to retain control and maintain control over it.The family has the final word.
I guess we said the business comes first in terms of decision, but the family does have the final word. And the business should be looking at is what's best for the business to make that recommendation to the family.
And so sometimes, you know, family members make the wrong decision just as any CEO of any publicly traded company.
But the reality is if that communication process there and that dual structure is there, then you have the best chance of making an informed decision by the people that have the responsibility or the risk of the capital they've invested.
So, this is an unexpected question.I'm just wondering, In your experience, many years of doing all this different kinds of work, what is the easiest and which is the hardest?Is it wearing one of the C-suite hats and being in that position?
Is it being on the board?Is coming in as a consultant to a large family business, coming into a consultant to a smaller family business that's controlled by G1? Where do you find some of the biggest excitement, joy, challenges as you look back?
Or is it really situational specific?Does it really depend upon the players and the health and dynamics of the family and how well established and set up they are in these different processes?
Well, it's most certainly situational.Any one of those avenues, consultant, board member, or non-family member, C-suite, executive, can have difficulties in them.The key is how you build those relationships.
And the other side of that key, though, is, and this is sort of part of the psychographics, if you will, of when I'm looking at a client, they have to both want, they have to need and recognize they have a need for help or assistance, and they have to want to do that.
So many people will say, well, I don't need that.And of course, if they don't, that's the way they feel.You're really wasting your time working through or with them because there's no place to get there.Consulting is not sold, it's bought.
And so you have to go through a process of understanding. what their needs are, what's their understanding of their needs, so you can get an understanding.And then do they want to have help when you describe the type of help necessary?
Is that something they're willing and able to do from their own mindset about things?And so I think that's really the key to that.
And so I encourage, as difficult as it can be sometimes, I encourage families to be open to hearing what the possibilities are from a board member or a consultant or a non-family member CEO.
and be open to understanding and exploring those and asking as many questions as you need to.There's no stupid questions in that case to make sure you're comfortable with the decision and be willing to go with that.
So I encourage people to try to do that.I know it's not necessarily easy, but you have to understand what are all the options and how do they affect my decision to use my money to do something with it. So I think that's really important.
But there can be difficulties, there can be great things.I sit on a board in Canada of a very large family-owned business, almost 100 years old.
And every one of those people on that board, so there's more than half the board is family members, and then there's some of us who are independents.
Every single family member on that business, of which only half of them even grew up in the business at all in the past, understand the value of decision-making and governance, and they understand the value of input.
They'll still make their decision, but they are willing to listen and be open to the concept of things that they might not know.And they appreciate the fact that those suggestions are made with respect to them as well.
And when you get that certain environment, you've got a high-performing team, if you will, of family members, senior management, and potentially a board of directors. I've also been on boards where that isn't the case.
And you just have to potentially walk away from that, necessarily.If it doesn't work, I mean, I'm not even talking about somebody compromising your principles with a decision.
I'm talking about people that say, well, and they believe they don't need any help, or they don't want any help.And they brought somebody together as a board, or they brought somebody on.
And you start hearing and understanding that, and you say, well, OK, that's fine.But I can't do this.I'm going to have to go somewhere else. and that's okay as well.
At some point in time, if they can't get somebody to stay on, they may realize that they have to open their mind, I don't know.But the reality is, you have to be able to make that connection.
And when you do, those family businesses are as high performing as any publicly traded company in the world.
What's your thoughts on the famous Simon Sinek talk on why?So, and I'm gonna equate this to like, everyone probably that you're talking to really understands what succession planning is.
They understand conceptually, they can read a book about what it is.How to do it is why they bring you in.And that is where they probably get stuck and they need an outside person. But then the question gets to why.Why does it matter?
Why is it important?And what is your why, Charlie, in all this?Is that a topic, a hot topic in the family businesses that you're working with?
Well, the hottest topic I run into in family businesses, especially as it relates to succession planning, is how do you do it?And how do you go through a process of establishing the right requirements, skill sets?
How do you go through a process of canvassing, if you will, interviewing your family members, engaging them in the process?And then how do you go through the process of telling some of them no, or at least not this time?
And again, we have a process that allows for all that to happen. The why depends on what their vision of their legacy is.
And so do they articulate it?Do they come and say, you know, I'm calling you because this is what is up.This is what really matters.This is why I want to do this. I mean, for many, it's probably just about preserving wealth and passing it along.
But there's some, look at Warren Buffett.He's not talking about preserving his wealth and passing it along to his kids.He's talking about distributing it and letting his kids learn to fend for themselves to some degree.And I'm generalizing.
But I mean, I think the why is probably really important. And I think it's a subtext.I don't really think it's clearly articulated with my clients.
No, I would agree.And again, it comes back to what was the purpose?Why are we doing this? It then bleeds in, of course, the direction, where are we going and what risks are we willing to take?But it starts out with, what is your purpose?
And the foundation for purpose is rooted in family values as well.So the question all starts with, and I agree, first of all, that why is not clearly articulated in most cases.
Some people think, well, that's just because I think I'm supposed to do that. And that's not always the case, as we talked about pivoting earlier.
And there may be a legitimate reason to pivot in a different direction for different reasons or different family members.
But the point is that I would ask them why to make sure I understood that the direction that they choose as a result of this is the right direction for the family and not likely to fail.
It has to be built upon the purpose and the family values, and it has to be aligned with that. in order for it to make sense.
Otherwise, if the why is not aligned to that, I may try to ask them questions that gets to a why that might be aligned with that, which may be a different path.And then go forward with the other processes we talked about.
Well, hey, it's been great to have you on the show.Let's just wrap up with give us a few takeaways maybe from your two books, The Power of Respect in Business, The Power of Legacy, and yeah.
Yeah, I'll give you so the power of respect, which is a book on leadership, and it's a bunch of stories.Mine as well, there are other C-suite people on how they built relationships.And so I'll give you a quick story from there.
One of my friends from a long, many, many years, John Cassin. He was unbelievable at building relationships with people.
He could go into a room of 30 people who he knew he vehemently disagreed with their opinion and come out an hour later and they're all asking, when's John coming back so we can talk to him?
And I said to John, I said, you know, that's really smart, but I'm a smart guy.How come I can't do that?And he said, I'll give you two words, listen longer.And that's one of the stories in that book.
That's important because when you listen longer, they will understand that you're respecting them and listening to them.And you also may find out that by the time they get to where they're going, it wasn't where you assumed.
So you're better positioned to help or lead them. And I marry that with another mantra of mine is, if you're right now, you'll be right later, so you can afford to wait that out and see what happens.
It's two words, so it's easy for me to remember, and it doesn't happen all the time, but I keep that in mind.So that's, I think, one of the keys to communication and leadership there and respect.
With respect to the book, The Power of Legacy, my experience tells me there's six major elements that relate to legacy, and we've talked about many of them already.Generational engagement,
governance and risk assessment, leadership development, succession planning, and family business architecture.And people know about any one of those.In many cases, they know something about them, and they approach them in a silo effect.
Oh, I've got to do succession planning, so tell me who I should hire.And the reality is all six of those are interrelated and inseparable.
And the glue, the river that runs through it all is generational engagement, because it begins to inform and connect all those elements.
understanding them and communicating with people and having family members understand what's going on and what decisions they should make for themselves as well as what decisions should they make for the business.
I think in the book, The Power of Legacy, bringing those six together, at least from my perspective, is one that I think will help people understand how should I go about this business in terms of its legacy, purpose, and direction.
How should I think about pivoting and how should I think about still owning and managing and controlling a business when I don't have a family member involved directly in the business?
Great stuff.I love how these two books complement each other.I love the listen longer.I know when I first got into coaching 20 years ago, my coach or mentor said, it's really important that people understand the concept of,
They don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care.And that is the essence of listening longer.I did a great episode, maybe 100 episodes ago, with a guy who wrote a book called How to Listen.I think it's really interesting.
Read Oscar Tromboli. Charlie, it was great to have you on the show today.You are a wealth of wisdom and experience.I hope people will seek you out.
If you're in the smaller, lower middle market or the lowest part of the middle market, I can probably help you out.If you're in the larger middle market, Charlie, you're a go-to resource.Thank you.
Well, thank you so much for having me.What gets me up in the morning is helping people.So it's not a matter of size of the business.Yeah.So I've been more than happy to discuss further how we might be able to help each other.Sounds great.All right.
Bye for now.Folks, you got the drill.If you got some good value from this, please share it with others.Give us a good rating on your podcast listening application of choice and stay tuned for future episodes of the Disruptive Successor Show.
This podcast is sponsored by myself, Jonathan Goldhill and my company, The Goldhill Group. where we provide coaching for growing companies.
I'm Jonathan Goldfield and my purpose is simple, to guide entrepreneurial leaders in family businesses towards more freedom and fulfillment.
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