Leading a Family Business

Sorry to change up the time. I'll be on a plane at 4, so this is the best time we can do it. Let me make sure it's working for Twitter. Why would the mic be off as a default? Just makes no sense. Please be kind to me. Internet. Be kind. Be kind. Oh my God. Why is the mic off? Don't understand. Oh, okay. No, why isn't it working? Okay, I think it's working now. Great. So today we're talking about leading a family business. Sorry if there's noise in the background. Firstly, it's Friday so we need to do our weekly check ins. Right? What worked, what didn't work, what are the wins, what are the successes? Are you reflecting on these things daily? It's also the end of them. Last night I did my end of the month review and I went through all the different things I had said I wanted to do this month. The different intentions I had, my different goals, different priorities. And I decided to assess and measure. So I have two systems at the end of the month. There's the five values which are most important to me and I write about that. So that's qualitative reflection. So like, was I intentional in those five qualities? Did I live that way this month? Did I remember to prioritize that? And they help guide my decisions. And then I also have a quantitative method. So I think I explained the wheel of life after a few months ago. I've been doing it for a year now. So a friend of mine explained to me there's this thing called the wheel of life. I think I shared it somewhere. And you choose the top 10 categories that are important to you in your life, like work, family, your character, your health, your learning, fun. Everyone has different like top 10 things. I feel like these are slightly different from your core values because they're more detailed. So you look at the 10 areas of your life and you give yourself a score, a score out of 10. And you have to imagine it like a wheel of, like a car if it was divided into 10 pieces and you had to give yourself a score out of 10 for each. So zero is like this, and then 10 is like this. The only way your life would work if that's a wheel, the only way the wheel would roll efficiently is if all those areas were in balance. So if you have an area of your life which is two and an area of your life that's eight, it would be like a broken wheel. Right. But we're so passive so much of the time. Life is so busy, we don't we're not proactive and intentional in how we live, and yet it's what's important to us. So I thought it was a really cool exercise, and I sat down and I wrote all the different things that are important to me, and then I chose the top 10 categories. So now every month at the end of the month, I give myself a score out of 10 in each category, and then I can see over the few months the trends. And you know how I always say you gotta measure stuff if you want to improve? It makes such a big difference. I can see that different areas in my life which I thought were important to me, but I was not putting in any effort. And after six months of getting four out of 10, three out of 10, five out of 10, two out of 10, I'm like, no, now I see the trend. I have to be more intentional about the stuff every day, every week. So at the end of the month, I can hit a 7 out of 10. I tried. I achieved this. So it's a useful system, and it's helping me to be more authentic, to be more intentional, to live a life that I want to be, not just I'm busy doing all the things that everyone else expects of me or needs from me. It helps me to guide my decisions and to make sure that I'm making progress. Not that, oh, my God, it's already of March. Three months of there have gone. What have I done for myself this year? Am I making progress on my goals, my priorities? How are we moving? So it's a really useful exercise. I do that at the end of every month, and it helps me to stay focused for the next month. Because also, once assess how this month was, you can plan for the next month. What are your goals for the next month? What are your challenges? What are your tasks? I start doing that, and at the beginning of each month, I also put, like, my big intentions and some quotes that are inspirational and motivational and remind me of what I want to achieve this month. I know that's a lot for reflection, but I feel like it's effective, and once you get used to doing it, it's not. It doesn't take a lot of time or energy, and it helps me to be more organized because also I do it for work. The different projects I'm working on, what worked, what didn't work. What do you need to do next month? Start making lists and tasks and priorities. So it's a useful exercise that keeps me organized. I do this every week in a small way where I assess how did the week go? What am I taking off the to do list? What am I adding? What am I changing? What needs other resources? And then at the end of the month I do it for my whole life. Then at the end of the year you do like a big one, but that one takes days. But it's useful. That is what I would say about reflection. It's also the end of the first quarter. Yo three months are done for 2022. Time is moving. What have you done this quarter? 2021 was a long time ago. I feel like covet put us all in like a blur of time and time is moving and now like things are getting back on normal. Month, month, quarter, like every year counts. So it's time to get back in to hear. I feel like even for me it's been hard after going through like 2020 and slowing down so much. It's been so much harder to get back to like the speed of things because also stuff is still uncertain, everything's still volatile. But you know, things are looking up, I like to say. So today we're talking about leading a family business. I hope I have the questions up. Ready? Let's see. I posted a video about it, I think this week about it in family business. Family businesses are interesting because it's not by choice usually that you're working with your family or in the family business. I think a lot of what I've experienced and a lot of my friends who are in family businesses, it was always kind of assumed you just be part of the business and since you're young, you're like involved in the business and it makes sense. It's your family, it's your legacy, it's what pays the bills, it's what puts you through school, it's what looks after everyone in your family, all your relatives. So it helps. I think with family businesses you have to be, I don't want to say proactive, but you have to be more aware and then more clear on how you do things because you have your skill set and you are a family member. But you have to make sure you match your skill set to you. So it's very tricky to make sure that what you're doing is in the best intentions for the business. But it's up to you to make sure that you are putting in your effort to do that. So just because you're a family member doesn't mean you should automatically be the leader. Just because you're the first son or the first daughter or you're the brother to the boss or the founder. So I think it's about matching your skills. And that's kind of a sensitive issue because many families just assume things and just be like, this is the first time he has to be in charge. Does he want to, does he want to even work in your business? Because it doesn't help the business if it's not sustainable. So someone is stressed or burnt out or not capable or doesn't want to be there. So I think it's a hard conversation to have, but I think it's also a useful one. It's an honest one. You need to have these conversations with your family about who is doing what. It's important to have clear roles in a family business. And I'm getting more and more questions about family business and I'm happy to answer them because I have experience working with my family and a lot of my friends have also guided me and helped me. When I am stuck or I don't know what to do, I also turn to them and ask, how did you maneuver this? How did you manage this? How did you get through this as a family? Because everything stills over. So I think with family business, firstly you're always working. Like we can be at a wedding or at a birthday or like at someone's dinner and we're talking about work. Oh, did you see this email? Oh, did you send that? Did you get this done? And then also at work you're with your family so it's, you have to keep those roles like separate and here. Personally, I don't really like to open personal messages during the work day because I'm busy distracts me and like it changes the gear you're in. So I think also working with family, it's important not to. Oh, we sat and just started, you know, chatting and laughing at the office about stuff that's not work. Cuz it also you have to think about the team you work with. Not everyone is from the family and you don't want to build resentment for people to think you're there just because you're a family member. So it's important that you show value and that you take it seriously. Because I think also a lot of people take it for granted. You think, okay, I could work in the family business, they'll never fire me, I can just take the money, I don't need to put in time, I can be late, I don't need to show up. So I think that kind of stuff is also demoralizing for the people who work there every day and who take it Seriously. And if you take it seriously as a family and as your business, then individually you need to take it seriously. You need to show up for things, you need to read things before, before you arrive for the meeting and not just have this expectant attitude of the paid employees will tell you what to do or what's needed. So there are many small things. Another thing I, I mentioned in the video is you need to be able to listen because a lot of the time family members assume they know what's best for the company because you've been in the company the longest, just because you've been around them since you were a kid, or you've always worked there on the side, or you're in the charge, you're the leader, doesn't mean that you always have the right answers or you have the most experience. Because sometimes you have managers or staff or junior staff who are the ones dealing with your customers every day, who are the ones dealing with your suppliers, who are the ones managing processes that you are not. You're aware of what's going on, but you're not doing it in and out every day, right? So the person who's doing that all day is the person who has more experience and understanding. So it's important to listen to them. This is something I learned really early on for my dad. He really loves asking for questions. And, you know, it drives all the senior managers crazy because you see him walking around speaking to like the Ascaris or speaking to some junior member of staff who he didn't even like, wasn't there when they hired them. He's not really sure what they're doing. But he said, huh, so tell me, in your job, how is this working? What do the customers tell you? What do you think of this? And he really likes to get their opinion. And I'm just like, this frustrates the manager so much because of course people take advantage and that's when they like share their problems or they complain about something or the manager did this. But you also get a lot of useful feedback because they hear things, they see things, they notice things that maybe a senior manager doesn't have time for. So it's always interesting for me to listen to what other people have to say, even people who you think you know better because you're their supervisor doesn't mean you have the same perspective. Different perspectives is useful. You want as much information about your business as possible. Feedback. Remember, feedback is the breakfast entrepreneurs. I think that's the same. So you want as much feedback as you can and feedback doesn't only come directly from customers. It also comes from your staff, from your team, because they deal with the customers, they deal with the stakeholders. So they also know and they also have ideas. They see trends, they have suggestions. But many cultures, like corporate cultures or like a.