Coaching and Mentoring the NxG

Listen to François de Gaspé Beaubien explain how to effectively coach and mentor the next generation. In family business, it is advised to have a newly integrated next generation member report to a non-family member, in order to remove the emotional component in receiving feedback. As the next generation member matures in the business, they will eventually be experienced enough to handle reporting directly to a family member.

Well, I would definitely, definitely say that don’t have members of a family reporting to each other initially. And we did that with ourselves, which is really good. Later in life you can, you know, when somebody’s more seasoned, but you don’t want a daughter or a son reporting to their father, as an example. You may do an uncle thing, that could work, but ideally what you want is, people will take feedback best, especially early in their careers, from non-family members. Because there’s no baggage. And by baggage I mean in the you know, good and bad, but in the sense that there’s no history there, right, it’s just a professional relationship, so definitely you know, step one is make sure their getting the coaches, the mentors, coaches, bosses, are professional in nature, not family. As somebody earns their spurs, and that’s a question of self-valorization too, then it could change, because they feel confident in their own skin, but in the beginning, definitely, definitely, outside parties to coach and mentor would be my recommendation.