Hello. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to your committee.
I want to thank the member of Parliament for Shefford, Pierre Breton, who responded to my letter in less than 24 hours by giving me a call, which I truly appreciated.
My name is Pierre Beaulieu, and I'm the Chief Executive Officer of Groupe Leader Plus.
Let me tell you a bit about my background. I grew up in the business world. I spent 10 years in the family bakery and 10 years in an automotive parts distribution company with Esso and Chrysler Canada. I led the Groupement des chefs d'entreprise du Québec for 30 years and other groups in New Brunswick and Europe. Under my leadership, the number of members rose from 130 to 2,000, and the number of groups increased from 10 to 235.
My personal mission is to bring together leaders to help them develop their full potential in a spirit of mutual support, in order to build a more sensible, focused and prosperous society. I retired from the Groupement des chefs d'entreprise du Québec in 2014.
When I was in charge of the Groupement, farmers asked us to help them form groups. However, the farmers didn't have the same concerns as manufacturing and distribution SMEs. When I retired, farmers asked me to establish groups that would enable them to work together, help each other and grow as people. Groupe Leader Plus was created three years ago. Its mission is to bring together and support farm leaders, the next generation of farmers and farm owners, and to help them make progress with their four responsibilities as leaders.
The first of these four responsibilities is to develop the business on five levels. These levels are growth, human resources, operations, financial success and sustainability, and the business's entire network.
The second responsibility is to structure the business in five ways. They must think, plan, organize the business, coordinate meetings—an unusual but increasingly common activity for farmers—and control the business.
The third responsibility is to ensure the continuity of the business throughout the five stages of their career. These stages are entrepreneur, managing director, general manager, CEO and chair of the board. The creation of these stages is one thing that has greatly helped the next generation in Quebec SMEs. The stages enable the heads of businesses to properly establish their place, then leave their place to the next generation, as planned.
The fourth responsibility is to achieve a successful balance in the five areas of their life. These areas are their professional and social life; meaningful relationships; physical, psychological, intellectual and spiritual health; personal finances; and well-being and recreational activities.
The Groupement's self-help groups focus on these four responsibilities.
Each self-help group has 10 to 12 business leaders—or aspiring leaders—who meet five to six times a year and who commit to helping each other and sharing their experiences and expertise, in order to improve their leadership and make progress with the four responsibilities of a leader. All members agree to accept each other and they commit to working with each other. All the groups receive the services of a professional coach. The coaching sheds light on the experiences and expertise of participants at each stage of the meetings, in order to promote mutual help and help participants make progress as leaders or people.
Coaches never act as consultants, and they involve experts as needed. Group Leader Plus develops a network of consultants, management and group tools, and a library of experiences for its members. At each thematic meeting, we summarize the experiences of the people around the table, which then helps the entire province. A meeting lasts four hours. It starts with a round table discussion, where each person has equal speaking time to describe how things are going for them, their family, their team and their business.
Moreover, during meetings, this period is always the longest, since it takes about 90 minutes of the four hours.
In the second part of the meeting, members can consult the group regarding a difficulty related to a project, a relationship issue or an administrative challenge. For each topic, members can consult the group to find out what their colleagues would do in their place. It's very useful, since they have direct access to people's opinions. They then commit to making progress and holding other meetings, and we follow up on this.
The third part of the meeting always focuses on a main theme, which we determine at the start of the year. In fact, we're planning strategic challenges for the next two to three years, and we can develop a program that covers the strategic challenges of each member. We deal with topics such as human resources management or family relationships. We then seek a consensus on best practices.
The fourth part of the meeting is an evaluation period, and a time for participants to commit to making progress by the next meeting—