A Shortcut for “In the Moment” Challenges
Most of what I write about each week focuses on issues on the far end of the spectrum of the “long-term vs short-term” continuum.
I’m referring to the loooooong term, in case that wasn’t clear.
I work in the intergenerational wealth transition space, which typically concentrates on years, decades, and lifetimes, not hours, minutes, and seconds.
However, just as each year contains many hours, each of us runs into challenges on a day-to-day basis, and sometimes a little “life hack” will come in handy.
So this week, for a change, I’m focusing on the other end of the continuum, the very short term.
“Oh Crap! Now What?”
A couple of weeks ago, my daughter was charged with organizing an event over a weekend, which involved a few dozen people coming together, indoors, for an inter-collegiate competition.
It happened to be a curling bonspiel, for the curious.
Thanks to COVID, all of last season had been wiped out, and this was the first tournament of the new season, so there was plenty of uncertainty.
It was also the first time she’d been in charge of such an event.
When I spoke to her by phone on Friday evening, things were going fine.
Alas, I awoke Saturday to a text from her that read, “Please call me whenever you get the chance, thanks” and the time stamp was 7:09 AM.
I also noticed that I had missed her recent call, because my ringer was off.
Daughter in Need = Dad as Hero?
If you have very independent young adult offspring like me, you learn to relish any opportunity to feel needed in their lives, so this could be a rare chance to play hero.
I called her right away, got a quick “I’ll call you back in ten”, and my mind went to work, wondering how best to be a “responsive, reliable, resource” to her.
How I would frame all my experience and wisdom for her, I began to contemplate.
- “What’s your ROLE here?”, I thought, would be a good place to start to help her clarify whatever the challenge was.
- “What’s your GOAL, in that role?” would be a great next step to help her think through.
- “What is actually within your CONTROL?”, I considered adding, lest she begin to worry about things over which she had none.
Proud Wise Dad, Ready to Serve!
Well, wouldn’t you know it, when she did call, I never got to share this wisdom, as the issue had already been settled.
One player had a close contact with someone who’d tested positive for COVID, so he needed to declare himself ineligible, and they were able to find a replacement.
It turned out to be a very wet firecracker for Dad to help her out with.
But wait, I write a blog every week, and am constantly on the lookout for ideas to write about.
Now, how do I turn this into something that affects enterprising families, as I typically do?
The Meta Version!
Well, I imagine that many parents of your adults face similar challenges of how best to be useful to them, without over-functioning and jumping in to fix things for them.
Maybe I could apply this Role/Goal/Control hack to myself and see what happens.
Here goes…
My role could be summarized as follows:
- Resource; thinking partner; coach.
My goal:
- Get her to a place where she feels confident that she can handle the situation; without being too directive; so that in the future she will readily reach out to me again
What can I control:
- My tone; my positivity; my brief words of encouragement to her.
Wrong Answers Only Version
Role: “Wise Dad” with all the answers.
Goal: Get her to listen to my wisdom.
Control: Well, this is where it falls apart, doesn’t it?
In reality, I’m not the one running this tournament, as much as I want it to be a success, I have no say in anything, and all I can really control is my interaction with her, which will likely only last a couple of minutes.
Take-Away Wisdom
While I wasn’t able to try out my life hack “in the wild”, I still like it and will keep it handy.
I hope others find it useful, especially those of you who over-estimate the sphere of your control.
Both Ways of Doing It Are Tough
It’s not often that I’ll write a blog on a brand new idea that just came to me, but this revelation I had last week was enough to put this subject at the top of my topic list.
I knew I needed to write this after I’d already shared the “A-Ha moment” on a call with someone so soon after the discovery.
The discovery, as I’ve labeled it, was nothing more than a brief phrase I read in a book (or maybe I heard it on an audiobook?).
The phrase, if I’m getting it verbatim, was,
“Sometimes,
changing the people
is easier than
changing the people”.
Don’t worry if it doesn’t hit you right away, that can be expected.
The important thing is to eventually get it and understand it, and I promise we’ll get into it, and especially look at it from the lens of people who work with their family members.
Changing People 1: Simple Method – Swap
So I’m making this one “No.1” because based on my understanding of the quote, this is the first option the speaker is alluding to.
The idea of getting rid of certain people and replacing them with new people is an option in many situations.
The thinking goes that if you can’t change the way you are, then we are going to get rid of you and bring in someone who is a better fit.
Simple enough, on the surface, right?
But what about doing this in a family business, is it really that simple when you are contemplating firing a relative?
Yes, it is done sometimes, and sometimes the family even manages to get through it without too many hard feelings, but it’s always trickier than it would be if the person being changed out wasn’t part of the family.
Changing People 2: Complex Method – Convince
So let’s look at the other way of changing people, which I’ve decided to call “convince”.
I labelled this one “complex” because it can take on all sorts of angles and will vary in how each person who’s trying to convince another will go about the effort.
It’s also likely something that is not a “one shot deal” but much more of a process, involving a number of interactions over a longer period of time.
The other reason I call it complex is because no two people will do it the same way, and even if it “worked” with one person, that doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to make it work the same way with someone else.
When Do You Switch from One to the Other?
If we go back to the quote that’s driving this whole blog, there seems to be an inherent question under the surface, which I get from the first word, “sometimes”.
So, what are those times where you need to switch from convincing someone to swapping them out?
Presumably, you will try to convince first, second, and third, and maybe even a few dozen times, before coming to the conclusion that you need to go to the much more drastic plan of getting rid of someone and bringing in someone new.
Working with family members is great when things are going well, and when they’re not, well, it can really be awful.
Coming to the conclusion that someone absolutely needs to go is quite difficult, but sometimes it’s necessary.
Who Can You Really Truly Control?
Of course trying to convince people to change has its limits, because most people don’t like to be told what to do, and a lot of people resist change to begin with.
If you’re a regular reader you will be familiar with my thoughts on how futile it can be to even try to change others, because the only person we can actually really control is ourselves.
I know that I don’t like it when other people try to tell me I need to do something different or try to make me do something I don’t like doing.
I’m pretty sure I’m not alone here, either.
Sometimes we need to flip it around, look in the mirror, and see what changes we can make in ourselves, and see if we can’t end up with some positive changes in the others around us.
Family systems theory is pretty clear, if you change how you interact with the system, the system will change.
All FamBiz Are Different, And All the SAME
Lots of Ways to Look at Enterprising Families
One of the most interesting things I’ve noted since I began working with a variety of families who own and manage a business or assets together is how so many of their challenges repeat from one situation to the next.
At the same time, each has its own idiosyncrasies because no two families, no two businesses, and no two situations are identical.
This paradox is well known among those who work with many families, but each family typically views itself as “very unique”, which I recognize is not an elegant expression, but it does underline how so many families live under the illusion that they are alone in facing their particular challenges.
Let’s Take a Look Inside Each Family
Of course there’s another problem with looking at families and comparing and contrasting them with other families, and that’s the fact that none of these families is a monolithic unit, but rather a constellation of many individuals.
Much of the most difficult work with families comes from the interdependence between all of the family members.
If we picture a convoy of buses on a highway, and we are looking at them from a helicopter above, they all appear to be quite similar.
The more interesting stuff is what is going on inside each of those buses, which is where they will look and sound quite different.
It sure would be easier to deal with these busloads of people if each held a group of similarly trained people like an army unit, rather than each one containing a separate family group.
What Kind of SAMEness Do We Want?
Many folks like me who work with family groups employ a standard process, which allows them to determine how the members of the family are similar and different from each other.
I prefer to treat each possible intervention as unique, and I spend a lot of time discussing exactly what the family members are hoping to achieve with me, right up front, and I do not reach for any “cookie cutter” solution.
Regular readers know that I have a bit of a penchant for coming up with mnemonic devices in order to make things easier to remember.
See Is Your Continuity Planning PAL in Danger, and Start Cleaning Up Your M.E.S.S. for examples.
So it might not surprise you that I recently came up with a new one that spells out “SAME”.
Remedial Work: Engagement and Alignment
If you like creating mnemonics, you know that vowels carry a premium, because some of those 5 or 6 letters show up disproportionately in words.
Luckily, I have already written a lot about family Engagement and family Alignment, so I already had a couple of key elements ready to go.
The serendipitous thing about this instance is that I wasn’t looking for a way to come up with a creative way of remembering something, but it “found me” nonetheless.
I was a couple of weeks into defining a possible engagement with a family, and I was preparing my notes for a call with the patriarch.
I wrote down “engagement” and “alignment” in my notebook, and then I added a couple of adjectives that I thought encapsulated his three offspring, each of whom I had recently met over Zoom.
I happened to add the words “sincere” and “motivated”.
Are you starting to see what was about to jump off the page at me?
Sincere – Aligned – Motivated – Engaged
I truly felt that all three of these adult siblings were sincere in undertaking the work needed, they were generally aligned in their thinking about how they work together as family, they seemed motivated to do the required work together (which is not always the case), and they were already feeling engaged in the process with me.
So there I had it, they were all the S.A.M.E., despite being quite different individuals.
I feel like I now have a useful checklist with which I can quickly look at a group of people with whom I’m being asked to work, and see how many of these four ingredients are present.
Aligning Different People = Finding Some Sameness
Much of this work, in the “family circle” comes down to aligning people who are different, and that means finding ways where they are alike, or the same.
If you determine that they’re all sincere, motivated, and ready to engage, you will be well on your way.
And please remember that they are not all the SAME.
An Old One, But a Good One
Writing a weekly missive here gives me the chance to share a lot of different ideas that I’ve picked up over the five and a half decades of my life.
Often it’ll be something recent that I heard from a colleague, or based on some interaction I just had with a member of a client family I’ve been working with.
And then sometimes, like this week, it’s something that has been with me for so long that I can’t even pinpoint how and when the idea first came to me.
There are times when I believe that I’m sharing something that’s already well known, and it turns out many readers are learning it for the first time, and other times when I think that I’m writing about a “new secret”, only to discover that everyone’s already well aware of the concept.
I’m not sure where this week’s subject falls, but I do know that it’s an old one, but a good one, for me.
Good – Fast – Cheap: Pick Two (You Can’t Have All Three!)
This applies to all sorts of services that one ends up needing at some point in time, from clothing repairs to home renovation projects and from legal services to therapy.
You want good service, and you’d like it done quickly, and you prefer not to overpay for it too. And if you expect to get all three of those things at once, you’re probably out of luck.
- If it’s good and cheap, you’ll probably have to wait for it;
- If it’s good and fast, it will likely cost you;
- And if it’s fast and cheap, it’s usually a crappy job.
I’m sure that there are some exceptions, but when they occur, you should be extra thankful, because they are rare.
An Unexpected Bill in the Mailbox
My daughter unwittingly provided me with an opportunity to share this with her recently, as she related a recent visit to a medical clinic.
Instead of going to the clinic at her school, which required an online appointment, a friend had told her about a nearby walk-in clinic, so that’s where she went.
She was in and out in 20 minutes, with a prescription that took care of her problem promptly.
She was quite happy with it all, until a number of days later when she found a bill for $150 in her mailbox.
As a Canadian in the US, she was also learning first hand about the differences in our medical systems.
When I told her about the Good/Fast/Cheap quandary, she understood it right away.
When I told her I was going to write about it here, she asked me if the example was worth $150 to me.
What About Family Enterprise Services
When a family enterprise requires the services of professionals, the same rules apply.
In fact, sometimes you may be lucky if you get two of the three, as my mind goes to families who think that they can simply purchase everything they need for their family governance from professionals who offer to write a constitution for them.
Such families pay a lot of money for that work, and end up with something that’s nearly useless.
I believe the last place you should skimp is on your family, so when you want good service you should be prepared to pay for it.
Likewise, it’s always better to do family work before it becomes urgent, because then it will cost you more for the convenience.
The place where “fast” comes into play is in responsiveness, because when you’re paying someone to serve you, promptness should be expected and included in the price.
Please Don’t Ask Me for Fast and Cheap
When people hire me, I try to make it clear that I’m not interested in fast and cheap, because that would mean that it probably wouldn’t be very good, and I’m not interested in doing shoddy work.
While I know that some colleagues charge more than I do, I know that many others charge less.
The kind of work I do isn’t often doable quickly, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not quick to respond, it’s more about the nature of family relationships and how long it can take for sustainable changes to occur.
And of course there’s never a surprise invoice in anyone’s inbox either, because that gets worked out well in advance.
Another Hurdle in Moving to Democratic Decision-Making
As I continue meeting and working with more and more business families, I’m seeing similar issues come up in a lot of different places.
Every family situation is different, of course, but when you’re privileged to work with many of them, there’s always a benefit to using ideas you pick up from one family in service of another.
Many family businesses do well under the leadership of their one, singular, founder, only to experience some rough waters once the next generation takes over.
As I relate these types of stories to families and other folks interested in the subject, I’ve begun to develop certain ways of sharing what I’m seeing, and I’m always happy to work on how I phrase these nuggets of wisdom here in this blog.
From Autocratic to Democratic Rule
While I know that not all founder-led businesses are ruled by autocratic leaders, many are, at least in their early stages.
Even as such businesses evolve from the “one-man-show” to include many more leaders as they grow, there is still usually a pretty clear hierarchy that is either expressly enunciated or at least generally assumed, by everyone both inside and outside the business.
As a family business moves beyond the first generation (G1) to the next, (G2, G3…) that hierarchy can become more blurred and hence much less clear.
Titles like CEO and President are often helpful in keeping things pretty clear to those outside the business, solving a lot of the potential confusion.
Inside, though, where there are often a number of owners of the business, with many from the same generation of related family members (siblings and cousins), an assumed hierarchy often becomes an issue.
Quite often when more than one person owns a business, more democratic rule is expected.
Turning a Problem into a Solution
This question has tripped up its share of family firms and will likely continue to do so.
So how can a family enterprise overcome this challenge? It’s actually pretty simple, but let me remind you that just because something is simple to explain, that doesn’t necessarily make it easy to do.
I’m currently reading a book about the coaching philosophy of John Wooden, the most successful college basketball coach in the history of the sport. Here is a salient quote from Coach Wooden that could be helpful:
“I am more interested in
finding the best way
than having my own way”
The key to this actually working is for everyone to adopt this attitude and not be attached to having things their way.
The good news is that you don’t have to give up ever having your way ever again, you only need to learn to do it from time to time.
Once you learn that other people also have valid and valuable ideas that can be just as good as your own, and often even better, it becomes easier with time to let go of the need to always have things your way.
Make Sure You Do WHAT Is Right
As I’ve heard it said by some wise person who’s name I don’t recall, “WHAT is right, is more important than WHO is right”.
This brings up the importance of learning how to make decisions together, as a group of people, which doesn’t always come naturally to some.
The best advice I can give to any family who wants to work on this is “Practice, practice, practice”.
And then practice some more.
When I’m engaged by a family to work with their rising generation, the first thing I look for is an opportunity for them to work on things where they’ll need to make decisions together, so that they can begin to cultivate this vital ability.
Who Cares Who Gets the Credit
They usually discover that all of them together are much smarter than any of them alone.
As a sharp colleague reminded me recently, “It’s amazing what can be accomplished when you stop caring about who is going to get the credit for it”.
Again, though, while this sounds simple, it’s rarely easy.
It can be done, though, and those who try it are often surprised that once you get started and see some success, it gets easier with time and practice.
It doesn’t happen by itself and requires a lot of intention.
But isn’t that all part of good leadership?
Too Many Important Subjects Don’t Get Discussed
Everyone is familiar with the old story about pulling a jacket out of a closet and then serendipitously finding a $20 bill in a pocket.
I had a similar experience a few weeks ago, that didn’t involve clothing or money, but I feel even luckier.
I was getting ready to go to a face-to-face meeting with a man from a local business family, and in-person meetings have not been a regular part of my routine lately, so it was kind of cool just because of that.
I don’t usually take many notes when I speak to someone for an initial meeting, because I think it’s important to give them my full attention and not seem like I’m interviewing them (because really they’re the ones who are interviewing me).
But I do need to make a genogram so that I can follow along with who all the people are and how they are related.
Oh, There’s That Old Clipboard
So I dusted off an old clipboard and opened it up to discover some notes from the last live conference I attended, in January 2020.
It was by the Institute for Family Governance in NYC, and there was the one-page brochure and some notes I had taken.
I noticed something at the top of the page that I had written:
“On everyone’s mind, but on nobody’s agenda. K.G.”
I instantly remembered the quote, but struggled to recall who K.G. was, so I looked at the conference papers and at all of the names of the speakers, but there was nobody whose initials matched.
Finally, it hit me; there was also a half-day, pre-conference session the day before, where the presenter was none other than Kelin Gersick, one of the founders of the field of advising enterprising families.
Now it all made sense, and I could properly credit the quote.
You Are Always On My Mind…
Apologies for the Willie Nelson flashback, but there are some subjects that are always on the minds of people who belong to a business family, and there’s a subset of those thoughts that just don’t ever make it onto an agenda for discussion.
Speaking of flashbacks, I recall a first meeting with “Sally,” a mother of four, who told me “I’ve been thinking about this for 10 years, and talking to my husband about it for 5 years, and now, we are finally going to do something about it”.
I ended up working with their four offspring for about 4 years, and as I share the types of things we worked on together, you’ll understand that while the concerns of such parents are common and widespread, that doesn’t mean that they are easy to put into words and describe.
It’s also not always easy to know where to turn when you do decide, as Sally did, when it’s finally time to do something about it.
It All Boils Down to Family Governance, Again
As I wrote in Instituting Family Governance, Incrementally, the blog post that I wrote immediately after that IFG Conference, families need to make a commitment to doing this work, and to find someone from outside the family to help lead the way.
Nobody just wakes up one day and says, “Today we’re going to start to work on our family governance”.
What is on their minds is typically some worry, about how their offspring are going to get along once their parents are no longer around, at some point long into the future.
Somehow, that idea that’s on their minds needs to make it onto their agenda, and it usually doesn’t happen all at once.
Like Sally, who was thinking about it for 5 years before she even shared those thoughts with her husband, and then it took them another 5 years to start to move
From My Agenda to OUR Agenda
To go from one parent to both is already a huge step, but the bigger step remains, getting the rising generation interested and involved, aligned and engaged.
I worked with the four siblings, every month or so, together and as individuals, and got them used to working together on projects that were important to their family, especially as they approached their eventual intergenerational wealth transition.
It isn’t rocket science, but it doesn’t just happen all by itself either.
Get it on your family’s agenda already.
Spotting Something “Wrong” Is the Easy Part
Every once in a while I see a couple of cases in quick succession that have a common thread, and that makes writing something here each week even easier for me.
As I think about the commonalities, I invariably recall other analogous situations where I’ve been involved in some fashion, and that allows me to paint an even more colourful picture for you.
We’re going to be looking at working with families where it may seem obvious what’s needed, and the temptation for a quick fix is there, but where we need to take a deeper look before reaching for the Band-Aid solution.
OH, Look! I Found THE Problem
I recently started working with group of three siblings, who’ve been working together successfully for over two decades, having bought the company from their parents years ago.
These people were referred to me by some other local professionals that I know, which is always nice.
After I began the work, I encountered one of the folks responsible for the referral, who shared some of their ideas of what the family needed to do.
Everything they mentioned was perfectly logical and made theoretical sense, and all their ideas and advice were valid.
And, despite all of the positives, most of it is probably useless for the particular situation those siblings are facing at this time.
Spotting “the problem” is the easy part.
In any family business situation, it’s actually quite easy to find something that could be done more formally or professionally.
Look at What’s Going Well
This made me think about a podcast I hosted a while back where my guest was Ken McCracken, a long time family business advisor from the UK.
Ken talks about the “Natural Advantage” of family business, and I really think he’s on to something, and most of us who work with families would do well to heed his counsel.
(Go Here for The Natural Advantage of Family Business podcast)
The gist of it is that they’ve been doing a lot of things right to get where they are and to have built the business that they are operating.
Let’s give them credit for that, and not be tempted to run in there like a bull in a china shop because we are so smart and we can see something that we think could be done better.
They also likely already have a pretty good idea of what they could be doing differently, and if they ask for help with that, then fine, work with them to address that.
But otherwise, try to resist the urge to look smart and point out your bright ideas.
Just Give Me That “Missing Piece”
As an example, I am just about to embark on a new mandate where the patriarch knows full well that he and his family need to work on their family governance, as he prepares to transition the ownership of the business he founded to his three offspring.
He knows that he needs for them to have a shareholders’ agreement, and some basic agreement on family governance (e.g. family charter, family compact, family constitution).
Unfortunately, he also believes that he should be able to simply “purchase” these things from a qualified third party.
Thankfully the members of the rising generation understand that the documents that will bind them are best to be co-created by them, and not delivered from on high from either a consultant or the guy they call Dad.
Simple Solutions Aren’t Sustainable
I want to conclude on another related request I had a few years ago that I wrote about in When Structural Solutions Aren’t Sufficient.
In that case, an overseas colleague was looking for a way to structure the operations of a business being run by two siblings who were not on speaking terms.
Well, sure, I guess that there may be some way for them to structure their company so that they can continue to operate without ever speaking to each other, but…. I really don’t think that’s the best way to address the issue at hand.
Bottom line, if you think you can solve a family dynamics problem with a structural solution, your chances of success are miniscule at best.
But once again, it is tempting to reach for such a quick fix, because it avoids all that messy work that most people want to avoid.
Too bad it doesn’t work.
Are Messages Getting Lost in Translation?
This week I’m on the Family Governance beat once again, having recently attended a webinar on the subject of establishing a Family Council, and it got me thinking of some new ways to talk about the whole subject.
As regular readers know, being based in Montreal, Canada, I work in both of Canada’s official languages, English and French.
Being bilingual offers lots of interesting opportunities, including learning from groups that are outside of your “main” language.
English is my main language, but I do speak French every day as well, and I’m so glad that my parents “forced me” to go to French school all those decades ago.
Etablir un Conseil de Famille ?
A few weeks back, some francophone colleagues had set up an informative webinar to explain how some local enterprising families had set up their Family Council, why they had done so, and how it has been helpful as they plan for their family’s future transitions.
The webinar featured a small panel, including members of two such families to talk about their real lived experiences. These included a woman in her thirties and a man in his sixties, so they had representation from both a “NowGen” and a “NextGen”.
There were dozens of attendees on the call, which is great because it confirms that families are interested in the idea of family governance in general, and in establishing a Family Council more specifically.
You Can’t Improvise It!
I was nodding along with everything that was being shared by the hosts and guests, glad to know that more families in my local area were interested in this and were now hearing from some folks who are doing the work.
Then I started to hear them use an expression, two or three times, that put a puzzled expression on my face.
“La gouvernance familiale ne s’improvise pas !”
My French is slightly below 100% fluent, and this now seemed like it was from the part I was less familiar with.
It seemed at first that they were saying that you cannot improvise your family governance, which felt like it made a bit of sense, but in my head it took it way too far.
It’s All About Customization and Evolution
I always preach that you shouldn’t try to go too fast when working on family governance, and that you have to take things one step at a time and see how it goes, and then let things evolve in a logical way and at a pace that works for the family members.
I’ve actually toyed around with analogies that liken the process to “improv”, as in improvisational theater.
When my daughter was younger I signed her up for some Improv classes and ended up liking some of the key ideas, which enhance your creativity, teach you to “go with the flow”, and adopt a “Yes, AND…” mindset.
So to me, family governance, the way I encourage it, is in many ways very much like improv, but these folks were seemingly saying “Nope!”
Professional Driver – Do Not Attempt
Upon further investigation, I’ve since discovered that a better way to think of the translation is that you shouldn’t just make it up on your own.
The idea of an IED came to mind recently, as in “Improvised Explosive Device”, which is a fancy way of naming a “home-made bomb”.
It turned out that both the panelists were talking about the fact that their families had each engaged an outside professional to facilitate their Family Council meetings and to coach all family members around their participation on the Council.
You’ll probably guess correctly that I’m in total agreement with that point.
D.I.Y. – BUT, Not BY Yourselves
You cannot buy family governance, you need to build it yourselves, as I like to say. But that doesn’t mean you have to do it by yourselves, it works best when several family members are involved and the entire process is led by an outsider who knows what they are doing.
That statement about not buying family governance isn’t perfectly true, because there are professionals who’ll try to convince you that you should buy it from them, and some do.
You could go that way and end up with a professional-looking family constitution, but it would of less value than even a preliminary and improvised attempt at creating a family council.
Coaching and Podcasting Combine for Lessons
Ideas for these blog topics come from anywhere and everywhere for me, and often they just seem to combine thoughts from one part of my life with something from a very different sphere.
And so once again I’ll write about how some seemingly random discussions have come together for me in a way that allows me to share ideas that can be useful to families and those who advise them.
Regular readers will likely be familiar with the fact that I’ve done coach training and certification, that I’m a huge fan of the Purposeful Planning Institute (PPI), and that I have also been on a number of podcasts, on both sides of the mic.
All of these will come together this week in this piece.
Listening Without Judgement Is Where It Begins
Whenever people ask me about the coaching training that I did years ago with CTI, I almost always end up sharing the importance of listening without judgement, because that’s one of the two main takeaways from that whole training.
(The other is “being with”, for the record.)
Of course knowing that you need to listen without judgement and being able to actually do it does require a LOT of practice, but that’s a whole other post.
(Perhaps Skills vs. Knowledge in Family Enterprises?)
Being able to listen to someone speak, while suspending your own personal judgement about what you are hearing, is not as easy as it might sound, and for some people it’s almost impossible.
But if you want to be a resource for people who work with their family members, or who own assets together with their siblings, you won’t get far without that ability.
It’s Much More Than Just Listening
At first I really only thought about the listening aspect, but I had a recent A-Ha moment that put this subject back on my radar.
During one of the recent weekly Tuesday Thought Leader webinars hosted by PPI, the guests were Sandi Bragar and Cammie Doder, who co-host a podcast called Money Tales, where they interview guests about the role that money has played in their lives.
Having been one of their guests, I joined this webinar with added interest.
During the webinar, Sandi noted that it was important not to judge people as you interview them, and I naturally thought to myself “yeah, listening without judgement strikes again”, but then it hit me.
They’re interviewing people, so they aren’t only listening, they’re also asking!
Asking Without Judgement
So many of our conversations contain questions and answers, therefore much of the listening we do comes in response to our questions.
As you work with people with the goal of helping them through situations, you need to ask about a lot of subjects.
If you want to truly understand someone, which is pretty useful when you are trying to make their lives better in some way, it’s kind of important for you to get their true thoughts.
It should not surprise you that I think that what you ask them, and perhaps even more importantly how you ask them, can be pretty important.
Of course as mentioned last week in Yes, AND… Don’t Neglect the Follow-Through there is no magical “secret list of questions”
And even if there were, you need to know how to ask them (without judgement).
Being Curious for All It’s Worth
The good news is that once you realize how key it is to park your judgement at the door, it actually gets easier with practice.
Engaging and flexing your curiosity muscles can also be a big help, and if you truly want to be a trusted resource to a family, you really should be curious about what makes them tick.
Of course simply being curious doesn’t necessarily force you to ask less judgemental questions, it could actually take you even further in the wrong direction if you get too “inquisitive”.
I’m flashing back to when my kids were young and I can hear my son objecting to my dirty look with “What? I was only asking her a question” after an exchange with his sister.
Judgemental Family Members Are the Norm
It’s actually quite normal for the members of a family to judge each other; many have been doing it for decades.
We can’t expect them to change much after getting so much practice.
And that’s an even better reason why we, as the outsider, need to offer them something different.
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