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How Much Does Everyone Need to Give?
Working with enterprising families brings with it a wide variety of challenges, as I and many colleague friends will attest.
Working in an enterprising family also brings challenges of course, and those of the family members become those of their professional advisors by extension.
The interplay of these protagonists always provides much fodder for people like me who love nothing more than to share what goes on in this fascinating work.
My greatest hope is that these missives continue to make people think, and hopefully learn, and ultimately help advance this nascent field.
So what am I getting at with my “giving your all” tease? I’m glad you asked.
“I’ll Give It 100%”
We all know that 100% is literally the maximum that one can give, but that doesn’t stop people from becoming hyperbolic at times and stating that they’ll give it “110%”.
I don’t make much of a distinction between those two numbers, and in fact I’m probably more inclined to have confidence in somebody’s claim that they’ll give it 100% compared to another who ups that figure.
This makes me think back to my late father who always hated it when anyone said “I’ll do my best”. To him, that was almost a guarantee that whatever was being discussed would not be done.
I just realized as I typed that sentence that while my Dad would’ve agreed with what I wrote, he also had a huge disdain for the word “hate”, but I digress.
I’ll do 100% of My 50%
The true inspiration for this post is an expression I first heard a few months back during yet another peer group call that I was on.
A relatively new colleague of mine noted “I always tell my clients that I will give them “100% of my 50%”.
I noted this back then and planned to blog about it, but it gathered dust for a few months.
Then, when this group convened again recently, she repeated that expression, and I knew it was time to write this (Merci CM), because I had never heard anyone else phrase it this way, and it felt like it was worth sharing.
All this was part of a discussion surrounding how we advisors are limited in how much we can do because the family (or some subset of family members) aren’t holding up their end of things.
Serving Families with Process, Not Content
When people learn about this work with families, one of their biggest A-Ha’s is almost always around how it’s all about process, and helping families make progress together.
See A Different Look at Process Versus Content
We aren’t typically responsible for much of the content of what the family is trying to create, although we are certainly there to make sure that things get done.
When we enter into a family system, and begin to get to know the family members and what they’re hoping to accomplish, we begin to create a picture in our minds of what’s possible, typically based on what we’ve seen in other families.
The difficulty sometimes lies in the fact that the family needs to want to put in the work as much as we do, and that’s not always the case.
In fact, that recent peer call had me suggesting to one presenter that the family whose story she was sharing with the group may just be one of those cases.
We, the advisors, can’t want it more than our clients.
When It Starts to Become Easy
The work that we hope to help families do can be hard for them, and in fact it always requires intention and effort.
With more and more repetitions for the advisors, though, it can start to feel easy for us, and that can create its own share of problems.
Back to that call with my peers, that was also going on for a member of the group, who was dealing with a bit of imposter syndrome because of it.
Being there for a family, and being with the family members as they try to figure out their “stuff” together, isn’t something that everyone can do well.
See On Connection and Empathy When Accompanying Families
If you happen to be one of those people for whom it feels easy, please make sure you don’t fall into the trap of thinking that your assistance isn’t worth anything.
We’re still giving it 100% of our 50%!
