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The Art of Conversation: The Key to Family Communication

When listing problems that business families face, communication is usually one of the first things people mention. 

 

Because it’s seen as a “big” problem, many people think that it requires a “big” solution. 

I beg to differ.

“100 One-Minute Conversations”

The initial idea for this post came from something I saw online recently, that talked about “100 one-minute conversations”, which in most cases are a better way to go than just having one, long, 100-minute discussion.

I wish I’d saved it so I could credit the source, because Googling it didn’t help me solve the mystery.

In any event, it lines up nicely with some of the other things I’ve talked about before, notably here: The Dimmer Switch vs. the On/Off

 

Clearing Up Any Illusions

My favourite quote about communication is from George Bernard Shaw, “The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place”.

Let me spell it out just in case you didn’t get it.  

The biggest problem for people communicating with each other is when the person who says something believes that the receiver heard and understood them, and they’re wrong, but they assume they’re right.

Why did I take the time to spell that out? 

Because if I continued this blog while assuming that you understood what I meant, but you didn’t, then I would have been committing the exact faux pas that I was trying to explain.

The Art of Conversation: The Key to Family Communication

Conversations as a Subset of Communication

Of course communication comprises much more than verbal discussions, which are in fact only a small fraction of the entire communication “platform” that any enterprising family uses.

These families need to share lots of information to remain united enough to properly manage the assets they own together.

But while everyone can see what’s written in a family newsletter or on their Facebook page, I contend that it’s in the smaller groups, and the quicker, more regular conversations, that the most important communication actually happens.

Yes, you need to have the big formal, structural communication platforms, but, and it’s a big but, if that’s all you have, then there’s a lot missing.

 

Heart to Heart

The simplest way to make this point is to consider the expression “Heart to heart”. 

What makes family businesses different from other businesses is the family element.  Plain old communication might be sufficient for “regular companies”, but for a family business, being owned and run by a family, there needs to be a lot more heart.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about “heart to heart communication”, by I know I’ve heard people mention a “heart to heart talk”, or “heart to heart conversation”.

 

The (Lost) Art of Conversation

Speaking of expressions, we’ve all heard about the “art of conversation”, and I contend that in some ways all of the technology we’ve been using to communicate has made conversing together a bit of a lost art.

But here’s the good news, and I even just Googled it to make sure it makes sense.

You can get better at it, with practice. Yes, I just searched “do you practice art” to make sure, and I got plenty of hits.

Whether it’s playing music, or painting, or sculpting, one improves the more one practices their favourite art.

And so it is with conversations.

 

Small Groups, One-on-One

Conversations can happen all the time, mostly in small groups or even simply one-on-one situations.

They don’t necessarily have to be structured, scripted or planned in advance, and in reality, the more natural and free flowing they are, the better.

Sometimes the hardest thing about them is just making them happen, especially now that simply picking up the phone to call someone seems to rarely happen these days.

 

Conversations With Your Coach

One of my favourite ways of actually putting some structure to conversations is to have them be regularly scheduled.

I have a call over Zoom with my coach every week, and I have calls with my coaching clients typically every other week, which seems to work well.

Having things “on the calendar” might be the best way to make sure that you’re staying in touch enough.

 

Seven Years Later

Way back in 2013 I wrote Having Conversations, Not Just Communicating. And I guess it’s still just as valid today as it was back then.

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Coaching for Current & Future Family Leaders?

This week we’re talking about coaching for family leaders, both current and future. It’s a subject near and dear to my heart that keeps coming up for me lately.

I’d planned this piece a couple of weeks ago, and suddenly last Wednesday morning, something unexpected arrived in my inbox.

Well, it wasn’t completely unexpected, because I receive the latest edition of the FFI Practitioner every Wednesday morning, so that wasn’t the surprise. 

But the content was very much in line with what I was planning on sharing here this week, which I found serendipitous.

The featured piece is entitled The Benefits of Coaching for Family Enterprise Leaders and Practitioners by Greg McCann.

 

Hey! That’s What I Was Gonna Say!

Since I was going to say much of what he wrote, I decided to share his wisdom, and add my perspectives on the matter; kind of a win-win.

McCann outlines the benefits of coaching that still remain misunderstood by many people.  

He mentions “increasing the leader’s capacity for more than just the issue at that moment” and “a safe, neutral setting in which to process ideas, fears, perceptions, and patterns in their lives”, among other great points.

I’ve shared my history of trying to explain coaching to people in No, Dad, Coaching Isn’t “Helping Losers”.

 

Good Timing (For a Change!)

The coaching field continues to grow, in the number of trained and qualified coaches, and in its acceptance as a true field, which provides a valuable service to clients around the world.

My coach training journey began in 2013; at the time my focus was more on growing my facilitation practice, rather than 1-on-1 coaching opportunities.

But near the end of 2018 I decided that it was finally time for me to get my own professional coaching certification in 2019, and I completed that last November, through CTI.

As it turns out, my timing was impeccable. 

 

Best Time Ever for Coaching

The sudden arrival of this pandemic has resulted in this being one of the best times and opportunities for coaching that we could ever have expected.

The new situations that everyone is now facing have created a lot more thoughtful self-reflection in people everywhere.

Coaching can be valuable for everyone, IF they understand what it is and what it isn’t, and if they are ready to embark on the journey.

While my training was geared to coaching anyone, I’ve chosen to remain focused on family business, or, more correctly, people who are part of business families.

 

Lonely at the Top, AND at the Bottom

Family business leaders, like CEO’s in any business, often feel lonely, because there are some subjects that they just can’t talk about with others.

Executive coaching has been a huge area where coaching clients have seen benefits, exactly because these leaders have found someone who isn’t simply a “Yes-Person”, and instead they now have a person who will level with them and challenge their thinking.

It’s easy to see the “lonely at the top” aspect, but it can also be lonely at “the bottom”, especially in a family business, when you happen to have the right (or wrong?) last name.

Been there, done that; know how powerless it feels.

 

One Person CAN Change a System

One of my greatest “A-Ha” moments of the past few years is the realisation that a change in one person, can and will have an effect on the whole family system, with patience and persistence.

That means that I, as a neutral outsider to a family, don’t have to work with the whole family to effect positive change, because I can actually have almost as great an impact by working with just one, motivated person.

WOW, that’s actually pretty HUGE.

Now that I’ve finally realized this, my challenge is to convey this concept to potential clients, who often feel helpless to make the changes that they know are required in their families.

It turns out that families are pretty interdependent!

 

Current Realities Align with Coaching Too

Regular readers of my blog know that I’ve been a big fan of online meetings via Zoom for a while already, which just happens to be a fantastic “delivery mechanism” for coaching services.  See Who’s Zooming Who.

I’ve coached several people that I still have never met in person, and I imagine this will continue to be the case going forward.

Members of enterprising families are all in a somewhat unique situation, where finding a “thinking partner” who “gets” them can be a challenge.

Good news: there are coaches who “get” you…

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Under-promise and Over-deliver

These days there are many uncertainties surrounding the potential outcomes we’re all facing, along with lots of people in leadership roles being put on the spot for unknowable answers to questions that were inconceivable a few weeks ago.

At times like these we can learn a lot about leaders by how they address these questions, and whether they’re more inclined to skew their answers to one direction or another, depending on both their understanding of the situation and their propensity to lean either towards more optimistic or pessimistic outcomes.

A Huge Learning Opportunity

The current situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, as scary as it is, will also be great opportunities for all of us to learn, if we are so inclined.

We’re already learning a lot about viruses and how they spread, as well as how some rather simple hygiene measures go a long way toward curtailing that spread.

But we’re also learning a lot about society, how different groups react to news depending on their culture, and how political leaders react under pressure, and whether or not they properly rely on the experts who advise them.

There are also plenty of things we can tie in to the world of enterprising families, which I normally cover here, and some lessons that family members will also hopefully learn as we work our way through this global crisis.

 

“Don’t Set Yourself Up to Be a Loser”

If my Dad were still alive today, he’d be proud that I haven’t forgotten this mantra of his, which I heard him say over a hundred times in various situations.

Many of our political leaders have been guilty of putting their heads in the sand, hoping this would simply go away, making statements to that effect, and being wildly optimistic, because in the short term, that plays better politically.

In the long run, any trust that people had in such leaders is bound to be diminished as the truth comes out and reality sets in. 

This happens in society with politicians, and occurs in family situations too, where one family member makes overly optimistic claims about the family’s wealth, or their personal abilities, to siblings, cousins, or others.

 

Delayed Gratification

I often state that many family business problems are simply parenting problems that manifest themselves a few decades later, and this often comes down to whether or not parents tried to instill the value of delayed gratification in their children.

I wrote about this in Marshmallows and Filet Mignon about a year and a half ago, and I think it’s clear that some of our political leaders did learn these lessons early on and continue to reap the benefits, while others, well, not so much.

Last week I used a song as a blog title, and this week the song “Teach your Children” comes to mind as I think about this.

Many of us our now suddenly surrounded by children in our homes and there are plenty of lessons to be learned under the subject of “current events”. 

I hope that you’re benefiting from the opportunities to teach them important lessons based on the news.

 

Not Overpromising as a Coach

One thing I like about being a coach to families is that it’s actually difficult for me to overpromise what I can deliver.

You see, any well-trained coach will not only realize but will also share with their clients that the coach is not the one who does the work in such a relationship, it is the client (or clients).

The coach is there to provide some structure, process help, guidance, and accountability, but not to “do the work”; that is ultimately up to the clients.

This is a big part of why the “deliverables” are not easy to discuss or promise, because they’re out of the coach’s hands. See: Intangible Deliverables and the Family Circle

 

Promises to Family Members

Let’s finish off by tying in the idea of promises to the family, since many of us are suddenly in close quarters with family members, and may be for a while still.

Are there any promises that you made in the past that need to be reviewed? Maybe they were implied, or not defined well enough?

This may be an opportune time to clear those up. Maybe some assumptions around wealth need to be revised and updated too.

It’s safer to under-promise and over-deliver than the reverse.

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On Infections and Inflection Points

These past couple of weeks have been anything but “business as usual”, and so I’ve decided to break from my usual pre-set blog calendar and venture into the many discussions that are taking place in society and in the family enterprise space, on the many impacts the sudden uncertainty has us all facing.

I still have plenty of blog subjects that I want to get to about business families and their challenges in transitioning their wealth to the next generation, and we’ll get back to those in due time. 

But lately, as I’ve come across “regular” content in my inbox or on social media that seemed to act as if we were all still in the “same old, same old”, I’ve had an almost visceral reaction to some of it, as it struck me as tone deaf or just a little too oblivious for me to spend any time on, you know, right now.

 

Inflection Points – No Going Back

This past week, I was speaking with my coach, Melissa, about the new realities we are facing because of Covid19.  I was pleased and not too surprised when she told me that I am by far her calmest client right now, as most others are freaking out.

I shared with her my belief that we will be learning a LOT over the next few months; about the world we live in, about people, and about leadership.

We’ve hit a number of inflection points, and while it’s way too soon to predict how this will all shake out, I can state with great confidence that many things will never be the same again.  

But most of us will be just fine.

Family Timemathematical graph

One of the unexpected changes many of us are being confronted with is more family time.  

My wife and I have been “empty nesters” for almost five years (thanks in large part to boarding school) but we are now back into “full house” mode with both of our college undergraduates at home, likely finishing up their school years “online”.

It’s too early to tell how it will all work out, but so far, so good, everyone seems to have the right attitude, even with the “self quarantine for 14 days” part that they’re expected to respect after returning from the US.

 

Isolation and Distancing

This call for social distancing and isolation is being received better in some places and by some demographics than others, which is not unexpected either.

What it will do to the economy is still unknowable, but the variety of  timelines we’ve been hearing as people make their guesses as to how long until we’re back to normal is causing tremendous market turbulence.

In the future it will be easy to see where we should have been buying back in, but for now, it’s anybody’s guess.

 

Leadership – Good, Bad, Ugly

The leadership that we’ve been seeing on our TV every day has varied tremendously, from good, to bad, to downright ugly.

I won’t weigh in on who I think fits into each category, suffice it to say that I’ve seen a few in each category from politicians.

But I guarantee you that there will be some people that nobody knew before this crisis who will end up being heroes, and others who will get rich, and still others whose reputations will never recover.

But the jury is still out on all of that, and may be for a few months more.

 

Technology and Connection

Some of the good news is that technology now makes remaining connected so much easier than ever before.

As I wrote a few months back in Who’s Zooming Who?, I’ve become a huge fan of using the Zoom platform for online face-to-face meetings, both for 1-on-1 and group meetings.mathematical graph

More and more people are slowly learning about the benefits of such meetings, because they really don’t have much choice.

 

Reach Out, Just to Check In

One thing I’ve been doing (and promise to do more of) is to reach out to people, including clients and colleagues, from the past and present (and future?).

Reaching out without any particular angle or purpose, but simply to check in.

Connection is always important, and when times are filled with uncertainty, it becomes even more clear.

See you next week. Excuse me now, I’m going to call my mother. 

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When You Like What You Do….

This week we’re going to look at something that came up in a non-family business context, and apply it to our usual domain of businesses that are run by multiple generations of the same family.

It goes back a couple of months to a luncheon I attended that was hosted by a successful local private wealth advisory firm. 

I’ve attended a few of their events over the past few years, and it’s always nice to stay plugged into the financial asset world, even though my work with families is now almost exclusively on the family side of things, as opposed to how they invest their liquid assets.

 

Successful Succession

The company in question is now owned by a number of their “second generation” partners, who bought into the firm over the years, and the original founders now no longer own any shares.

As I sat there and listened to them share this part of their story with the audience, which included mostly clients and potential investors, I couldn’t help thinking that some business families I know would be envious of their successful succession.

But my favourite part of the story was about one of those founders, now in his 80’s, who still comes to the office every day, and acts as “wise counsel” to the others.

 

When You Like What You Do

Apparently he likes to come in and be with his peers and friends, “without the pressure of performance”.

But the real money quote was this, which is what that man added, 

                  “When you like what you do, you do it 

                       long after you still need to do it”.

Hmmmm. I began to think about how this whole situation might apply nicely to some of the business families I know.

So many of the senior leaders of family businesses still really like what they do, yet they often feel like they still need to do it, even long after their successors have shown that they are more than capable of handling the work.

If only there were a way for them to keep doing some parts of what they love, while allowing others to take over other responsibilities.

 

An Opportunity to Co-Create Something

Handing over the reins of a business is almost never a simple exercise.  It takes lots of planning and the execution is rarely as easy as expected or hoped for.

However, with lots of dialogue and sharing of ideas, a great training program to ensure that the rising leaders are equipped to handle larger roles over a number of years, having new leadership ready to assume top roles can certainly be accomplished.

Sometimes, especially in family businesses, it’s having the old leader step aside that’s the biggest obstacle. But there is definitely an opportunity here, if the two generations work together to create a Win-Win.

Family Ties: Easier or More Difficult?

Some may think that this process should be easier in a family business, where the exiting leader has more confidence in the new person or people, because they are literally a “chip off the old block”.  Indeed, sometimes it does work out that way.

Anecdotally, though, it seems like family situations often make it harder to execute such a transition.

Perhaps this biased view comes mostly from founders or wealth creators who are the first generation (G1), and they notably have more difficulty bidding adieu and leaving things to G2 than occurs in subsequent generations.

 

Doing What You Like, Lots of Options

But let’s go back to the title and quote, about doing what you like, and wanting to keep doing it. As the leader for the past few decades, the number of roles that person held and the tasks for which they were responsible was likely pretty diverse.

Wouldn’t it make sense to try to discover which of those roles and tasks they particularly enjoyed, and find ways for them to continue them, yet, “without the pressure of performance”, as the example above noted?

It strikes me that there’s a huge opportunity here, for members of both generations, to co-create the conditions where they actually co-exist for a certain number of years.

It probably won’t be something that happens overnight, of course, and the longer the plan is in the works, the more likely it probably is that it will be a success.

It all starts with a discussion…

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Asking for What You Need in the FamBiz

Asking for What You Need in the FamBiz

This week I want to look at what seems like a pretty simple topic, but after we get through it all, you may agree that it’s not as simple as you first thought.

We’re going to look at the subject of asking for things, which some people do with ease, while others do with trepidation.

When you’re dealing with family members, it should be easier, right?  Well, not always.

 

Asking for Help

The first way that this topic landed on my potential blog post list came last year, when I attended a coaching workshop and someone asked one of the course leaders for ideas on how to get clients.

The answer was “if you want to coach someone, ask them”, which seemed both too simple and too difficult all at the same time, to the questioner and many others.

Then a couple of months ago on LinkedIn, I came across a quote from Simon Sinek, which read:

 

                               “To overcome our challenges, all that is 

                                 required is the courage to ask for help”

 

OK, that sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it?  But remember, simple and easy aren’t the same thing.  If it were that easy, and it worked, the world would be a happier place. Oh yeah, and there’s that part about “courage” that’s often in short supply.

 

“Help” Versus a “Resource”

This post’s title is about asking for “what you need”, while Sinek’s quote encourages us to “ask for help”, so there’s a nuance there, unless what we need always comes down to help.

I’ve written about asking for help before, notably here, 5 Things to Know: Asking for Help for a FamBiz, but the context there was mostly about a family situation, where they get to the point where they realize that they need help from the outside.

People who interact with me regularly, and those who’ve read Interdependent Wealth, will know that I’ve been trying to eliminate the word “help” from my vocabulary lately.  I find it has too much of a “One up vs. One down” connotation, and that sometimes causes its own issues.

I seldom offer to help anyone anymore, preferring instead to offer to be a resource to them.

 

Help Isn’t Always Helpful

I wrote about this almost two years ago in When Is Helping Not Helpful. 

Yes, it usually feels really good to help someone else, and more people should do it. I can assure you, though, that when you do the exact same thing, only framed as being a resource, it feels just as good.

And while it feels just as good to the “helper”, I think the person who was helped probably feels better about it.

This gets close to another topic, the one where we feel like we need to “fix” someone, which brings with it a whole slew of other issues that are beyond the scope of today’s post.

 

“What You Need” Versus “What You Want”

Anyone who’s a parent is probably familiar with the importance of making the distinction between what you want, and what you need.

It’s a basic concept that many parents try to explain pretty early on in the lives of their children. It’s also a concept that can be taught in conjunction with the idea of delayed gratification. See Marshmallow and Filet Mignon.

So I mention teaching this to children, and that may make you think of youngsters, but I can assure you that there are plenty of “adult children” (a.k.a. “former children”, or, my favourite label “offspring”) who could use some brushing up on the differences between wants and needs.

 

The Business Family Version

We’ll wrap up with some thoughts on how this topic relates to business families, especially as they mature and prepare for intergenerational transition.

Too many subjects are left too late in such families, and I always encourage them to begin talking about important subjects early on, rather than waiting too long.

One of the simpler ways to do that is to ask people for what you need from them.  I said it was simpler, not necessarily easier.

 

It Works in Both Directions!

The good news is that this works just as well for parents asking things of their offspring as it does for the younger ones to ask their parents.

Sure, it takes a bit of courage to get started, but once you begin, it’s a lot easier to keep it going.

You might even start by asking someone to read this post, and go from there…

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Instituting Family Governance, Incrementally

I just attended the 4th Annual Conference of the Institute for Family Governance (IFG) in NYC, and once again, it was a great experience worth sharing here.

Having attended the previous three as well, I noted to the organizers that I thought this was the best one yet, because it featured the most real live examples of families who have instituted governance in their families.

As I reflected on the stories we heard from and about these families, it also struck me that they all got where they are now by taking it one step at a time, i.e., incrementally.

 

Welcome to this “Whole New World”

The IFG annual conference has been a great place for people to be introduced to what for many is a “whole new world”, one where multigenerational families have made the significant efforts necessary to create systems, methods, structures and procedures to make sure that the wealth that they’ve created will continue to serve their families for generations.

Over the years, I’ve met many people who advise such families, but who often only get to see one aspect of how this all works for their clients, i.e. the part affected by their professional specialty (eg. law, tax, trusts, etc.)

This year I shared information about the conference with a colleague I had recently met at a coaching training workshop, who, after learning of my family business focus, had mentioned to me that she was working on her family’s first attempt at a family charter.

I’m so glad that she attended, because she got to see this “whole new world” that she was now entering with her family, but did so surrounded by a whole bunch of people who are already so comfortable in this world.

 

Each Family Is Unique, So Is Their Governance

Every story we heard about a family was different from every other one, because each family has their own history, composition, priorities, and desires.

The beauty of such a conference is that we got to see glimpses of different aspects of what some families have done, and we can learn so much from others, even when circumstances are very different from ones that we are faced with.

Even though each family is unique, there were some things that they all had in common.

 

Intentionality, Commitment, and Outside Help

We heard from a number of professionals who work with families on governance matters, who related stories about the process and all of the hard work that families need to put in to make governance work.

We also heard from a number of family members from such families, and it became clear that this work requires a lot of commitment from a large number of people in order to function.

And when we heard from family members themselves, they typically had high praise for the professionals that they worked with from outside the family, without whom they would not have come so far.

 

A Resilient Rising Generation

During the lunch break, attendees had a choice of roundtable discussions that they could attend, each lead by one or two facilitators selected by the organisers.

I co-lead the table about “Communication and Resilient Beneficiaries” with colleague Rebecca Meyer of Relative Solutions.  Some of the discussions we had are worth sharing, as we had some great input form advisors and family members alike.

Allowing your offspring to make their own mistakes, and resisting the urge to go and fix things for them was a common theme.

There was also lots of talk about normalizing failure, by having the leading generation share stories about their own mistakes and challenges that they faced, with which their children are not always familiar.

 

Lots of Effort, But Well Worth It

In the end, governance is mostly about communication, and families should be looking for more opportunities to talk and share experiences.

As a family’s wealth moves from the control of one generation to the next, they’ll all need to learn how to work together for the greater good of the whole family.

This doesn’t necessarily come naturally to all families, so starting small and learning together is usually a good idea.

All the families mentioned at the conference have been at it for at least a few years and they’re all continuing to improve and refine what they’re doing together, incrementally, but surely.

Is it time for your family to get started?

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Are you Explaining or Exploring?

As a coach and facilitator who works with people from enterprising families, one of my roles is to engage with people in ways that are useful to them, as a “thinking partner”.

While I’m a big fan of understanding each person’s context, requiring a certain amount of “explanation”, my real preference is to get to a place of “exploration”, finding the best way forward for each person, and by extension, their family.

With that set-up taken care of, I’d like to explain where I’m coming from on this, before moving into a mode where these thoughts can be explored further.

 

Coach Training and Certification – Check!

Having recently completed my coaching certification program, (with the Co-Active Training Institute, making me a “CPCC”  – or Certified Professional Co-Active Coach –   many of the ideas that came from that program are still fresh in mind, and continue to serve me as a coach, as well as someone who writes a weekly blog.  

This week’s is another example.

One of the aspects of being a coach is that we’re much more interested in the process of coaching our clients, as opposed to getting buried in the content and detail of their situations.  

Our role is to help them see and understand where they are, figure out where they’re trying to go, and then overcome whatever obstacles are in their way.

We’re there to act as a guide, and our training makes us versatile guides; no matter what the situation or obstacles, we’re about the process.  And that process is more focused on the future and its possibilities than on the past.

It’s more about exploration than about explanation.

 

The Rambling Back Story

Some coaching clients love to go on and on, telling their coach about every minute detail of the story that has them in a quandary. 

Many beginner coaches are typically all too happy to think they’re doing a great job of being good listeners, since the client keeps talking. It can feel like a win-win; but alas, it’s typically a missed opportunity.

This is where the wise words of my “CPL”, or Certification Pod Leader, Alex, come in. 

In explaining the importance of interrupting rambling clients, he said, “Coaching is not about EXPLANATION, it’s about EXPLORATION“.

Bingo, there is it, the simple phrase that I’ll never forget.

 

Family Members Who Dwell on the Past

I’m sure that anyone who’s part of a business family will recognize the case of the family member who spends most of their time talking about all of the problems they have to work through, as if to justify their job and pay, because it’s so much work.

When that family member is able to drive all of the discussion, it can really limit the progress of the business, and also the family.

When everything they talk about is an explanation of the current situation, including plenty of excuses and lots of blaming, the focus is on the past, and current obstacles.

 

Focus on the Future – Let’s Explore

Imagine now a family where much of the time is spent on exploration, and talking about possibilities for the future.

Yes, it’s important to understand and appreciate the current context, knowing where we are now, which includes a back story of how we got here.

At some point, everyone already knows that story, though, and rehashing it over and over again, to make clear the obstacles, the errors of the past, the other people who are to “blame” for the shortcomings, and all of the excuses for why things aren’t better, well, all this gets tiring and anything but productive.

What if we get family members together to talk about the future, and how they can all explore, together, a way forward where they all make progress?

 

Coaching, Facilitation, or Mediation?

Whether it’s for one motivated person in a family, or for a family group, quite often the presence of a trained outside person can stimulate more exploration, without the need for excess explanation.

Maybe its coaching for one person, or even several.  It could be facilitation of group meetings that haven’t worked so well without an outside neutral third party.

When things are truly tense, someone who knows how to mediate might be the answer.

What they all have in common is a focus on a better future. Exploring ways forward can work wonders for your family.

 

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