How We Share Things That Happen Is Key

Over the past decade or so, I’ve spent much of my time conversing with people from the family enterprise world.

Many of them are part of existing or former family enterprises, and others are peers who now serve such families. (And lots tick both boxes!)

What never ceases to fascinate me is how many stories capture not only what occurred, but also how things played out for all family members, and how the follow on effects can land so differently with each of them.

A great exploit for one person can take on the opposite effect for different family members, for a variety of reasons.

Learning to tie the stories together into a common family narrative can be a useful undertaking.

At Least I Got a Story!

Knowing how to tell a story is an art, and for some reason I’ve been given the gift of being above average in this area.

It’s a blessing that can also be a curse, as those who are less gifted will often defer to me to share a tale because I can deliver it with more gusto than the person who initially wanted to share it with a group.

Making room for the various versions of how an event was lived by its different protagonists is also worthwhile.

But because of my penchant for relating unexpected events with fanfare, I always have my antenna up for them, and even something mundane will have me say to myself, “Well, at least I got a story out of it!”

The Jessica Holmes Version

It’s not every day that I get to introduce someone onto a stage with words like, “She has opened for Oprah and Jerry Seinfeld…”, but On May 28, 2024, I did just that.

It was as part of my role as co-Emcee of the Family Enterprise Canada annual Symposium, and the keynote was superbly delivered by Jessica Holmes, following that intro that she had scribbled on a bit of paper 10 minutes prior to my intro.

Her presentation was the highlight of the conference for many, as she left everyone with many things to reflect upon in new ways.

For me, what really landed were the parts about “the story” that peppered her speech.

This was something inspired by her parents, which she is now transferring to her children, as getting “the story” has become a large part of their family lore.

Her line, “We’re paying for the story”, was a constant reminder to persevere in the face of challenging situations that may have otherwise caused her to turn back.

Turning Stories into a Narrative

Holmes related a tale where she and her son were kayaking in the ocean and the waves made her reconsider and want to turn back rather than continue their planned route.

It was her son who reminded her about the desire to get the story they’d “paid for” when they rented the boat, and she was happy to share that this family tradition had indeed been absorbed by her child.

When family stories are shared, they can become part of the family brand, the family values, and the way the family sees itself.

You don’t have to have a family enterprise to realize this, nor a lot of family wealth, but such families have even more reason to pay attention to these things, as they can be key to family engagement and alignment, which are so useful when transitioning from one generation to the next.

The sharing and understanding of how the family got to where it is now become part of the family’s narrative; the way it thinks about itself and presents itself, both internally among themselves and even externally to other stakeholders and the world in general.

The Battle Versus the War as an Analogy

As someone who loves metaphors and other analogies, they’re never too far away in my mind.

The trick is to appreciate what they bring while tempering them and not falling in love with them too much.

Such is the case with this one that came to me overnight: stories are like various battles, while the narrative is the war.

I like the fact that you can lose some battles and yet prevail in the war.

And let’s not forget what they say about history books, they’re written by those who won the war.

Very Subtle Difference, But It’s Actually Huge

Working in a family business can be a fantastic experience, and it can also sometimes be pretty dreadful too.

For some people, it’s actually possible to live both versions at different times, and it can even toggle between the two.

One of the biggest contributors to whether the experience is positive or negative, comes down to how the person actually feels while they are there.

The lucky ones feel like they truly belong, while the others are always making an effort just trying to fit in.

This week, we’re going to look at the differences and see if we can learn something. I’ll also share a personal perspective around how my own life and career have evolved.

Belonging to the Family – Hopefully a Given!

The idea for a post on this topic came to me a few weeks ago, during a meditation session using the Calm app.

While contemplating what I’d write about this week, I decided it was time to take this one up, and lo and behold, this morning during my meditation, it came up again, so now I have no choice.

Writing about business families and the challenges they face, especially around their generational transitions, there’s almost always an opportunity to contrast between how things affect the family versus how they impact the business.

When I think about a family, I like to believe that all members feel like they really belong, and that hopefully every family member feels that way.

And of course I know it isn’t always the case.

Fitting in, In the Business

When it comes to a family member who joins the family business, my bias is that it’s much more likely that there will be some period where the newcomer needs to make a bit of an effort to fit in.

Eventually, the hope is, they will feel like they actually belong there.

It can take a while, and then it’s great when you gradually get there. 

But some people never do, and end up staying anyway, which I’ve seen far too often.

And what usually ends up happening then is that the longer they stay, the harder it is to even consider leaving.

I wish there were an easy solution to this frequent dilemma, but there isn’t. 

The simple answer is that they should leave and find someplace where they’ll be happier, somewhere they can feel like they belong.

But as I always say, simple and easy are not the same thing.

A Huge Case of FOMO

In some cases, one of the major factors is FOMO, a.k.a. Fear of Missing Out.

When there are a number of family members who are working for the family business, it can be difficult to be the only one who opts to do something else.

To willingly exclude yourself, you need to have the courage to take a stand and not be lulled into the morass of “one big happy family”.

But please realize that the “one big happy family at work” is not as common as it might seem. 

If you’re working with your family members and it feels like it takes a lot of effort just to fit in, that’s probably a big clue right there.

You might ask yourself what else it is that you are missing out on in your life, that you might find if you left.

Mustering Up One’s Courage

It can take a whole lot of courage to make such a bold move, but others have done it and lived to tell the tale.

Some coaching or therapy may also be a huge catalyst to make such a change, because courage often comes more easily when bolstered by an independent outsider.

This Is My Life

I hinted that I’d share something personal, so here goes.

I joined the business my Dad had started because of a sense of duty to do so, because it was a message I received constantly while growing up.

I was lucky that I did feel like I belonged, in both the family and the business.

Once we sold the operations, though, I worked mostly alone for a couple of decades, which did not suit me, but I didn’t know how to get myself out.

Now that I’m working with other families and with great colleagues, I’ve found the place where I belong once again.

A Relation Beyond the Rhyme

Many of my weekly missives begin with the inspiration behind them, and that makes this one a bit tough for me.

There’s often some kind of story behind how an idea came to me and why I then choose to write about it here, in the context of how if relates to my work advising families around their wealth or business transition challenges.

Regular readers know I use a simple Gmail folder to store ideas that come to me at any given time, and for this one I even needed to look at the date of the email to recall when the idea struck me.

That’ll help a bit, perhaps, but what I do recall is that I awoke early one morning with the idea of “curious, not furious”, but without any clue as to from whence it came.

Inspired by My Colleagues?

The date on which I emailed myself the idea was the Saturday of a weekend-long peer meeting I’ve written about here at times, where colleagues gather to share how we do our work with families, in order that we may all improve.

We began on Friday afternoon, and for some reason when I awoke on Saturday morning, I had “curious” and “furious” on the brain.

I don’t recall any particular discussion from the previous day that might have caused this, but alas, here we are.

I have to believe that just being with these colleagues was somehow responsible for this.

Now my challenge is to turn this into something useful, while being entertaining at the same time. Here goes.

Curiosity as an Antidote

A couple of years back in Curiosity as the Antidote to Assumptions in Families, we looked at how getting curious and asking questions can be a great way to get out of the rut of sticking with our assumptions, which are so often wrong or simply just outdated.

But it now strikes me that when I’m angry, which is not as bad as furious, I can usually walk myself back from the ledge by thinking about why someone might do what they did which has now angered me.

I touched on some of this last year in Stop Assuming the Worst – Using the MGI Method. There, we looked at how forcing oneself to think of the “most generous interpretation” (i.e. MGI) can be useful in lowering our own anxiety.

Trying to come up with such an interpretation cannot be done without getting curious.

Important Family Discussions Can Create Tension

A huge part of my work involves helping families have important conversations they need to have.

They know deep down that they need to have such discussions, yet despite this, they almost always have difficulty starting them and then having them go well, when left to themselves.

Having a neutral third party in the room can do wonders, and so I am often the person who brings my curiosity out first, and then encourage others to follow suit.

In a similar way, I often flex my calm, in the hopes that it too will become contagious. See Calm Is Contagious from 2018.

Discussions about how things will need to evolve and change going forward are fraught with emotions, and it’s not unusual for things to get charged, and inevitably someone may become angry, if not furious.

Those who experience these strong emotions typically don’t even know exactly why they’ve been riled up, because the thinking part of our brains is not where the emotions are regulated.

Curiosity to the Rescue

As the unrelated party in the room, it’s much easier for me to inquire as to the source of the emotions.

I can and do ask questions about what’s at the root of the outrage, because I’m genuinely interested in learning the answer.

The person in question can often be perplexed by my intervention and desire to know, but the mere fact that I’ve asked can be enough to interrupt the tension long enough to provoke some necessary reflection on their part.

On some occasions the self-reflection can be outright surprising to everyone, and if the space feels safe enough, others in the room may offer their own answers too.

Much of the success of such interventions comes down to a positive attitude that an experienced facilitator brings, so as to properly hold the space for productive dialogue.

And genuine curiosity is always a huge component of success.

Things Always Take Longer – And That’s Okay

It’s now been a bit over a decade since I discovered and entered the family enterprise transition world as an advisor to families.

Having come from my own family’s journey and closely followed that of my wife’s family, I came at this with lots of lived experience but not much else. (Okay, plenty of passion and curiosity too.)

Diving deeply into training in coaching, facilitation, conflict resolution and family systems, I was looking for any and every way to learn to do this work well.

Having decided to specialize in the family circle (as opposed to the business or the ownership areas) I had some catching up to do.

Regular readers will also know that I have latched onto every possible peer organisation as well, as my interactions with those have inspired many of my weekly missives here.

Hanging Out with a Bunch of Psychologists

One such peer group was founded thirty years ago by several psychologists who were hoping to create a place where those with that training, who’ve also developed a practice serving enterprising families, could come together and form a learning community.

A few years ago, a couple of its members approached me, suggesting I could make an interesting addition to their group.

At first I declined, stating that I was not a psychologist, so I was likely not “qualified” to be a member.

A couple of reassurances, arm twists, and Groucho Marx quotes about “being a member of a club that would have me as a member” later, and I was in.

I just returned from my third annual in-person weekend meeting with them (after 2 years of virtual encounters thanks to you-know-what) and want to share some of my thoughts.

Appreciating the Process

It’s amazing to me that a decade into this work, I still have plenty of A-Ha moments.

Spending quality time over a weekend with like-minded professionals who are all trying to learn to do this work better was chock full of them once again.

Working with families as they prepare to transition their wealth to the following generation is all about process, as opposed to content.

The “deliverable” is thus quite hard to define.

Psychologists, in their individual practices, typically see clients one-on-one, or sometimes as a couple.

The deliverable for their clients is also difficult to define, but those clients (patients?) are typically able to discern whether or not continuing to see their mental health professional is worth the time, effort and expense.

They spend time sharing thoughts with their doctor and work through how they are doing and what changes they can and should think about making in how they live their lives.

Making time to regularly visit someone like this is all about process.

Respecting Everyone’s Processing Time

Similarly, in my coaching work with clients, I help them think through what’s going on in their lives, give them a fresh perspective, and encourage them to make positive changes in their day-to-day actions.

While their time with me might last an hour, the weeks between sessions are where most of the processing takes place.

And different people process things at different speeds.

Much of the complexity that arises when working with a whole family comes from the fact that the members rarely process the required changes they need to make at the same speed.

During that recent weekend with peers, one of them noted that working with a whole family is like heading to the ski hill and seeking out only the double black diamond ski runs.

If you can survive those, everything else is a walk in the park.

Not only are we dealing with the family emotions, we layer in a family enterprise, and there’s a lot at stake in every meeting.

The rising generation family members in their thirties and forties have much different desires and priorities than their parents who are in their sixties and seventies.

Guiding the Process for the Family

Working with a family on their transition is a lot like being a tour guide. See Choosing your FamBiz Tour Guide

A good guide adjusts their speed to allow each person to process the journey and keeps everyone together.

The most difficult part can sometimes be slowing down those who want to move quickly.

Making sure that everybody has had enough time to process changes will always help.