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.
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.
Which Came First?
This week we’re looking at one of those “which came first?” situations, so as you’ve probably guessed, it’s kind of a trick question.
The good news is there’s no wrong answer!
I’ve written quite a bit about family alignment in this space, most recently in On Family Alignment and Family Alliances last fall.
But this’ll be the first time I’m dealing with family engagement, and in some ways it’s long overdue.
Coming Up Again and Again
Maybe it just feels overdue because the idea of alignment and engagement being two sides of the same coin came to me a couple of months ago, and ever since, it keeps on jumping up and hitting me in the face, seemingly at every turn.
I’m working with one client who’s drafting her family’s first ever “family charter”, which will essentially be the first written version of the guidelines for their “family council”, which doesn’t really exist yet.
The “writing it down” part is all about the alignment, but the work my client has been struggling with is in getting input from other family members, because she wants to make sure she’s capturing things correctly, and that’s all about engagement.
Getting the Rising Generation Interested and Involved
Another client with whom I’m working has taken a family business he bought from his father and grown it significantly, and he’s now working out the details of how to get his children and nieces and nephews interested and involved.
This is the type of engagement issue that lots of family businesses face at various stages in their evolution.
But they can quickly go from low engagement to high, and then suffer from issues around their alignment, because the people who just got interested all see things in a different way.
All of this is quite normal, and possibly a good problem to have.
A Regular Governance Problem: Balance
You may have encountered the same issue in other, non-family governance situations, whether it’s the board of a non-profit or even a committee that you’re a part of.
I’ve seen it up close in each of those situations, although I really noticed it more recently, since this idea began to crystalize in my head.
But like I said, it’s a good problem to have, and there’s no wrong answer.
You can start working on one, and it’ll help you with the other, and it works both ways.
Leadership and Collaboration
Before I get to a couple of examples, I want to highlight that a similar idea hit me a few years ago and has stuck with me.
I’d read a book about collaborative leadership, where the point was made that people who are collaborative are exhibiting leadership, and the people who are leaders are collaborating with their followers almost by definition.
It’s almost circular.
It was one of those things that took a bit of time to sink it, but now that I’ve internalized it, it seems to be there for good.
And so it is now, with alignment and engagement, especially in the family business context.
Start Where You Are
Wherever your family is, start there. Sounds obvious, but, like common sense that isn’t really common, it isn’t.
If a family is engaged, work on continuing to develop that, and you’ll quickly get to a point where some possible “mis-alignments” pop up.
Great, now you have something to work on that’s a bit different, solving that alignment issue.
If, however, the family seems nicely aligned, start there and “push” that further. You’ll likely hit a point where some might disengage, and then you can work on engaging them again.
In so doing, you’ll almost naturally find yourself tweaking the alignment again.
Incremental, Iterative Progress
The good news, again, is that this is all part of progress.
Families who hope to transition their business or wealth to the rising generation need to have engagement, and they need to be aligned, if they want things to work out right and to have the results be durable.
As you work on developing one, alignment or engagement, you’re also making progress on the other.
It may not feel like progress because it doesn’t move quickly. It’s incremental, one tiny step at a time.
And, as I hope I’ve shown here, it is also iterative, as the family keeps rolling along forward.
One hand washes the other, and two hands are better than one.
Goldilocks Advises a Family Business (Part II)
Last week we looked at advisers who work with business families, bringing the perspective of an outsider to a family system.
That perspective allows them to see things that the family members themselves have difficulty noticing.
With time, such advisors can learn enough about the family’s workings to also begin to benefit from the knowledge of the family insiders.
Of course, there’s a fine line to be struck here, and it’s one that experienced family business practitioners clearly recognize and constantly try to manage.
Getting Too Close
Much like when Goldilocks tries one of the bowls of porridge and finds it too hot, she gets burned, consultants can also be too quick to act and get too close to the situation to properly maintain their objectivity.
This can happen very early on in situations, especially where there’s some conflict between family members.
Any outsider needs to be extra mindful of how they enter the family system, in order to maintain an objective stance towards everyone.
If one sister “brings me in” to a situation with her family, and there’s an issue with her sibling, it won’t take very long for me to be branded as “her guy”, and then my chances of being seen as neutral will be lost.
Who Hires FamBiz Consultants, Anyway?
A few years ago, in Notes from a Great Keynote, I related some statistics from Craig Aronoff, one of the founders of FBCG, about the percentage of families that actually hire an outside consultant at some point.
He stated that somewhere between 2% and 4% of family businesses actually avail themselves to what he called “private lessons” from an outside party.
That means that 96% to 98% of families never hire an outside consultant to work with them, which seems high to me.
Not as Easy as It Looks
Part of the reason the numbers are so low comes from the fact that this work is not easy to do.
Family businesses are very common, all over the world, but that doesn’t mean that they’re simple, or that there’s some magic formula to the business model.
When I’m invited into a family’s inner circle, it’s always a privilege and an honour to be there, in a place they do not typically allow just anyone to enter.
And when you’re there as a “process person”, there are plenty of things that you need to be on the lookout for.
Watch Out for the Hornet’s Nest
There are potential hornet’s nests around every corner, and if you aren’t careful, you might accidentally kick one and cause more of a stir than you had planned for. So it’s best to tread slowly and carefully.
In addition to being mindful of not being seen as one person’s “guy”, it’s also important to develop and maintain individual relationships with each of the key family members, even those who might appear to be “less important” at the outset.
In a family, every person is important, even though they may not all appear outwardly to be, and even if some members act as if they are more important.
In fact, outsiders who work at these relationships on the “lower rungs of the ladder” will eventually be rewarded.
Another Way to Go: Just Coach One of Them
Being on good terms with all family members can be a balancing act, and some consultants master it better than others.
There is another way to go that I’ve been discovering and liking more and more lately, and that’s to just work with one person from the family, as a coach.
Last week I mentioned that a family is a system, of interdependent people.
A system typically finds an equilibrium, but if one person changes, the system will necessarily change too, eventually, assuming the one person has the strength to maintain the change themselves.
One Family Leader Can Make a Huge Difference
In many ways it’s a much easier starting point, because getting the agreement to work with a single person is typically quicker and the learning curve is shorter when you’re only dealing with one person.
Naturally when I coach a member of a business family, I learn about all the other members too, but I’m not the one who interacts with them.
It’s still all about process, only I’m working with the “family leader” on the best way for them to interact with the rest of their family.
And in the end, sometimes that’s “just right”.
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