Webinar: What’s Love Got to Do with It?

David Shaw (00:12): Welcome everyone, and thank you for attending today’s webinar. I’m David Shaw, the publishing director for Family Business Magazine, and I hope you and your family members are all well and getting ready for the holidays. I also hope that for our American listeners, which is usually the majority of you, you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. We’re in a season centered on gratitude and connection, and inevitably some family conflict. This webinar is going to explore your family factor, the relational strength that helps families, weather, conflict change, and governance challenges. With resilience, you’ll gain some practical tools to assess the care dynamics in your own family Design governance that blends compassion with accountability and strengthen relationships across generations. Should be a fascinating discussion with a lot of takeaways. But before we get started, our housekeeping details, there will be time for questions throughout. Uh, please use the ask a question bar that’s down below the slide that you see.

David Shaw (01:20): You can also offer comments at any time. We’ll get to as many of them as we can. We’ll go for no more than 60 minutes today and get to as many of those questions and comments as possible. Now, I’m pleased to introduce my speakers today, uh, Doug Baumoel and Dr. Tiffany Whitworth, both from Continuity Family Business Consulting. Doug founded Continuity Family Business Consulting in 2003. His expertise spans family business, family offices and governance. He’s the co-author of Destructing Deconstructing Conflict Understanding Family Business, shared Wealth and Power, and his co-presenter today, Dr. Tiffany Whitworth is a clinical psychologist and mediator and brings expertise in family dynamics and conflict management within family enterprise systems. So, uh, both of you welcome. I’m so glad to have you with us, and, uh, Doug, we’re gonna turn this over to you to get us started.

Doug Baumoel (02:21): Terrific. Thank you, David. And thanks to all of you for spending time with us together today. So we always begin our presentations and meetings with our purpose statement. It’s the reason why we do what we do, and I expect that this is also why you’re spending your time with us today, Tiffany.

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (02:40): Yeah. We believe that every family should be able to enjoy what they have, know where they’re going, and make the most of their lives together. Our firm exists because unfortunately, unresolved disagreements or poorly managed differences result in conflict which prevent people from enjoying what they have, knowing where they’re going, and making their most of their lives together. So today we’re gonna talk about how, what love has got to do with taking care of each other and other ways to prevent, manage, and heal from conflict.

Doug Baumoel (03:13): Great. Oh, I’m in charge of the clicker. I forgot about that.

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (03:17): I can’t be trusted with those things, so Yes, you are.

Doug Baumoel (03:21): Okay. So, um, many of you might have been at our last webinar with Family Business Magazine, which was back in May. Uh, and we explored under the, uh, understanding of the importance of and how to manage differences in, uh, families before they end up causing conflict and harm. That was, uh, the topic of our conversation in May. Uh, and, um, for those of you that haven’t seen it, there’s a wealth of information and that’s what we, we introduced this idea of the family factor. So central to the conversation we had in May was the framework that we call the Family Factor. In today’s webinar, we’re gonna be digging deeper into that core concept, and we’re gonna present some of our newer thinking related to the family factor, specifically what’s love got to do with it. So the family factor, family factor is the answer to this question.

Doug Baumoel (04:20): Is the family bond strong enough to leverage compromise, forgiveness, and a commitment to change? Think about that for a moment. Okay. And it’s the answer to this question. We’re trying to gauge that from the moment we pick up the phone with a family looking for help or with a family advisor vetting consultants on behalf of a family for families in conflict. It’s not unusual for us to hear from fam that family members don’t speak with each other. They don’t trust each other, they’ve acted against each other’s interest. In some ways, having this concept of the family factor lets us look deeper, uh, than just the presenting problem. We wanna know if the family cares about being family. That’s really all the family factor is about does the family care about being family and yeah, do they care about being family? And do they wanna build that feeling of the importance of family?

Doug Baumoel (05:22): The family factor provides us ways to measure and build this, and I’ll go through some of those ways. So the first sort of metric that we look, that we try to gauge when we, uh, enter a family system is this idea of is there a shared history? Families with a meaningful shared history have something to lose if they don’t do the hard work of compromise, forgiveness, and committing to change. So is there a deep, and is there a meaningful shared history that shared history could be fraught? It could be a negative shared history, but if that’s meaningful to the family, they split up, if they stop being family, they lose, they lose that. And yes, if it’s a fraught history, there might be benefits to losing that, but most often there are, there are things that you can build from the ashes of a fraught shared history.

Doug Baumoel (06:24): On the other side, looking forward, we talk about the shared vision. Does the family have a, um, a clear vision of being a connected family in the future? Or will family disintegrate when the patriarchal matriarch pass? If they have a clear vision, if the traditions of their family mean something that they want to continue in the future, they have something to gain by doing the hard work of compromise, forgiveness, and committing to change. So those are the two metrics that we look at. First and foremost, when we enter a family system, we wanna, we’ll ask questions about what does your family, uh, typically do for, um, retreats? Do you get together, um, uh, over the years? Do you have annual celebrations? Annual retreats? What are those family traditions that you’ve, that have connected you in the past? And we’ll ask questions about how do you see this family unfolding in the future? So, and when we, like I said before, when we begin with a family, even before we’re hired, we’ll be talking about some of these things to gauge for ourselves. Is this a family that’s really a family or is it just a collection of people that share this last name and some assets that really don’t have a connected shared history and are not interested in building one for the future?

Doug Baumoel (07:51): So all of that rests on this sort of fulcrum of trust, and we think about trust a little bit differently than, um, most other folks. And I’ll go into that in, in a bit. Sorry, next slide. Okay. So we, when we think about trust, sorry,

Doug Baumoel (08:18): When we think about trust, which is central to the family factor, um, we think about starting, starting with this idea of predictability. And we start with predictability because it’s the easiest starting point to build from. And what we mean by predictability is that if you know your family members well, and you can reasonably predict how they will behave in certain circumstances, there exists a degree of trust. In addition, if you know how the system that connects you works how things get done, how decisions are made, then you have predictability in the system itself. So your brother, mother, sister, brother cousin, may have very different goals than you have and may be trying to undermine you at every step of the way. But if you know that and you know how the system works, you can not only protect yourself, but you can then start acting beyond your own personal interests and for the interest of the greater family.

Doug Baumoel (09:18): So this idea of predictability is also grounded in psychology. Eric Erikson, noted psychologist, talked about the eight stages of development, and he called the first stage the trust stage. And that’s when infants figure out that when they cry, they will be picked up and fed. Their needs will be met. They figure out that the world is predictable. So this idea of predictability is, is core and that is the easiest place to start. Uh, and when we go into a family and the the starting point is families saying that they don’t trust each other, merely saying, I don’t trust the other. Other is polarizing. Because if you say you don’t trust someone, you can’t sit around a table and make decisions together with them productively. So we’re trying to walk back this idea of of saying that we don’t trust each other in a family. And when we, and when we don’t trust, when we say that, when we want to say that we wanna have a an entry point to start building trust and predictability is that entry point entry.

Doug Baumoel (10:29): Once we build that, then we talk about feeling safe when you’re being vulnerable. And that’s a great definition of trust. But it’s often the first thing that goes when families start fighting. Families can be the most cruel. They know how to push your buttons ’cause they help put ’em in the first place. But you can only start building this safety when there’s a degree of predictability. So there’s sequential. Finally, I call it the icing on the tru cake alignment and affinity. So when people want the same things and they like each other, there’s just this inherent set sense of trust. The problem is, as soon as people stop, start wanting different things, they kind of stop liking each other as much. And this is where people typically start saying, I don’t trust the other. We want different things and I don’t like them anymore. So with this framework, we try to express to family members that while alignment, infinity are, uh, and affinity are nice to have, there are two other levels of trust that might still be there. So before you start saying, I don’t trust the other, which is a very polarizing statement and prevents you from sitting around a table talking to each other, first, appreciate that there r and d, these two other levels that might still be there even though you want different things and may not like the person anymore. Um, and when they might be gone, all of them, there’s a place to start that’s practical, pragmatic, and, um, useful. And that is predictability. So long-winded talk about trust back to the family factor.

Doug Baumoel (12:25): So sometimes in the course of our work with families, we do a conflict presentation and we’ll present stuff like this. We’ll present the family factor, and we’ll talk about how we measure the family factor and how the family factor can be built. And we build it by building connection points with families so that they have a shared history that is not fraught, but productive. Talking about shared vision for being family in the future and building trust. Maybe we start with predictability. Maybe we move on to the other levels of trust. Um, so we, Tiffany and I were actually, uh, onsite at a client earlier in the year, and we had this question from the audience that we’ve never gotten before. And the question was, sorry, the question was, but what’s love got to do with it? And in retrospect, it’s kind of odd that we never got that question before ’cause it’s so obvious. Um, but here we are talking about family connection, family bonds, and we’re not talking about love. So, so the, uh, stakeholder in the back of the room said, what’s love got to do with it? And the answer that we provided was, well, for the purpose of managing conflict, which is what we’re talking about in the moment, our definition of family factor works. It’s sufficient, it’s reliable.

Doug Baumoel (13:58): But on the, on the two and a half hour ride back to the airport with Tiffany, I said, that’s not a good, good enough answer. We need to dig into this. She’s right. What does love have to do with it? That’s something we need to dig into. So on the two and a half hour ride back to the airport, Tiffany and I talked about love and love in families. And so our conversation began thinking of love as, as a feeling, as a feeling that somebody experiences,

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (14:31): Which was how Doug understood her question to be. He thought that she was asking, well, what does it mean to show love as a family member? Or what does it mean to be loving? And what happens if we maybe don’t love each other? Then what?

Doug Baumoel (14:45): So we opened up the question to some of our consultants. We had a group meeting about this, and, um, one of the best answers we got was, well, to love is to will the good of the other. And we, um, you know, we, we talked about this quite a bit and we couldn’t get around the fact that when families are fighting, they often don’t will the good of each other. They will the opposite, they will be ill of each other. So in practice, we thought, well, while that’s a wonderful way to think about love as a feeling when we’re working with families in conflict, that’s not what we’re seeing. That’s not the how love is expressed in in these families. They’ll say that they love each other, but they won’t will the good of each other. And of course, any conversation of, of what is love has to include the, uh, the, uh, standby love means never having to say you’re sorry. And, you know, I think there’s a bunch of other consultants, uh, on the call, and I think everybody will agree that one of the main things we do as consultants when families are in conflict is help them craft accurate, effective, um, uh, honest apology for infractions, whether they are intended or unintended. So this idea of loves of feeling, we sort of got into a dead end and we thought, well then Tiffany chimed in ,

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (16:16): Although I’m the psychologist and you might expect I’m the touchy feeling one, I’m not ever the pragmatist my position was. What I really think she’s asking our audience shake stakeholder is asking is, how do we take care of each other? It’s whether we love how we feel about people in this family isn’t as important as our desire or our goal to take care of each other. Yeah. So we started exploring what,

Doug Baumoel (16:45): Yeah, so, sorry, I wanted to interrupt. Um, yeah, my, my slide didn’t advance, uh, properly. Uh, I wanted to just add one more thing about love as as feeling. Um, people say that they love their family members, even when they say that they actually hate them. They say that they love their family members when they actually take them to court or when they just don’t like spending time with them. Yet they say they love them, they love them when they don’t even speak with them anymore. So people say they love family members until they say that they don’t. And so love is a feeling, and this is where, where Tiffany was chiming in when we were having that conversation. Love is as a feeling described as a feeling is subjective. It’s unreliable and not stable. It changes all the time. It’s hard to measure, it’s hard to build. How do you build feelings of love in a family? Where do you begin? It’s very variable amongst family members. It’s impossible to legislate. And it’s not conducive to a consulting engagement, at least not how we do consulting. So then Tiffany took that on.

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (18:03): Sorry. I will say some of what I think people are referencing when they say I love my family member and hate them though, is that there’s a profound connection that comes from shared history that we do share with family members, which is different from an affection. So anyway, being practical, we started talking about, well, what is love is action. I come from a faith-based background. So I’m used to defining love as it’s defined in first Corinthians 13, which says, love is patient. It’s kind, it’s not jealous. It does not boast. It’s not proud. It respects others. It’s not selfish or easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. It doesn’t delight in bad things, but rejoices in the truth. It protects trust, hopes, and perseveres. So I started talking with Doug about how do we combine something like this, which is what a lot of our families are asking, how do we take care of each other with an operating premise that I hold as a psychologist, which is all behaviors need driven, which is a fancy way of saying people are just trying to get their needs met and families are trying to meet one another’s needs.

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (19:19): So most families are trying to show care for one another or love in action by meeting basic needs like food and shelter, using their resources to meet the needs. Now, these concrete, tangible needs are easier than the intangible, but crucial needs of humans for choice, connection, and competence. And to further complicate that, humans also have needs different needs from one another. And in a family, you’re gonna have multiple and sometimes oftentimes even competing needs. But humans have a strong need for fairness too. So how do you balance out love as action, seeing it as care? The good thing is you can actually be objective about these things. If you’re trying to meet a, a need around food, you can make sure that the plates are all the same or it’s proportional in some way. That will, we’ll talk more about that in a minute. You can have traditions in your family of caregiving. You can measure specifically, like for an example, financial resources. You can measure those. Also. You can build in structures of care. You can even legislate and make rules and rituals around how do we take care of each other? And did someone receive proper care? It is conduct conducive to consulting engagements because insofar as you can legislate it and put it within the governance of a family, you can help families figure this out for themselves. How can they meet the needs of one another?

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (21:02): One difficult thing though that all families run into is this idea that needs are different from person to person. Both people’s capabilities and contributions are different as well as what they need back. So we started talking about in order to take care of one another, care being meeting one another’s needs. And I also wanna pause and reiterate that love is a feeling is very much an internal experience, whereas love is care is an external and connecting experience. Love can be, love is care can be done regardless of how you feel about someone and can be based on your values, not your thoughts or feelings of the moment. So as we were considering, how do we help families structure themselves and their businesses to meet the needs of their members? We started talking a lot about this concept of what is proportionate care

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (22:06): Are, oh, you’re there, ? Uh, yes. So proportionate care comes about based on the reality that all resources are limited or finite. No family has an infinite amount of time, no family has an infinite amount of attention despite most enterprising families having a lot of financial resources. Even those have ends also in family businesses. Opportunities can be finite. Not everybody can be the CEO. Furthermore, the sacrifice, the here that’s on the slide, is referencing energy levels of people or internal resources. You can only give so much until you have nothing else to give. So the amount of sacrifices you can make for the family is going to be limited. Because of that, it’s really important that needs in the family are met in a wise way. You need to be efficient and effective with the resources that you do have. You need to steward your family resources well. So we talked about then how do we actually apply this sort of proportionate care?

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (23:30): And we began to think about it does need to be, it needs to be what an individual wants. There needs to be this notion of reciprocity, meaning in a family, like in the verse that I read before, it’s unselfish. It’s both giving and receiving. It’s not one way it needs to matter. Christmas is coming up. We have the sense of everybody’s been given a sweater that’s the wrong size. Well, that’s not a useful gift because you can’t, it’s the wrong size. So it needs to actually impact and suit the individual. Otherwise it becomes a waste.

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (24:09): Also, it’s going to vary according to the relationship of the needs of a family across time. Lastly, we talked about the types of proportionate care that can exist. It can be really important to help families define what are the standards of care that we provide to our family members. How is this a tradition that we help hold? And how are these standards and expectations communicated with love and care and kindness that are articulation of policy, giving people both a say into it and can really help people value and, and own it. Lastly, it helps them agree to it. Humans have a very strong need for a choice. So making agreements around policies can be important.

Doug Baumoel (25:02): Yeah, and let me, let me just add that, um, when we think of these types of cares and building standards, articulating standards of care, that that we agree as a family to employ, having those articulated through the lens of expressing love as care is very important. And it’s been very effective with the families that we’ve framed this, uh, this idea with. Um, so when we talk about certain policies and we frame the conversation not just about the detail of a policy, but when we ask questions, are we building in appropriate proportionate care to the people that are impacted by these policies, by these agreements, by our decisions regarding funding? Um, when we ask that question, are we building in a pro a proportionate care to the people impacted by these decisions? The conversation is a bit different than we used to have.

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (26:09): Uh, my Doug, we talked about giving some examples for clarity and I’ll, I’ll do that now. Uh, some example, like a, a lot of families have an education policy and support and fund education of members, which is a way of taking care for their educational needs and often might include in that agreement you have to maintain a B average and above. Another common way that families take care is if a family member is sick, either from flu or from cancer, and it’s how do we meet those needs of the family member going through that particular difficulty. Something that we do see families get off base with this idea of proportionate care is if somebody’s had a problem in the past, such as cancer of a child, where the family might be in the habit of giving them so much care that was needed at the time, that then it can get off base in the future and other, other children might get left out. Or how do family members assign ration resources to someone’s struggling with addiction and meet their needs for that disorder and balance with other needs that family members might have to have a safe and peaceful holiday. So it can be very complex with competing needs within a family.

Doug Baumoel (27:38): And I think the, um, the grounding principle here is to have these conversations with this preamble of when you’re going into, for example, the prenuptial agreement conversation, have it framed as this is a way, this is how we care for and show love to the incoming family member, while also caring and, and supporting the broader family. So framing all of these things that all family business consultants probably deal with on a regular basis, and all family members, uh, all families need to, to address at some point in their evolution by framing this as this is, these agreements are not just agreements. These agreements are how we articulate and express love as care. So when you see these things as how those, how how we articulate love and care to our family members, they take on a different meaning and they become a lot, the conversations around them become much more impactful and actually better.

Doug Baumoel (28:57): Wrong one wrong button. So, um, you know, when we were thinking about, um, takeaways, I thought I had my consulting hat on and I said, so let’s talk to consultants, uh, out there, what are the consulting takeaways from this? And then I thought about this and we didn’t have time, time to change the slide. These are more than just consulting takeaways. These are, these are questions and, and prompts that family members can ask each other. You don’t need a consultant to ask these questions. How does the family care for each other individually and collectively? What are the standards, expectations, traditions, examples and exceptions? What are the limits?

Doug Baumoel (29:41): Um, what is expected in terms of reciprocation? Are there family members that are, you know, you’re providing care to and they’re not providing care back? When does that, when does that relationship wear out? And how do you have the conversation with the person about giving back? Um, and explore where, and this is from our perspective, often why we get called in, which is instances where expected proportionate care is not evidenced, where people aren’t showing up to that Thanksgiving dinner because they’re angry or that birthday party because they’re not speaking with somebody anymore. Have the standards changed? Is family growing apart? Are they, um, you know, getting older, busy with their own lives? Or does that indicate that there’s something, something wrong, something going on with that relationship or with the family compact as a whole? So anyway, these are the, the new thinking that, that, um, sorry, I keep pressing the wrong buttons.

Doug Baumoel (30:54): So this is the, uh, the new thinking that, that in this past year, we’ve, uh, sort of added to our thinking about the family factor. So yes, the family factor as a, as a, um, component in our conflict management methodology is fine. Is the family bond strong enough to leverage compromise, forgiveness, commitment to change? And these three ways to measure and build it are valid? Absolutely. But when we think broader, when we think about well beyond, um, beyond just simply managing conflict, if we are trying to build resilient families for the future, adding this other, um, component to the family factor is really useful. Do all family member, do all family members receive proportionate care? ? So, um, yeah, we hope this perspective, this new perspective has been useful for both the families that have tuned in today and the consultants and other advisors to families. Um, the answer to, sorry. Yeah. The answer to what’s love got to do with it, it’s showing proportionate care even when it’s difficult, even when there’s conflict, even when feelings of love are absent, that’s what keeps families strong. That’s sort of the showing proportionate care is the oil in the engine that keeps families resilient.

David Shaw (32:27): Well, that was, uh, really terrific, both of you. And there are some questions and some framing, uh, around framing. But very early on in the, uh, in the webinar, um, somebody commented that the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference and you framing it as care seems to be with that. Correct. So you’ve got, when someone’s indifferent to you, that’s the opposite of love,

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (32:56): Right? Right. The indifference or un not caring. So we would definitely say un uncaring is, is they don’t just don’t care is the same as indifference. And, and I would agree if there’s still, if there’s anger or rage that can, we can work with those emotions.

Doug Baumoel (33:18): Yeah. And that’s really core to the, um, to that idea of is the family bond strong enough When people don’t care about being family, it’s not

David Shaw (33:29): Okay. So there was, I’m sorry …

Doug Baumoel (33:32): And there’s nothing for us to work with.

David Shaw (33:35): There was another framing question, which was, you know, there’s always been talk about, you know, are we a family business or a business family? Mm-hmm . Does the caring or love factor, the family factor fit in when there’s a business?

Doug Baumoel (33:51): Well, certainly, for example, take a family employment policy when you approach a family employment policy with the framing of, we’re using this policy not only to provide career pathing for next gens and you know, have, you know, appropriate, uh, credentials for each role protecting the business, making sure that that, um, non-family members, uh, are respected in the process of bringing family members on. But when you approach that conversation from the perspective of how do we design this policy to express love as care for not only the company but the individual family member being brought in? So that leads you to maybe some things you didn’t think of, for example. But if it doesn’t work out, how do we treat the family member that made this big commitment at a crucial part in their development to join a family business and it doesn’t work out right.

Doug Baumoel (34:58): How do we care for them on the way out? What kind of programs for re uh, relocation in another enterprise, uh, support financially for, for the time spent outside of work? So we can’t, we’re not here to talk about specific policies for specific agreements, uh, but just the overarching sentiment that approaching all of these agreements having to do with business ownership, shareholders agreements, buy sells, asking the question at the outset of those conversations. This is an example of how we are going to express love as care for all the family members and other people. We, we rely on other employees, et cetera, um, that are impacted by this policy agreement or whatever it is.

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (35:57): I also think, David, that that question comes up when families or family, enterprising families are contemplating selling the primary operating business. And that’s such a huge identity shift. Mm-hmm. So the idea of talking about could this help us care for our family in a different way, can help them decide what’s best for the family moving forward.

David Shaw (36:19): Okay. Um, so let’s, uh, let’s go to a another area. So early on, Doug, you, you spoke about, you know, vulnerability as part of that trust, uh, stepping stone. If some family members are having trouble being vulnerable and always have a wall up, how do those who are vulnerable and help them, especially when the one who isn’t vulnerable also believe he’s the leader, but is missing some emotional intelligence?

Doug Baumoel (36:50): Um, so I lost some of that. You, you faded out a bit.

David Shaw (36:53): I’m very sorry. So, um, how do vulnerable people help those who can’t be vulnerable or don’t have the EQ to be vulnerable?

Doug Baumoel (37:04): Uh, I’ll, I’ll let Tiffany handle this and I’ll think about that for a minute. There’s a lot in that question,

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (37:12): Right? Right. Well, and I’m contemplating ,

Doug Baumoel (37:15): Well, first of all, uh, vulnerability, those that are not expressing vulnerability in a way that others perceive, it might feel vulnerable. Anyway.

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (37:31): I think so there, since they don’t have that sense of safety to do that, the, the question too is around, or I think part of the question is how do we build emotional intelligence in family members?

David Shaw (37:42): Well, it was more that the person who isn’t vulnerable also believes that person is the leader. So, you know, is, you know, ha is let’s say the CEO or the chairman,

Doug Baumoel (37:57): So they’re Right. They’re not letting their guard down. They’re not being vulnerable. They’re the strong A type leader who’s

David Shaw (38:03): Exactly.

Doug Baumoel (38:04): Yeah, exactly. So there’s a lot in that question. Um, yeah. And it goes beyond. Um, so you, so yes. Can a person like that, um, develop trust in the system? Well, you know, I think that is a very common problem in families when you have strong leaders. In fact, I, I think Paul Edelman might be on this call, I saw him on the list. Paul and I just did a, uh, uh, presentation on dichotomies in family businesses. And we noted that the, um, characteristics that make for a really good CEO entrepreneur might be, um, not so great in being a great parent and being a great family member and developing that sense of trust. You know, those, those qualities of a strong-willed entrepreneur that, that, you know, if you’re gonna be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be very self-assured, self-confident, know that what you’re selling and how you’re selling it is better than your competitors. Bringing that energy back to a family is often not very productive, and it’s hard to turn that off, especially when that’s part of who you are. So it is a common problem in families that have a, you know, that are at that, that have an entrepreneurial strong-willed leader. Uh, they tend not to let their guards down. And in fact, Tiffany, I, I’m, I’m remembering a family that we’re working with currently, um, we’re, we’re helping individuals be, um, more open.

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (39:55): And I wondered, yeah, I wanna interrupt a bit. I’m wondering when they’re asking about vulnerability though, with the leadership, if what their meaning is humility, which is a different thing.

David Shaw (40:06): Well, I think I, I don’t wanna over interpret the question, and, uh, so, but he, uh, here the questioner comes back in and says, an individual in our family believes that my expectations are too high. Uh, all I’m looking for is to be informed, you know, blah, blah, blah, uh, sorry, blah, blah, blah, common decency, hellos, goodbyes, all of that. It’s the same person who asked the question about how do vulnerable people deal, create trust with people who are ostensibly not vulnerable.

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (40:44): So it sounds like their, their statement was their wanting what they consider common decency. So their need is for a level of civility or cordial greetings and a level of shared information. Right. So to me, healthy vulnerability can also be authenticity, which is making a request. I would argue though, when it’s framed as a demand, it’s no longer vulnerable. So to ask someone to greet you too could be a request. It’s, and it’s vulnerable to say, I need this, or I would like this, or this is important to me. It’s maybe not so vulnerable to say, do this this way.

Doug Baumoel (41:29): So one thing that, that we, we do is help the, um, help that leader explore and be comfortable with vulnerable conversations. So sometimes leaders like that need to, first of all, be aware that their behavior has an impact, and that impact might be counterproductive to what they’re trying to accomplish. That’s number one. And number two, they may just need practice. They may need somebody to be the, you know, the, the horse whisperer for them to be the person that says a different style of communication would be helpful here, and we can help you learn that because everybody has their own communication style. And some styles don’t come across as, you know, being vulnerable, open, et cetera. Right. But, uh, there’s, for most people, there’s areas where they can learn and stretch and, and with good coaching and, uh, awareness, you know, helping people become more self-aware, you can move the needle on that. So I think that’s, that’s an answer to that question.

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (42:47): Tension, intention, interpretation and impact are swirling through that. Okay.

Doug Baumoel (42:54): Yeah.

David Shaw (42:54): Well, there was a follow up. Uh, the, um, the questions are, uh, coming in fast. Uh, but this one was, I think you were talking about this, Doug, how do you help family members build their eq? Especially if they’re perhaps in that entrepreneurial? I don’t listen to anybody, but

Doug Baumoel (43:13): Yeah. Yeah. By the way, I, I don’t wanna demonize that, that is how entrepreneurs think, but not all, of course. But, but you have to have some of that in you to build the kinds of companies that we see in our, in our families that we work with, right? So, um, practice, first of all, they have to understand, they have to see the need, they have to see the need that there’s, that there’s unintended consequences to their, um, their communication styles. And to be open to getting some help in reframing how they have conversations with people that they love. Because, you know, one of the bullets on one of the slides was care and communications. Care and communications is, sorry. Uh, communication is showing care in the moment. How you communicate with people is an expression of how you care about them. Yeah. And when people are having difficult communications, communications that aren’t landing right. Um, the target of that, their needs are not getting met. Yeah. And if that’s the intention of that person who’s, who’s had trying to have that interaction, well, if it’s intentional, that’s one thing. If it’s unintentional, then they should be open to finding better ways to communicate. And that’s what consultants help people do. Coaches, consultants.

David Shaw (44:55): Well, that’s a brilliant lead into this question, which is, um, how do you communicate care when the, in, when different generations communicate different ways? How do you overcome the fact that boomers probably communicate a little differently than millennials or Gen Xers or so on? And, uh, what happens there?

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (45:20): I think a lot of our work is being translators as consultants and family businesses. And this also answers some of your how to build emotional intelligence from a young age all the way through. When we’re not here anymore, people can learn with good, clear, kind feedback. So we regularly meet with families and do exercises to help them understand generational differences, personality differences, how now that you have in-laws, how things might be perceived. And I have a meeting with do a family retreat next week and have kind of a fun questionnaire around, do you like to be texted, or do you think that a call’s better or stopping by your house? And just getting families to start talk about this. And they’ll always be surprised that, that, like, I, I know for my generation and below, and I’m 44 , we all, we all turn our phones off at night, and you know, it’s on do not disturb, but generational, others don’t. So I have to remember, don’t text someone at night because they might actually get it, or when I wake up at 5:00 AM So discussion and sensitivity, and that re the understanding, we do things differently. People do things differently.

Doug Baumoel (46:40): And I, I agree, and I wanna double down on what Tiffany said about being translators. It’s not only generational differences, but cultural differences. So we often work with families where, uh, the senior generation might be a first generation, uh, American and their values are very different from the values of their children who are growing up in a very different environment than they did. So, yeah, I think, uh, being translators is an accurate, um, yeah. Term for a lot of what we do.

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (47:16): I love it. I think it’s really fun. It’s so exciting to help people who disconnect and don’t understand to see each other in a new light.

David Shaw (47:25): Okay. Oh, it was a question directed at you, Tiffany, which is, some of our families seem to be able to turn off their feelings, even if care remains. They just ignore the bad acting family member for extended periods of time. And then resolution seems to be impossible.

Doug Baumoel (47:46): Are they still showing care?

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (47:48): Showing?

David Shaw (47:49): I don’t, the question says, yeah,

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (47:51): It sounds so there’s a level of compartmentalization that I would say is composure and is is healthy. I don’t if they’re, they’re describing, um, turning a, a cutoff, they’re correct, is not going to get through resolution, get you to a resolution. And I would say that, and, and we are, we’re currently in a culture that is, that almost acts like cancel culture or cutoff is the solution to things that’s more black and white thinking. Instead of having patients with minor differences or disagreements or having effective, proactive approaches to actual unhealthy problems, such as substance abuse in a family gathering that’s, that’s interfering with people’s ability to relate to another, or you, you know, it’s not healthy to put someone in a position in a family business that they’re not qualified to be successful in. So you need to proactively take care of your family members and do something differently.

Doug Baumoel (48:59): Um …

David Shaw (49:00): So, so in that case, cutting off communication or ignoring the bad actor isn’t really showing care.

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (49:08): Well, I, I don’t, it, it depends on the situation. I, we talk about that in terms of reducing interdependence is the fancy family business consulting term for that. So there’s a time and place for that. And fortunately, most people like can do what I would call like the preschool approach, which is fine, then you’re not coming to my birthday party. And that’s their first statement. The moment it’s not their, their turn or they don’t get their way. Whereas we want to build sophisticated means of taking care of one another, and we want it to be about resolving differences or disagreements, accommodating risk, whatnot, while also there is a a point in time, yeah, you need to immobilize something that’s dangerous in the, so,

Doug Baumoel (49:55): And one, one thing, when we talk about cutoffs, when we see cutoffs in families and we look at their genogram, their family tree, and we go back generations, most often we see that this is a learned family response to conflict. We cut each other out of our families. Grandpa didn’t speak to his brother, grandma didn’t speak to her sister. Um, we see cutoff behavior generation after generation when we see it in the present generation, because it’s learned. That’s how we, that what it does is it transmits this normalization that cutting family members out of our lives is as a way to manage conflict is acceptable. And what we, when we work with families that have cutoffs or that we’re coming in to an existing or, uh, an in process cutoff, one, one of the things we say is, this is learned behavior. And you’re basically, if you don’t talk to your parent, your sibling, you’re teaching your kids that that’s okay. And that’s gonna come back to bite you because they’re gonna be angry with you one day.

David Shaw (51:04): What if, so there’s another question in here that I’m gonna try and wedge into that, which is, uh, in this situation, there are, uh, some children, uh, o one of them rarely sees the other two primarily because of distance and lifestyle, but there has been some poor past behavior. How do you overcome distance and, you know, using distance or lifestyle as a, as a cutoff without it really feeling like a cutoff?

Doug Baumoel (51:40): I’ll … can I jump in there? That’s exactly what we’re talking about. Setting standards for care. That’s exactly what we’re talking about. Um, as families move apart and distance happens. It’s going to happen in families as they expand, as they get bigger, more family branches, harder to communicate, harder to live together, setting those standards and expectations and families of how we will stick together, that’s the oil in the, in the engine that keeps families together. So make it clear, articulate it. Tiffany, you want to add to that?

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (52:18): Yes, I, I, our premise, operating premise is that families have a deep connection whether they want it or not, or not. and building healthy relationships and healthy ways of taking care of one another will help optimize the, the resources and access to everyone’s resources. So it sounds like if, if a family is just drifting apart or a branch drifts apart, then there’s, there’s, they’re not able to come together to use their resources. Well, and I think that

Doug Baumoel (53:03): Yeah.

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (53:03): Yeah. For, for, I, we, we would say that that is a loss and it’s a common loss, and that you can use skills like a lot of cutoffs happen because there’s a lack of conflict resolution skills there. People don’t know how to share and take turns. People don’t know how to wait their turn. People don’t know how to advocate for their point of view. And those are all things that you can teach young children all the way up through 80 year olds, , or doing. So it, it can, it can be taught and if that’s what they want to do it.

Doug Baumoel (53:39): And I’m wondering if that person who is sort of being distant, would they come to a retreat in a nice place if it was offered

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (53:52): Right. When somebody,

Doug Baumoel (53:54): Yeah.

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (53:55): Somebody doesn’t have be caring, right? At some point there has to be leadership in the family from someone who says, this group matters. How can we connect as a group, grow as a group mm-hmm. And take care of one another as a group.

Doug Baumoel (54:12): Well said.

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (54:14): So …

David Shaw (54:15): Excellent. In fact, I …

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (54:16): Think it’s worth doing. That’s what our careers are about, is helping people take care of each other and connect better and resolve those conflicts that get in the way of people enjoying what they have and knowing where they’re going.

David Shaw (54:30): Okay. Well, I, there are some more questions that are perhaps too complex for the time we have left, but there was one statement, uh, which I’d like to, uh, express, which is from one of our viewers. Happy birthday, Doug

Doug Baumoel (54:46): Thank you. That was actually yesterday.

David Shaw (54:50): Oh, was it yesterday? Well, it’s a belated birthday. Thank

Doug Baumoel (54:52): You. Whoever it was. I appreciate it.

David Shaw (54:54): You, uh, and, uh, you know, you were talking about conflict there, and I did wanna bring up here, this is, uh, Doug’s, uh, book with Blair Trippe. And, uh, this is a really excellent book. Uh, I’ve read it. I have, uh, I, I think what, uh, Doug and, and Blair hit on here is, could be really helpful to you. Families that are in conflict, find it on Amazon. So, uh, any comments on the book, uh, Doug?

Doug Baumoel (55:23): Um, no, it’s a, we’re, we’re happy. If anybody gets it and wants to ask questions, just call us. We’re happy to talk about it at any time. And, and if there are additional questions that we haven’t gotten to, I’m sure David will send ’em to us and you will get answers

David Shaw (55:38): In Indeed. Uh, can you, uh, uh, time for one quick takeaway. Uh, what’s the biggest takeaway you two would offer to our audience?

Doug Baumoel (55:47): So for me, it’s the overarching concept of the family factor with the new addition about providing proportional care, so building that shared history, leveraging that, creating a shared vision of being family in the future and building trust. And there’s a roadmap to build trust. So building the family factor, that’s what keeps families together and resilient for generations through conflict. Tiffany, do you have another?

Dr. Tiffany Whitworth (56:21): I think I’ll say amen. And yes, I, I hope people leave inspired to be strategic and intentional in how they take care of one another so that they can leverage the resources of their family. And most important human resource, I think that we all have is our relationships. Yeah. So anything people can do to build better relationships, whether it’s upping your emotional IQ or your conflict management skills, or having a thoughtful family employment policy. So I, I just would encourage us to try to be patient and kind with one another, particularly with the holidays coming up as ways to take care of each other. Yep.

David Shaw (57:15):  Excellent. Well, I thank you both for your time today. This is really excellent. Uh, questions and, uh, difficulties that some of you are encountering. Uh, we will, uh, share these with Doug and Tiffany and they can reach out to you, uh, separately on that. And, uh, you may find some interesting solutions in there. Yeah. And then I’d like to say thank you to all of you for attending our webinars throughout this year. Uh, this is our last family business webinar for the year, but we’ll be back again, uh, next year. It’s hard to say that, but uh, next year is almost upon us here. Yeah. Um, so what I’d like to just say to all of you is thank you. If you’re looking at things that you’d like to give your family next year, um, here are three events that we have coming up in the first half transitions, looks at issues of family dynamics and communications and conflict. Legacy looks at issues of estate planning, wealth transfer trust, raising unentitled kids. And if you’re working on your business governance, the private company Governance Summit helps make your, uh, uh, focuses on making your family business board as effective as possible. So with all of that, you can hit these QR codes if you’d like. We’d love to see you next year, uh, at one or more of these events. Uh, but in the meantime, I wish you and your families the very happiest of holidays.