How to Keep the Conversation on Track in a Family Business

Do you know how to keep the conversation on track in a family business? It’s difficult but attainable.

Not only are there the emotional landmines of finances, performance issues, and too much coffee, but you also have to navigate personal issues and interpersonal relationship challenges both at work and at home. And those might both be in the same place!!! Lord Help US ALL!

There are layers of nuance to this conversation, so I hope you keep reading and interacting as we deepen the discussion, but you can start using this framework today to help your meetings stay on track in your family business.

The Functional Family Meeting Triangle:

Intention – What we hope to accomplish from this meeting
Container – Where will the meeting be and what boundaries will be in place?
Creation – Alignment and action steps

Start by identifying the intention of the meeting. Not just what is to be discussed, but what is the outcome you all want to achieve? This intention could be set by the person calling the meeting, but if you’re trying to move your company forward, it may be beneficial to let more than one person or the whole team be involved in determining the intention of the meeting. In this situation, one person may propose the intention and let the team decide on a final group intention which is written on the wall to keep the meeting on track.

Next, consider the container needed to hold the conversation or help accomplish the intention. Think about the physical logistics of the location, time, date, etc., and how that “container” will affect the different participants in the meeting. Will one person will be having to care for kids during the meeting? That may put them at an unfair disadvantage, something you should want to avoid altogether in your family business. Should it be a zoom, an in-person, an out-of-town retreat, the first part of a romantic dinner (or not!), or a weekly scheduled thing that everyone can plan around?
Also, what emotional or behavioral boundaries need to be in place? Perhaps no texting during meetings to discourage side talk that needs to be put on the table? Maybe certain topics need to be taboo in group meetings of a threshold size? You need clarity around business structure and who’s in charge of what/who and how everyone is held accountable in order to work with family and institute boundaries that might touch intimate subjects.

Finally, complete the third corner of the triangle together as a team. Creation refers to what will be created before, during, and after the meeting. First, think about incorporating an intentional way to create alignment of your hearts and spirits as you begin a meeting together. This could be a team mantra, a prayer, a land acknowledgment, a meditation, a gratitude circle, a sales slogan, an agreement on the intention of the meeting, or any other number of rituals or traditions.
The point is to bring everyone together towards the intention before you begin. Create the environment for the meeting.
Then, create action steps throughout the meeting. Make sure everyone leaves the meeting knowing what they are responsible for completing and how that will be followed up on. Always keep your intention in focus as a team and you’ll be amazed at how each person will buy in to the action steps they contribute to the creation.

I can’t wait to hear how this model works for you in your next family business meeting, but also, I don’t want to minimize or skip the important conversation about the depth of personal work we need to do if we want to be successful in general.

Success is defined individually, and digging into the topic deeper is how to figure out what that means for you and your family business.

To help my coaching and consulting clients dig deeper, I developed The Hart Habits, a set of 10 habits that help us develop success in our lives and relationships.

Everything I create is based on them, so let me show you how to expand on this discussion for yourself using them. See if they remind you where to dig deeper in your situation.

The 10 Hart Habits are:

Self, Truth, Trust, Thoughts, Talk, Non-Verbals, Record, Protect, Endure, and, Hope.

Here’s How The Hart Habits work:

First, recognize it always starts within our Self.

Ask yourself:

Are you working in your strengths in this business?

Are you healing and loving your shadow self?

Are you prioritizing your connection to Spirit?

Are you being clear about your values and boundaries?

Next, think about how these questions could inform the content of your family business meetings and their ongoing success or failure.
What truths are trying to be seen? The truth can be subjective and what is true for one may be false for another. That doesn’t make it less true. Our job is not to know or even understand the truth, but rather to celebrate it, or acknowledge it openly so we can work with it instead of trying to fight or hide it. We can get truth from a lot of different places so focus on those that directly pertain.

Next, how can you each extend trust to one another and also create systems to verify if there are areas where doubts could creep in? Are you trusting yourself and others to be exactly who they have shown themselves to be? No one is perfect and we all deserve to be accepted for who we actually are, not who others wish we were. Systems help us create checks and balances and our trust can be given freely when we put systems in to verify trustworthiness.

What thoughts are you having about the business, your family member, and yourself? You may or may not be able to address these with your family member(s) yet, but you can certainly address them within yourself and in therapy if needed. Maybe your thoughts should be adjusted or maybe they need to be said out loud so they can be faced.

How are you talking about the issues, the solutions, your family members, and the vision of the business? I’m not suggesting you only say good things and then everything will be good. However, it IS important to hear the words we say out loud to ensure they’re in alignment with the goals we’re trying to accomplish, not just the failures, weaknesses, and mistakes we all encounter as humans.

Your thoughts will always show themselves in your non-verbals. So, it’s important to check your thoughts, but also listen when the people around you are responding to your non-verbal communications as well. They aren’t imagining it, you just aren’t hiding your true feelings very well. The more you can keep your non-verbals conscious, the better you can stop sending messages you’d rather not.

What information is or should be written down or documented for tracking and marking progress towards success? Keeping a visual record of what we’re doing and why is a powerful way to keep motivation up for the whole team and it allows us to course-correct more efficiently.
Some of you love the eighth Habit, protect because it’s what you’ve always believed. It’s your job to protect your family member from the harsh realities of the family business, right?
Nope. Wrong.
You’re not getting off that easy.
The only thing you actually CAN protect them from is YOUR judgments and opinions. However, you can also protect their secrets from the rest of the world. If you want to work well with family, you’ll probably need to work with people outside your family as well. Protecting people from your judgments and protecting their secrets from others will help them feel safer when working with you. People who feel safe are able to tap into their full creativity and productivity much more easily.

Endurance is easy to talk about but not as easy to do. If you’ve taken the time to think about the previous eight Habits, endure is about keeping your eyes on the goal and consistently taking one step at a time. A family business can be hard, but focus on the end goal and keep pushing forward. You CAN get there. Ask yourself how can the goals be broken down into pieces everyone on the team can handle?

The final Hart Habit is hope. It might seem like the most difficult to consistently practice, especially in our current global state, but it actually happens as a natural consequence of practicing the rest of the Habits. Sometimes, you’ll need to reach out and find it, but over time and practice of the Habits, you’ll be someone others reach out to find hope from. The key thing to remember about hope is that it’s not based on pie-in-the-sky dreaming. True hope comes from facing the realities of a situation while embracing the pathways to resolution that exist in your community with others.
The basis of hope becomes the knowing that you are loved beyond measure and the Universe loves helping you solve problems through the people and nature you are in relationship with. All you really have to do is pay attention.

I hope this gave you food for thought and a few tools to help you make your family business successful by your definition!
Sign up for my newsletter at https://theharthabits.com to get more tools and practical advice right to your inbox.

Disclaimer –

This video is NOT sponsored. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. This helps support the channel and allows me to continue to make videos like this one. But don’t worry, it does not affect the price you pay. 😉
Thank you for your support.

📕 Recommended Resources:

⚡ Crack the Code – Anthony and Melanie Clark: https://amzn.to/3DOwp4I
⚡ Modern Mystic Institute – Lyndsey Pera: https://www.modernmysticsinstitute.com/
⚡ Whiteness at Work – Desiree Adaway, Ericka Hines, Jessica Fish: https://whitenessatwork.com
⚡ Body of Work – Pamela Slim: https://amzn.to/3jl6bxl
⚡ Everything by Brené Brown: https://amzn.to/3xp5FDk
⚡ Raising Anti-Racist Kids – Nicole Lee: https://amzn.to/3xp5FDk
⚡ Calm: https://calm.com
📱 Prefer Kindle? https://amzn.to/3vUhem6

🔊 Prefer Audio? Audible Plus free trial – https://amzn.to/3uRkbmf

📺 Recommended Channel:

Creative Live – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkiC21kJxYO_eUEJ5GgFLnw