From Calamity to Sanity: How to craft a strong family culture
Being good at conversations that matter separates strong family cultures from chaotic. The conversation need not be structured or systematic, yet for many families, conversation itself can be calamitous. Understanding conversation and using a system to build learning about these important conversations is the basis of my approach in the book.
I can usually anticipate or sense one of these conversations by the effort that is needed to lean in. If it is easier to avoid having the chat because the stakes are high (at least higher than normal) then the chances are that you have approached one of these important discussions. These conversations don’t come easily to most of us, and they require some effort, if not skill.
What doesn’t matter, though, is the unique mix of circumstance you are facing. You may be working, or not. Your kids might be home-schooling, or just on holidays. What ever your circumstances, it is almost certain that a conversation about how we should work and relate as a family will bring at least some sanity. Especially for you, if you are a working parent.
So the idea is to start with a planning conversation, one that I simply call The First Conversation. A principle of this approach is to expose emotions and difficulties - the things we normally don’t talk much about - so that they are visible and acknowledged. It is also worthwhile not making this too ‘heavy’. The goal is to open up the conversation, not to make it feel like a ‘corporate’ process.
Later, you will return to the Talk phase to check in on how the Do phase went. This is a time where you use conversation to reflect, assess and (again) plan the next Do phase. While the origin of these sorts of conversations is the workplace, I have put some serious effort into ‘family-fying’ the ideas - you can let me know how successful I’ve been. I love feedback and I’m always looking for ways to make my ideas more accessible.
Depending on the age and personality of your family ‘team’, you should:
Approach the situation as new learning journey for everyone. Moreover, consider this more as an experiment. This helps detach yourself to some degree from the outcome, allowing for more objectivity. This also means that some things you try will work, others will not.
As you progress through your learning, be prepared to try different things, abandon some and change or keep others.
Take the opportunity for you to learn, model and teach resilience and adaptability in a real situation. Your kids will learn some wonderful life skills by doing this.
Have someone to lead each conversation. It makes sense to start with a parent, but as you cycle through the weeks, build leadership in your kids by handing this over to them. Here, the role is to manage the conversation, not to impose opinions, and to ensure everyone has a say.
Have regular conversations. It does take effort, but the potential return on your effort is huge. A suggestion is 30 minutes somewhere early each week. It is likely that your first get-together will take longer. As the skills of the team develop, your sessions will become shorter.
So this Talk phase is all about planning and reflecting, while the overarching process is a mix of planning-reflection and action, interspersed with celebration. As simple as that. This is not about treating the family as if it were a corporate environment. It is much more about understanding that the three phases of Talk, Do and Celebrate support the maintenance and development of any relationship. I’m proposing a system here that makes it easy to adopt these stages, especially given that most families, I suspect, are big on Doing, might do the odd bit of Celebrating, and rarely Talk such that they are having learning conversations.
Like any system, once you know how it works, it becomes the way you work. Next time I’ll show you how your can set up success through The First Conversation.
