“So much of what gets decided in business is based on relationships.”
On November 12, Kathy Wiseman presented a day of her thinking about how she uses Bowen family systems theory in her work as a family business consultant. She encouraged the audience to think about how they go about their own work. The goal was to stimulate thinking about the field of family business consulting as seen through the lens of emotional process. Ms. Wiseman told the audience how she came to her interest in emotional process, Bowen theory, and family business through her own family history and from her experiences in the field. She showed a video documenting the natural history of a family business succession through the lens of emotional process over a period of ten years.She talked about the challenges and outcomes of her consultation experiences with several family business foundations and outlined her approach to consulting. To demonstrate a principle for productive family meetings, she led the audience in an exercise of thinking in groups that are structured to protect and promote individuality.
Four Themes in the Application of Theory to the Family Emotional System in Family Business
1. Relationships are the underlying determinants of how individuals make decisions and the problems in doing so.
In families and in the workplace people are connected and interdependent and they depend on one another. Whenever people spend time together it is automatic that an emotional system is established. People develop opinions about one another and they affect the ability to work together and make decisions.
The degree of ability to work together, and to separate, varies between workplaces. Those connected to the system such as suppliers and consultants are all part of the system.
In groups emotionality shows up as anxiety and is transmitted instantaneously. Each person influences the emotional system and has the ability to affect the entire group to decrease anxiety.
The impact of anxiety on thinking and sensitivity in the group is not often recognized, but if someone can recognize the anxiety and take positions that slow down reactivity so that people can think more it can make a difference. With anxiety everything gets amped up including real and imaginary problems, making everything more difficult to deal with.
2. Consultation based on knowledge of emotional process involves structuring a process over time that facilitates individuality and thinking in the family. This is so that the family is better able to come to a resolution that fits them and that steps they will take are ones that are best for them and their assets.
Expectations that the family problem can be solved by prescribing what to do can work out for some, some of the time. Often however the emotional process is such that it will take time for a family to resolve the underlying tensions that block resolution. If the consultant can stay neutral and in contact with the family, the family has a way of finding their own way through the impasses. The family may need a long period of time to process all the issues and for the individual family members to be able to define where they stand.
Pushing people to bring emotional issues out in leadership retreats and family meetings can result in the escalation of anxiety rather than the resolution of emotional issues. In a family or leadership team where the emotionality is too intense externalizing issues in a haphazard way will not have good results.
Understanding what happens when anxiety hits is a guiding principle. (more…)
