Given the time of year – early fall, with classes starting up at many colleges and universities – it is time for the media blitz on “the college question”. Different media sources frame the question in different ways.

Foxnews.com has had a series recently on the topic, including “Is college worth the money?” and “Choosing a College: Liberal Arts vs. Professional Training”. Time magazine’s August 21, 2006 cover asks the question “Who needs Harvard?” with a subtitle of “How to find the right college for you”. And there are numerous columns in newspapers addressing the issue (“How to fund your college education”).

The problem is – the questions are framed incorrectly.

No one can genuinely answer a global question “is college worth it” for all the individuals considering the question for themselves. The questions need to be framed more specifically:

*Is going to (insert college/university name here), taking X, Y & Z courses, a good direction for you this fall, given your current financial situation and your current career goals?

There are lots of variables that need to be considered:

-the cost of the educational experience (tuition, housing, books, food)

-how the costs will be paid (you, your folks, scholarships, loans)

-the quality of education and training you will receive

-your current career direction (do you have one?)

-your (and your parents’) values regarding education

-your (and your parents’) tolerance for risk (in this case, debt)

-what would you be doing if you didn’t take classes (work? play video games?)

The reality is – the answer is going to be different for most individuals, and even the same person at different times. However, I will offer one general principle with regards to career exploration (a fancy name for the process of determining “what am I going to do with the rest of my life?”). It is easier to figure out where you are going on a trip if you’ve seen a few places, and it is really hard to turn a parked car.

Generally speaking, I think it is best for people to choose to do something (take a class, go to school for a semester) than not do something. A pattern I am seeing among young adults today is the tendency toward passivity – waiting, putting things off – rather than taking action and being proactive.

I believe it is better to learn what you don’t want to do by having a negative experience than not to learn anything because you chose to do nothing.

One of the biggest headaches for employers and managers is the process of finding new employees. Employee hiring takes a lot of time and emotional energy – and most managers are not trained in the process. Add to this scenario the fact that there is a shortage of quality employees in a number of fields. For example, in a recent article in CFO (August 2006, “Have CPA, Will Travel?”), it is reported that there is are not enough accountants to go around for businesses in the industrialized world.

Business owners tend to panic when they feel one of their key employees is dissatisified, or if they hear the employee is “looking around”. The reaction can be so intense that the manage will sometimes go and say, “What do you want? I’ll give almost anything for you to stay!”

The problem is – this is the wrong approach. Business owners and managers need to understand why people choose to leave their current position. And it is rarely because they are not getting enough of something (money, prestige, influence, control). Rather, people leave their current job because of something that is really bugging them (and it occurs repeatedly).

In understanding job satisfaction, you need to know that there are two major variables – job satisifiers and job dissatisfiers. Satisfiers are those positive aspects that reward us – salary, bonuses, a nice office (a window!), prestige, 3 weeks vacation, quality support staff, etc.

Job satisfiers are those factors that we look for when we are searching for a job. They are what we want. And they make our daily work worth working for.

But business owners and managers need to understand that it is the job dissatisifiers that drive people away. Dissatisfiers are those characteristics of the job setting that we dislike – how far we have to commute, the coworker that irritates us, a lack of responsiveness from one department in the company (that is critical for us to complete our job successfully), a lack of follow through on commitments made by management, unrealistic expectations for lead time to get projects done, and so forth.

When the daily experience of a job becomes loaded with painful experiences – that is when an employee starts looking around for a different place to work.

Most people don’t like change. And they will try to “stick it out” in their current situation as long as possible. But if they see no hope for change and their daily work is full of negatives, they will change to get away from the pain.

But the problem is – most managers and employers try to get the employee to stay by solving the wrong problem, they try to give more positives. They don’t see (or hear) the negatives that need to be addressed.

It is like this – if you have a tack in your shoe that hurts every time you take a step, eating some ice cream doesn’t take away the pain. You may really like ice cream, and generally appreciate the offer to have a bowl of mint chocolate chip. But you would prefer taking out the tack first. No amount of ice cream will make that pain go away.

The principle is the same at work – it doesn’t how much you pay someone (ok, to a point), what their new title is, or what office they get – if you don’t deal with the issues that are creating pain for them, you aren’t really dealing with the real issue.

So, managers, supervisors and business owners – if you have a key team member that is dissatisfied and you are concerned about losing them – have a chat with them about what they don’t like about their job, their daily work and experience. Then, commit to do all you can within your power to resolve at least one of those issues (if you say you will and you don’t, they are gone.)

Then, we you have removed the tack in their shoe, offer them some ice cream, too.

“Family coach” is a relatively new term – and a new field. There are maybe 10-20 of us in the United States. There are a lot of business consultants, and even a lot of family business consultants who assist the owners and managers of family owned businesses. But most consultants focus on the business side, because that is their professional background and area of expertise. The problem is – many of the challenges in owning and running a family owned business have to do with the family dynamics and relationships that can interfere with the business.

This week, in the Wichita Eagle’s August 12^th business section, I was interviewed for an article that explains my personal journey – how I got into this field, the work I do across the country, and now my focus on doing more in my “hometown” of Wichita, Kansas. I still intend to work nationally, but more selectively – to work with those families with whom I can have the most impact. I love the people I have the opportunity to meet and serve, the fascinating and beautiful places where I get to meet the families – but traveling is also tiresome (more so all the time). So I am looking for more of a balance in my own life, as well.

A family coach, which I am, helps the family address the non-financial issues that are present in transferring wealth across generations and business succession planning. It is not family therapy – that would be disastrous (and not much fun!) Rather, a family coach helps the family members identify what their goals are for the business, for themselves, and for the family – and then develop a plan to reach those goals.

Common issues I help families with include:

*Assisting the senior generation “talk through” the important issues they face regarding business succession, wealth transfer, philanthropic giving, retirement – and help them come to agreement on how they want to approach these.

*Meeting with the family-at-large: children, spouses, grandchildren, etc. and educate them about the complexities surrounding family owned businesses, help the parents communicate their goals and desires to the family, and facilitate family meetings about important issues.

*Developing a plan to prepare the next generation family members to appropriately manage the wealth and business they will eventually be receiving.

*Career development for the next generation – whether they are in the business or not.

*Facilitating family meetings of all kinds – to decide what to do with the family lake house or condominium, to develop a plan for managing mutual investments (not the financial plan – but how to decide and communicate together), discussing what to do with the business now that dad is no longer running it, and so on.

I love helping families with these issues and find it incredibly rewarding!

In my work with families across the country, most of them significantly wealthy families, one issue I continually address is the challenge of career development and college choice for young adults. Globalization, as Thomas Friedman has shown in his book The World is Flat, is a huge factor affecting career choices today (www.thomaslfriedman.com).

“The great irony is that children from affluent families are given more choices than anyone else, but they are also less prepared than anyone to handle those choices. As a result, they are overwhelmed and they often respond to that feeling by voluntarily relinquishing their power of choice.” (p.49).

Now, I am not sure I agree with his assertion that young people from affluent families are “less prepared than anyone to handle those choices” but surely they have more choices to weed through than most people.

Shechtman’s premise is that since the explosion of information has occurred, the number of choices have also multiplied – including the number of possible job opportunities. This is true for middle and upper class young adults, not just the ultra-wealthy.

Shechtman then states,

“It’s overwhelming because most people don’t possess a sorting mechanism – a method for dealing with all the choices presented to them. Unlike previous generations, young adults have relatively little occupational experience to draw on to sort choices.”

I totally agree. In fact, I have written an article to help high school students in their college decision making process (located in the Article & Presentation section [Career Assessment] of my website).

Most young adults I talk to today are almost paralyzed – not knowing where to start in their career search. So they often either don’t do anything, or settle for the easiest solution close-by – some job a friend of the family has or something familiar to them.

Often this results in a significant level of underemployment – the young person accepting a job far under their capability because they don’t know what else to do.

In this month’s (August 2006) edition of Worth magazine, there are a number of articles which deal with the challenge of successfully transferring wealth to the succeeding generations. This is an area which I focus upon professionally — helping financially successful families figure out “how much” to leave to their heirs, and how to do so in a healthy way.

One article, entitled “Overcoming Entropy” by Stuart Lewis (who is a fourth generation heir of the Carnation food company), summarizes the process their family has gone through over the past few years. Almost sounding like a “poster child” for multi-generational family meetings, he states:

“We have an annual family business meeting that includes all adult family members, including spouses. . . we have a series of regular written communications; we use the phone and emails. . . In addition, by listening carefully to each individual, we have designed a system that is flexible enough to accommodate and encourage family members to pursue their own passions.”

But what is really exciting is to get the sense that their family goes beyond the “duty” of meeting together and have found the joy of being family, as Mr. Lewis continues:

“But the fun that we have together really is the secret to making this all work. Even though we are spread across the country, and many of us have young families of our own, all of us go out of our way to spend quality time with each other. At the end of the day, the personal bonds among us really define family.”

Finally, he addresses the challenges that all extended family face today:

“There are so many things in life that pull families apart — geographic separation, time commitments to career and nuclear families, marriage and divorce, unresolved conflicts hat can go back to childhood, a me-oriented culture. The list goes on and on. Do you want to push back against these forces? Do you want to define family as a high priority, especially because it can have psychic as well as financial rewards? . . . We are doing so because we want to — because it is good business, because we like each other and because it is fun, not because we have to or feel compelled to through some sense of nostalgia.” (Worth, p. 50, August 2006.)

It has been my experience that many families have to start out meeting together because they “have to” — it’s being foisted upon them by some part of the family — but, when they do meet together and become personally engaged in the process, they enjoy getting together and look forward to the next family gathering.

[Mr. Lewis’, and his family’s story, is further described in his new book, Wealth: Grow It, Protect It, Spend It, and Share It.]

annual family business meeting, family meetings, wealth transfer

One of the most common themes I have seen in relationships between older adults and their children (who are now adults themselves) is how the kids (although they are 25, 30, even 40 and beyond) still act like “kids”. And part of this is because their parents continue to come to their rescue when their children make poor choices.

Parents want their children to be “happy” and, as a result, mistakenly intervene in their children’s lives when they should “let them be” and learn from their mistakes. Here are three additional skills required for healthy parent-adult child relationships.

Set appropriate roles and boundaries

In most families, some clear agreement exists as to the appropriate boundaries for parents and their young children. But when those children reach young adulthood, new definitions of roles and boundaries must evolve. Parents are bound to encounter problems if they attempt to set limits on the behavior of an adult offspring–unless these actions are directly affecting the parents. Providing choices with associated consequences is also usually inappropriate. In healthy adult relationships, the role of parent shifts from that of an authority figure to that of an advisor. If the role does not change, frustration and rebellion can be the result. This often leads a child to distance himself from his parents, or, conversely, perpetuates an ongoing parent-child relationship that continues an unhealthy, childlike dependency.

Allow family members to make choices and experience the consequences

In families in which children have not been required to accept responsibility for their actions while growing up, and their lives have been cushioned by their parents’ wealth and power, the development of personal responsibility is delayed. As these children become older, parents will find it more and more difficult to break this pattern. We have seen many wealthy second- and third- generation adults who have been propped up by parents, and who appear successful. But they are not able to sustain purposeful careers or relationships on their own. This often leads to severe dysfunctional patterns, including a wide range of addictive behaviors. Occasionally, and usually with the help of a professional counselor, the younger adult family members are allowed to experience the consequences of their choices–without their parents rescuing them. After a challenging and seemingly dark period, the child’s strengths begin to emerge, and the young adult begins to develop his true potential. Ironically, this potentially will remain wholly undeveloped unless parents withdraw their support.

Separate love and acceptance from competence and responsibility

In many highly successful families, parents unwittingly communicate that their love and acceptance is tied to their child’s performance and achievement. While it is important to raise children with a sense of personal competence and responsibility, family members need to know that they are loved and accepted regardless of what they do. This is a difficult balance to achieve. In fact, many individuals, even as older adults, are still striving to gain their parents’ acceptance and approval. In and adult-to-adult parent-child relationship, there are often opportunities for family members to have meaningful conversations about their relationship and to affirm their love for one another, apart from what they have achieved in life. In fact, many adult offspring who have made poor choices in their lives are able to begin a new, healthier path when they truly experience their parents’ affection in spite of their past mistakes–the effects can be powerful and healing. In the strongest families, love and acceptance are extended to everyone, regardless of circumstances.

Parenting adult offspring is challenging in ways that are unique to the generations living today. People are living longer, more robust lives than those of previous generations, while geographical distance and mobility have diffused relatives and their relationships. In many families, it is the transfer of wealth that has become an important focus of their relationships. This inevitably affects the relational dynamics between parents and their adult children.

While parenting when children are young has its inimitable challenges, the transition to healthy relationships between parent and child when both are adults can be equally difficult. We can all take the lead in our families by reviewing and revising our own roles and boundaries, in tuning up our communication practices and working to extend trust and love. We can stretch to take the high road in life’s many decisions–making many uncomfortable compromises–and learn to focus on ways to love and accept one another regardless of life’s circumstances.

The dynamics between parents and their kids changes as both get older — this is true when children move from toddlers to school-age to teens and beyond. It is especially true when they become adults.

Here are some new skills needed in these adult-adult relationships (from article, “The New Generation Gap” in the July edition of Worth).

To a great extent, the skills needed to parent adult offspring well are the same as the same as the skills needed for parenting young children as well. These skills, however, must be applied in new ways as children age, as a relationship shifts from that as a caregiver and child to that of two adults. This move to adult-to-adult interaction, within the context of an ongoing parental relationship, presents the most challenging dilemma for many families. We have identified specific tactics for smoothing this transition.

Establish healthy communication patterns

The rules of healthy communication are deceptively simple. For example, the primary rule–speak for yourself– seems as if it should be as natural as breathing. But many unhealthy variations abound. The second rule–listening to others–is likewise much more difficult to master than it appears. In many families, true, active listening is a rare commodity. There are other communication skills that are vital to building strong bonds: avoid criticizing, belittling or insulting others; remain in the present and jettison past offenses; and show respect for one another. They seem obvious, but many people find it all too difficult to follow these rules consistently.

Teach and learn appropriate assertiveness skills.

Assertiveness is the masterery of standing up for yourself and communicating your needs in a manner that minimizes the potential for offending the other person. The two most important components of assertiveness are 1) the well-crafted statement that offers several steps to address a recurrent problem, and 2) the practice of saying what you mean in the moment. Simply put, the ability to say “yes” if your response is yes, and “no” if your response is no. Assertiveness is a mainstay of healthy communication, but many adults struggle in applying these skills to their relationship with their parents. This is especially true when offspring fear reprisal from their parents, particularly the loss of financial support.

Actively build trust.

Trust is essential to any positive exchange between two people. In healthy relationships, building trust involves an ongoing process. The foundation of trust is the belief that the other person does not intend to harm you. Trust also requires acceptance, accountability and openness. In contrast, keeping secrets, denying accountability, acting irresponsibly, blaming others and attempting to exert control are patterns that damage trust and impair the building of healthy relationships.

One of the trends that has become obvious in our culture is the issue of relationships between older adults — let’s say anywhere from mid-40’s (although that’s not old!) to eighty and beyond — and their adult children. These “adult children” range from late teen’s thru the 20’s & 30’s to individuals who are 40 and into their 60’s (sometimes older!).

And we all know it is definitely weird to be “parented” when you are 40 years old. So recently, I coauthored an article which was just published in Worth magazine (www.worth.com) that addresses the challenges of developing healthy relationships between parents and their adult offspring. I was pleased to be able to write the article with my friend, Thayer Willis (www.thayerwillis.com).

Here are some thoughts from the article:

The demographics of the American family are shifting as our population ages, leaving many people, at a time when they should be enjoying their adult lives, instead struggling to with challenges that no other generation has faced.

Hapily, today’s parents are living longer and remaining healthier and more functional at older ages. Their presence in their family’s lives is expanding as they continue to be vitally engaged in managing their family’s finances, businesses and philanthropic efforts. But they also wrestle with how to “parent” their adult children and find appropriate ways to provide input and guidance to the younger family members-particularly when it comes to potentially thorny issues. Some parents expect their relationships with adult children to evolve into friendships, while others continue to relate to them as children.

Simultaneously, many young offspring are delaying independence from their parents. They frequently are not fully prepared for a career until reaching their mid-20s or even early 30s. Additionally, more young adults are returning home after completing college or having lived on their own. Some of them are expeted to– or expected to– work in a family enterprise run by a parent, which can further stifle independence and strain relationships.

These adult children commonly battle a range of conflicting thoughts. While they can feel overly controlled by their parents and resent any perceived intrusiveness, they can also feel embarassed by their lack of independence- particularly when dealing with finances. Naturally, this “next generation” also harbors concerns about their parents’ need for assistance from them as they age, as well as how to deal with their physical frailty and declining mental capabilities.

Meanwhile, adult children, both young and middle-age, recieve increasing amounts of direct financial assistance from their parents. This largesse takes many forms: annual gifts that can range from nominal awards to of $5,000 up into many digits; cash or its equivalent to help with buying a home; the opportunity to buy hand-me-down vehicles from parents; exotic family vacations underwritten by the parents, or tuition payments or saving plans for a grandchild’s private education. None of these gifts are innapropriate, in and of themselves. However, they do create new and different relational dynamics between parents and their adult children that must be carefully managed.

Paul

Ok, friends, this is the beginning. The goal of this blog is to assist the myriad of individuals, family members, business owners, and people who work for family owned businesses to figure out how to successfully “put it together”. How do you live your life in a way that successfully blends your personal life, your family life and your career.

As a psychologist who grew up in a family owned business, and who consults with families and businesses across the country, I am observing and (hopefully) learning some lessons that help make life go well — and choices and patterns of behavior that can screw up your life in a hurry.

So, my goal is to share those principles for success I am seeing — and also give out warnings for the common pitfalls I see individuals and families falling into.

The topics will vary — personal growth, career direction, relationships with parents, business succession, transferring wealth across generations, dealing with unmotivated twentysomethings, overcontrolling parents, executive coaching, the craziness of our culture — but all will relate to personal growth, family issues, or challenges for success in career and business.

So, here we go! I’m looking forward to the journey and getting feedback along the way.

Paul