This past Father’s Day was the first, as far as I can remember, since my oldest children (twins) were born 27 years ago that I was away from all of my children. I am on a business trip that carried over the weekend, so I am away from my family. On one hand, it was weird and lonely. On the other hand, I got to do some fun things (hike in N. California redwoods and go to a beach) and all of my children called and we had nice chats.

I’d like to share some thoughts about fathers, from a variety of perspectives.

First, a few thoughts about my own dad who died 15 years ago this summer — he was 71 years old and I was 37. My dad, Roger White, was a very bright, largely self-educated man. When I reflect on some of the core character qualities that he had, I think of:

*Provider — he took his role of providing for our family seriously, and strove to do the best he could for his children and grandchildren;

*Life long learner – my dad was always learning- about engineering, mechanical design, sailing, construction, investments, how things worked;

*Problem-solver — a common dinnertime discussion topic was a recent problem he had observed and his thoughts about different ways the problem could potentially be solved, and he encouraged us to be observant of problems that needed to be solved in the world around us;

*Giver — dad was generous to those around him - to mom, to the kids (and our spouses) and grandkids, to friends and those in need that he saw;

*Hard worker — this was a “given”, if you were a member of our family (nuclear or extended) you were a hard worker;

*Focused — this was both an asset and a liability for dad, he could become focused on an issue, problem or topic and it was tough to get him off of it.

I am thankful for the legacy he left to me and my children through his modeling of these character qualities.

A second perspective comes from the fact that I conducted a family meeting this past weekend that included a multi-generational discussion on the dynamics of relationships between parents and their adult children. And there were some interesting points made and comments during the discussion.

One of the themes we discussed was the roles and responsibilities of parents (both mothers and fathers) when children are growing up. These include the responsibility to:

nurture, protect, encourage, model, teach, discipline, entertain, transport, facilitate personal development,

provide - food, clothing, shelter & other resources, make decisions, train in social skills, expose to the larger world.

When the young adults in the room saw this list growing, they spontaneously commented: “Whoa! That is a lot of responsibility. I’m not sure I want to be a parent!”

Additionally, as we worked through the different stages of parent / child relationships (childhood, adolescence, adult children), we talked about the tensions of transition in different stages. One thought shared was that parents of adult children often are confused about how much input or counsel to give their children (and their spouses). Many parents don’t want to be overly involved or intrusive, and can actually “back off” too much where they become disengaged from their children’s lives. Other parents (the one more commonly portrayed in the media) can be overly involved, give too much advice (and too strong of advice, not allowing for differing views) and essentially are experienced as being intrusive. [We discussed ways to manage this tension — which you were there!]

Another interesting (to me) point was that one of the main things parents of adult children desire from their children and other family members is — companionship. Sometimes we just like being together, hanging out, and being a part of our kids’ lives. Why? Revisit the list above of the responsibilities we carried for a number of years. We have invested a lot in our kids — time, energy, (and yes, money). And our kids have been a major part of our lives. Often, we like them and enjoy their company. Many young adults who are in their own life stage of finding their own identity and independence, forget about the situation from their parents’ point of view. So a hint to young adults and older “children” — a relatively low-cost gift to your folks is to choose to spend some time with them.

We need to look at fathers from one other perspective — from those who are either fatherless, or essentially fatherless — their fathers aren’t involved in their lives. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon in our culture. The number of children who are raised in homes without a father present is astounding. Add the number of fathers who are in the home but really not present because of work or other activities, or who are not emotionally or relationally present — and the percentage is frightening. Why? Because fathers provide important messages to their children — that they are special and loved, that they are valuable and worth one’s time and energy, and that we believe in you. (Mothers obviously communicate these messages as well, but dad’s do it in a different way.)

So if you are a guy, when (not if, but when) you are around those whose father is not present, spend a little extra time with them. Give them some time and encouragement. Let them know they are neat. Share some wisdom with them, or teach them a skill. It could be a small gift that goes a long ways to impact a child’s life.

Yes, dad’s can be annoying. But we can be cool, too (sort of). If your dad is still around, let him know something you appreciate about him or what he did for you while you were growing up. It will warm his heart.

As many of you know, I do a fair amount of consulting with family owned businesses. One of the common issues I help business owners and their families work through is the sale of their business (either preparing to do so, or dealing with the results afterward). Recently, a friend who meets with a number of business owners starting to think about selling their businesses asked me to outline some of the key issues that I help families think through. Here is what I came up with:

Integrating Business Ownership Succession, Business Management Succession, and Personal Estate Planning. Most people don’t distinguish between ownership succession planning and management succession. This creates significant problems — especially when the owner wants to sell but the company doesn’t have the management ready to take over the company. Often we have to work to develop a “bridge plan” for getting an interim management team, so the sale can occur.

A second common problem is when the owners’ personal financial estate planning isn’t integrated with business succession planning. Business owners want to get their financial investment out of the company when they sell it, but if not done correctly, they can pay excessive capital gains taxes.

How will the sale of the business affect your family? The sale of a family business significantly impacts the whole family. This includes family members who work in the business and those who do not work in the business. There can be issues of “fairness” within the family — those who work in the business may lose their jobs (or the perks previously associated with ownership). But if they own some of the business, they can reap a large financial benefit while non-owning family members get nothing.

A secondary, but significant issue, can be the impact of the sale on the career development for succeeding generations. If the family has a large influx of money from the sale, this can create challenges (and disincentives) for career development for younger family members. How the sale is structured — and how things are communicated to the family — can help avoid these issues.

How do you decide how much money to give to family members? Key questions we work to answer are: How much is enough? How much is too much? In reality, we have learned these are not the most important questions. Rather, we have identified the key factors that avoid destroying family members with money.

What plans do you have to keep the family together in the coming years? Often families in business communicate primarily about the business when they get together. When the business goes away, many families struggle to stay together — they have no history or tradition for family gatherings outside of the business. So they need to answer questions like: What will be the basis for family interactions and gatherings? What type of communication process will be in place? How will you keep the extended family connected?

The most common “big impact” mistakes owners make when selling their business:
-Not involving their spouse in the process.
-Not preparing their children for managing the wealth they will be receiving.
-Not involving children’s spouses in the process.
-Not integrating the sale of the business with their personal / family estate planning, and paying unnecessary taxes.
-Not developing an adequate plan to finance buy-sell agreements
(between family members, or in the case of death).

The reality is: Most business owners and families need help both “thinking through” and “working out” a business succession plan. My advice to business owners: Don’t risk losing two of your most valuable assets you have spent years building (your business and your family) by making un-informed decisions. A little “pre-work” with a family coach can go a long way to saving a lot of heartache later on.

Unfortunately, when the issue of “character” is in the news today, the focus is usually on character failures — lack of integrity, marital unfaithfulness, greed and dishonesty. So to be able to talk about a man of good character is a privilege.

When thinking about the title of this entry, I was indecisive about whether it should be “To a Great Man of Character” or “To a Man of Great Character”. Obviously, I chose the latter — for two reasons. First, in the world’s eyes I don’t know if Spence Sawyer would be characterized as a “great man” — in the general terms of incredible success professionally or in terms of raw talent. Although he was talented in several areas and he was also quite successful in his profession, most who knew Spence focused on who he was as a person. So, the second reason I chose this title is because almost everyone who knew Spence would agree he was a man of “great character”. It was his character that impacted others, and most who knew him (including myself) found themselves wanting to emulate him.

Spence Sawyer died this week at the age of 78. He was born and raised in the suburbs of west Chicago and spent most of his adult life in this area, with a few years early in his professional life living in New Jersey while commuting to New York City. He was the father of seven children, whom he mentored and helped each obtain a private college education (no small feat financially, regardless of the era).

I want to highlight just a few of the character qualities that I first thought of when reflecting on Spence’s life:

Responsible. Responsibility was at the core of Spence’s being — shouldering the responsibility of leading his family and guiding his children, from childhood through adolescence and into their adult lives; taking responsibility to provide leadership in most of the organizations he was committed to (his church, his company [he worked for Illinois Bell and AT&T for forty years], the college he and many of his family members attended), and just in general daily life. If Spence saw something that needed to be done, he would make sure it got done.

Faithful. In his personal relationships, Spence was faithful to his wife, Ruth, of over 50 years, his children, grandchildren and his friends. Spence was “Mr. Reliable”. If he made a commitment, he kept it. You never had to wonder if he was going to show up; he was always there. He followed through on commitments made — in fact, you would never think of Spence not following through. He was rock solid. You wanted him on your team — and he was sought out by organizations because they knew he would help you achieve your goals.

Investing in others. I’m not sure of the best way to put this, or of a good singular term, but Spence gave his life in the service of others. He was not self-promoting. He did not seek positions of leadership — he was seen as a leader and asked to take leadership positions by those around him. After his retirement in the 90’s, he spent much of his time and energy meeting with others — teaching, mentoring, listening and encouraging. Interestingly, because of some early life experiences that impacted him significantly, Spence was reluctant to give advice to others — even when asked. But if you cornered him, you could get him to help you frame the problem and think through the issues you needed to consider. (The result of his investing in others will be seen next week at his memorial service where 800-900 people are expected to honor him and share in the celebration of his life.)

Laughter. From the previous descriptors, one might conclude that Spence was a stern, stodgy, “all work and no play” kind of guy. Nothing could be further from the truth. Spence was one of the best story- and joke-tellers I have ever known, and he loved to laugh. In fact, one of my favorite memories is sitting with him at the kitchen table, having a bowl of ice cream and he would start telling some of the funniest stories I have ever heard. The problem was, he would start tearing up and laughing before he finished the joke — and you found yourself laughing and crying just because he was (and you weren’t exactly sure why)!

There are lots of other personal qualities that characterized Spence, some of which were so ingrained in who he was that you couldn’t think of him not exhibiting them (honesty, integrity, generosity). He was a man of deep spirituality who loved the God he served and who has left a legacy in the lives of those who knew him — that will endure for years to come. I know that I have been deeply impacted by his input into my life and I will miss him dearly. I had the privilege of knowing him for over 30 years, as the father of my wife. His leaving the life on this earth has caused me to seriously reflect on my life and my priorities.

I hope that I will also become a man of great character.

A “new tradition” is sort of an oxymoron.  By definition,  (”a long-established, inherited way of thinking or acting”), a tradition is some action that you have been doing for a while.  But I believe it is both possible and helpful to intentionally create new traditions for your family.

We need to recognize that families go through a variety of life stages, with different needs at each stage.  And the demands and parameters of daily life vary significantly.  Think about what life is like when you:

• Are in college, or a single young adult.
• Are newly married, early in your career, without children.
• Have 2-3 children, ages birth to four years old.
• Have 3 children, ages six to twelve, and both parents are working outside of the home.
• Are parents of preteens and high school students.
• Have some children in college and some at home.
• Have daughters-in-law’s and sons-in-law, with some of your children living in other parts of the country.
• Have become empty-nesters, and eventually grandparents.

It is hard to imagine a family tradition that could survive and be really appropriate for family members across all of these life stages (with the possible exception of special foods served at holiday meals).  That is why most family traditions die over time — they no longer “fit” with where the family is currently. So it really seems necessary for families to create (or revise) family traditions over time, if the family is going to continue to have traditions they celebrate.

We may want to review why having traditions is important?  What is the big deal?  On the one hand, I could argue, they really aren’t that big of a deal — they aren’t directly related to the survival of anyone or the family.  On the other hand, I believe traditions are important for a number of reasons.

Traditions:

• Create a sense of togetherness among family members.
• Provide a context by which family memories are made and can be recalled (”remember when you were little, we used to … “)
• Become an avenue through which you can teach important values (e.g. going as a family on a service project together).
• Give a sense of stability and predictability to a family, which children both need and desire.
• Generate positive emotional energy within a family through a sense of anticipation of the event, and also gratitude for the energy expended to make the event occur.
• Develop a pathway of transferring family history, values and stories across generations (”When I was growing up, our family . . . “)

Let me give you some examples of traditions we have created within our family over the years.

Opening Christmas presents.  When our children were little, we devised a strategy to manage the pressure of them wanting to open Christmas presents (which were already under the tree) on Christmas eve.  Rather than facing constant and repeated questions (”Can’t we just …), we came upon the plan of me [dad] giving the family a present to open on Christmas eve.  Every year it was a game that we could play together that evening.  So it accomplished a number of goals:  a) decreased the demands to open presents;  b) provided a family activity for us to do together; and c) helped us develop quite a storehouse of games to be used throughout the year!

Giving gifts to charities and educating the family about the charity.  Several years ago, when my siblings and our families gathered together to exchange gifts at my parents’ home, we decided that we didn’t need to give each other small, and sometimes not very meaningful gifts, just out of habit. We were having our own families, didn’t need the extra expense, and the time and energy to shop for one another (even after we had reduced it to drawing names to just give one present) didn’t seem worth it.  So we agreed to start a new gift giving tradition.  That each year one sibling and our spouse would choose a charity; we would provide information about the organization and the services they provided, and then the siblings gave money to that charity instead of buying gifts.  (This was a time-limited tradition which went away as our families grew larger and we no longer meet together to exchange gifts across the extended family.)

A new holiday meal.  In deference to my friend, Dr. Gary Chapman, and his book The Five Love Languages, I would propose that there is a separate love language for teenage boys — food.  (Anyone else who has had three teenage boys knows what I mean.)  This is especially true for our middle son, Joel.   A number of years ago, when Joel was in high school, he proposed that we start a new tradition, a Christmas eve meal of barbeque meatballs, fries, salad, and brownies for dessert.  His brothers, sister, and dad all thought this sounded like a good idea — and in exchange for help in making the meal, mom agreed to the new tradition, which we enjoy to the present.

A family story-telling event.  When we moved into our home over fourteen years ago, we started a tradition focused on our new, large fireplace.  We call it “The First Fire”.  Every year, as the weather gets colder, we pick a night to build our first fire in the fireplace.  We start it without newspaper (only using really small pieces of wood) and try to start it with just one match.  After the fire is going, we turn out all the lights, sit around the fire and eat some wintry munchies (popcorn, hot cider, hot chocolate, make s’mores).  And then we tell family stories.  Kathy and I tell stories about our families when we were growing up, and even stories that our parents told us about their childhood.  And then we tell stories about each child, when they were little.  (The siblings all chime in with their own memories and stories of one another.)  It really is a delightful time.  We will have to see if the tradition continues or how it may morph into a new form, since our children are all at college or out on their own now.

There are other traditions I could share (Fourth of July celebrations, vacation sites we went to repeatedly for years, birthday traditions, New Year’s traditions), but that is enough for now.

As we approach the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, when most families gather together, I would encourage you to think about your current (or possibly past) traditions that you want to keep going or rekindle.  And also think about possible new traditions that you may want to start.

Here are a couple of lessons we have learned in starting new traditions:

1. There needs to be a leader, someone who leads out and take charge.  Just throwing out an idea (”Maybe we should . . .”  or “What do you think about .  .  . “), doesn’t make it happen.
2. Having more than one family member involved and committed raises the probability of getting started.   Trying to start a family tradition by yourself doesn’t usually work.  There needs to be “buy in” from one or two others (depending on the size of your family) to sustain the energy needed to overcome inertia, and to “get it done”.
3. Don’t wait for everyone for to get excited about the idea in order to start. Having unanimous agreement or excitement is probably an unrealistic expectation (especially if you have teenagers!)  It is okay for someone to not really be that excited about the idea initially.  But usually, if it is a decent idea and implemented adequately, family members “come along” and often later admit they enjoyed the time.

Whatever you do together as a family over the coming weeks, do it and enjoy one another!

May God bless you and your time together over the holidays.

I started reading a good book this week — A Game Plan for Life: The Power of Mentoring by John Wooden and Don Yaeger.  It was recommended to me by a good friend, and I always try to pass on worthwhile reading to others.

The first part of the book covers the seven mentors that influenced Coach Wooden (for those of you who don’t know, he was one of the most successful college basketball coaches of all time, at UCLA). In discussing different types of mentors (professional, personal, spiritual, etc.), he makes a fascinating point:

• “I know that my life has been blessed with incredible opportunities, and as a result, I have a responsibility to reach out to others to share the insights, experiences, heartbreaks, exhilaration — all the lessons I’ve managed to accrue through the nearly one hundred years that God has given me on this planet… Knowledge is nothing unless it is shared.  I know that knowledge for knowledge’s sake is a wonderful ideal, but in reality, it is the transmission of understanding that is the very basis of civilization.” (p.7).

As I work with multi-generational families and family-owned businesses, one of the core principles we emphasize is the process of transferring knowledge, intellectual capital, and life experiences from the senior generations to their children and grandchildren. It is not an easy process — I think it is one of those “important but not urgent” activities that Stephen Covey emphasizes.  Part of my role as a family coach is to help structure activities and processes to help make the transfer happen.
And as we come upon the Thanksgiving holiday, I tend to think about how to best use our time together as a family.  What traditions do we want to keep doing?  Which traditions really aren’t that important or have lost their meaning?  What conversations do I want to have with my adult children when they are home?  What information or life experiences do I want to share with them?

Here are seven “lessons for life” that John Wooden’s father shared with him on a card given at his high school graduation:

1. Be true to yourself.
2. Make each day your masterpiece.
3. Help others.
4. Drink deeply from good books.
5. Make friendship a fine art.
6. Build a shelter against a rainy day.
7. Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day. (p.13)

Think about those who have impacted your life and the lessons you learned from them — both from direct instruction and from their modeling.

And then think about what you want to pass on to those who are important to you.  Maybe take some time and share a life experience with someone younger: “You know, I was thinking about … and a lesson I learned. . . . “

Have a great week.

This past week we had the privilege of attending a family union with my wife’s family in Chicago.  There were almost 40 of us, ranging in age from 3 to 74, including my wife’s parents, six of the seven adult siblings (and spouses), and 23 of the 25 grandchildren (and two spouses).  Although it was a cool and sometimes rainy Memorial Day, we had a grand time together.

What made it especially enjoyable was reconnecting with each family member — seeing how they are still the same person they were a few years ago, how the younger family members have changed and developed their unique abilities, and hearing about plans for the future (it was also fun to retell some funny incidents from past gatherings). But what was most fun for me was to play together (or watch others play).  We played whiffleball (where I experienced the classic American tradition of pulling a muscle while running from first base to second).

Some enjoyed just “hanging out” together, but we all delighted in the homemade ice cream.

Just a couple of observations I want to note.  Although family reunions seem to have a negative connotation in our culture, I believe they can be a wonderful celebration of loving relationships, caring for one another, and the heritage of one’s family.  As part of the Sawyer clan, we are blessed to having loving parents, siblings, in-law’s, and cousins — and it is a joy to feel supported in your life’s journey as well as give encouragement to others.

Family reunions provide an opportunity to reflect on how we are the same — our common values, similar talents, and how we look alike (well, how they look alike).

But we also are able to see and celebrate how we are different — from different generations, how individual families differ, and the unique giftings each person has. It seems that healthy families value their commonalities but also cherish the uniqueness of each person.

As we often talk about the importance of ongoing communication and relationships among families who own businesses, it is clear that getting together as a large family unit is important, valuable and enjoyable whether or not a shared business is involved or not.

If you haven’t had a large family gathering in a while, think about planning one.  Start with whoever can attend (don’t wait for everyone to be able to come — it will rarely happen).  Keep it short.  Have good food.  And play together.  It can be a great time!