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You know your business needs to change, but you’re caught in the emotional and relational dynamics that are holding you back. Welcome to Noble Metal, the podcast that helps you forge a new kind of leadership. Host Phillip Weiss, a seasoned executive coach and organizational consultant, reveals how to become a more resilient, deliberate, and less-anxious leader.
Through powerful insights based on Bowen Theory and systems thinking, you’ll learn to navigate complex workplace relationships, manage challenging strategic issues, and lead your team to sustainable change. Get the clarity and tools you need to forge a new path for your business.
Ep22
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Crisis Readiness Questions
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[00:00:00]
Phillip Weiss: If your family or family business got hit tomorrow, you know, the call nobody plans for, a death, God forbid, a failed deal, or maybe a health scare that changes everything overnight, how would you know 30 days later whether your family had handled it well?
Not whether the business survived, but whether your f-- in a sense, whether your family did. [00:01:00] What would you actually be looking at? What would you be looking for? I mean, how would you know that you guys handled this well? Or would you just be hoping that everybody, everything seemed fine?
The Hidden Pileup
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Phillip Weiss: Here's a second question. Somewhere in your family or family enterprise right now, there's a pileup happening.
Not just, not just one problem, but several stacked, most of them probably unspoken. Again, something like a, a health situation, a sibling who's been overlooked for a long time, a number on the balance sheet that nobody's said anything about. Could you actually name what's in that pile, all of it right now off the top of your head?
Or is it just still kind of invisible to you and the family? I'm asking because I'm wondering if most family enterprises or even just families can't really answer that question.
And it's that gap right there. That is [00:02:00] exactly what today's episode is built to close.
Beyond The Blind Spot
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Phillip Weiss: Last time I told you about a family, the Pritzkers, that had every legal, financial, and governance safeguard that money really could buy and still watched it all come apart anyway because nobody had ever taken an honest look probably at what was happening underneath.
Eleven cousins, one family holding company, a fortune that took generations to build and about three years in court to divide. Again, the paperwork was airtight, but the relationships weren't. And we called that last time the blind spot Today, I wanna hand you something I think that's gonna be more useful than a diagnosis.
I wanna hand you a way to actually look at a family enterprise or family, and a way to know what you're looking for once you do. And when I say look at it, I'm talking about looking at their functioning. This draws [00:03:00] heavily on the work of Dan Paparo, somebody I've mentioned off and on along the way here, a Bowen Center faculty member who has created a practical assessment model for families and ultimately family enterprises. This is based on his, his academic paper delivered in twenty eighteen called "Developing a Systems Model for Family Assessment."
Stress Reveals Functioning
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Phillip Weiss: So here's the first idea. You don't learn much about a family by looking at it when nothing's happening.
A family enterprise can look perfectly healthy at your average board meeting when maybe revenue's up and nobody's arguing about anything that's real. That tells you almost nothing. What tells you something is what happens when pressure shows up, when anxiety starts to rise So again, back to Paparo. He has constructed an assessment model that is really working to focus on this.
[00:04:00] How does a family adapt to change? What does a family's response to challenge look like when the heat is up in the kitchen? Dan's work-- Dan is very studious, and his research goes back a long way. And starting with even, uh, s-- Reuben Hill back in the '40s, and then McCubbin and Patterson, and finally two other leading thinkers, Figley and Kaiser, on the family dynamic.
The through line for them, and that Dan picks up on and draws even more forward, is that a family's functioning isn't a fixed trait, like a personality type that you could put, you know, on, on a business card or, or, or your bio. A family's functioning is a response, and stress rarely shows up typically as one clean event.
It usually piles up, and McCubbin and Patterson actually used that word, a pile-up, and I think it's valuable ' I think it's really-- it's real and it's [00:05:00] honest. Because one stressor tends to drag a second and a third demand behind it, so that by the time a family is dealing with the thing that everybody can see, they're also often quietly dealing with one or two other things that they're not naming out loud.
example, a, a founder's visible health scare is, is a, is a obvious stressor. But underneath it quietly, there's often a financial crunch that's going on, for example. None of that shows up on the agenda, but it's always in the room. So Dan picks up on this, and how well does a family handle that pile-up that comes along?
Three Stress Variables
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Phillip Weiss: And he actually identifies three things worth noting. The first is the actual context of what's stressing them. Secondly then is how do, how does the family perceive that stress? Is this, you know, a burden to be borne, or is it a problem to be solved from a more constructive angle? And then thirdly, he [00:06:00] identifies w-what, what researchers actually call sort of the family's healing resources.
How good of condition are those resources actually in? So you can have two families face the identical event and come out in completely different shape because those three variables were different going in And they interact.
A family with real resources can handle a stressor badly if its perception of the problem is distorted Because those resources end up pointed really at the wrong thing entirely So what's the actual benchmark for handling it well?
Basic Needs Benchmark
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Phillip Weiss: And there are a lot of ways one could think about that, about this really.
But Paparo's answer is refreshingly, in a way, kind of unglamorous. It's really pretty simple. Can the family keep meeting its members' basic needs? Basic needs such as affection, [00:07:00] security, and growth, even when the pressure is on. Let me repeat that. Can the family keep meeting its members' basic needs for affection, security, and growth even when the pressure is on?
And, and, and like I said, it's almost too simple to say out loud and but really remarkably hard for most families to actually achieve you know, once real money and real mortality enter the picture. When a family manages the pile-up well, you can see connection holding, you can see development, and you can see a family that keeps its own sense of control.
When it doesn't, you see the opposite, tension that doesn't get resolved, strain showing up in individual members, and quietly shifting to the outside for support. Go back to the Pritzker story here for a minute. By the time that family ended up in court, control over their situation had already almost [00:08:00] completely shifted outside of the family to lawyers in the public eye.
Paparo has a clean name for that erosion, which is systemic dysfunction, and it's rarely about one difficult relative. It's a breakdown in the family's en- kind of the entire family's own coping process, the ones meant to keep its members' needs really in the, in the first place.
Five Dashboard Dials
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Phillip Weiss: So to, to assess this family functioning, uh, Paparo proposes in, in his, in his work five specific continuums.
And, and I, I like to think of them as, like, five dials on a dashboard that we monitor, each one running from a rough end, sort of a dysfunctional end, to a healthy or more functional end. A- and in a way, think of these five as a more precise way of reading the pile-up that I just [00:09:00] described.
So let's get into it.
Resourcefulness Dial
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Phillip Weiss: The first continuum, resourcefulness, which runs from functional helplessness on one end, a family that treats every problem, as I mentioned, as a burden to be borne, where decisions get paralyzed and everybody waits for someone else to move. So functional helplessness on one end to genuine engagement, where the family actively goes looking for what it needs to handle a challenge.
Part of this one is about whether a family s-sees a problem as belonging to themselves and that they can manage it on the inside, or are they very gonna-- quickly going to outsource it to outsiders? Because there's this tendency, and I, I have seen it a lot in clients, and it's just in my own life as well, when, when, when the pressure's on, when things hit the fan, it's like somebody else needs to fix this, a lawyer, a consultant
Let me give you an example, I think a [00:10:00] healthy, a positive example on the functional side. In nineteen ninety-five, a textile mill outside of Boston called Malden Mills burned to the ground, most of it in one night just before Christmas. The family that owned it, three generations in, faced really kind of the easy solution, and the insured solution.
Take the payout, you know, and walk away essentially, or rebuild smaller and cheaper. I mean, those could have-- those would have been kind of the easy outs. But instead, very deliberately, they kept paying their three thousand employees full wages through the rebuild, an enormous amount, an uncertain bet that strained the company honestly for years afterwards
They faced it head on. They had their own resources. They were very clear about the principles that were driving them. And that was the res-- I would s-- I would argue that that's a, an example of the resourceful end of the Again, engaging the crisis directly [00:11:00] with a plan and a leader who was willing to own the decision instead of treating it as something that had just simply happened to them, and they were gonna just kinda take that easy out back door.
So resourcefulness, so much could be said about this, and, and Dan does say more certainly in his paper.
Connectedness Dial
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Phillip Weiss: Second, connectedness and integration. This continuum runs from ultimate cutoff, emotional or physically, so limited contact, incomplete communication, no sense of how family m-- how each other thinks in the family. So that's on one end to more broad open connection where people are in real dialogue even when they disagree.
We've talked a lot about this along the way. You already have the story for this one. Again, eleven cousins, one family holding company, and a level of communication so thin really that it took a nineteen-year-old suing her own dad to force an honest [00:12:00] conversation I, I would say probably from a distance that family looked connected for a long time with, you know, holiday photos, et cetera.
Very successful multi-generational family and business. This continuum doesn't ask whether a family shows up in the same room. It asks whether the people in that room actually know each other and know each other's thinking, And not just their thinking, but, uh, kind of a willingness to be flexible about what others believe.
Meaning, kind of letting people hold their own beliefs without having to force one's own necessarily on the other. So connectedness and integration. Uh, what does that look like among family or team members? That's the second item.
Tension Management Dial
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Phillip Weiss: Number three, tension management. How does the family or organization actually manage the [00:13:00] inevitable natural anxiousness or stress that is going to come into the system and amp it up? So on the more unregulated side or the, the less functional side is, is unregulated tension management.
So things like blow-ups, withdrawal, or both. People attacking, people blaming, defending, or going silent. So that's on the, on the unmanaged side. To tension that's actually recognized, managed, handled, metabolized, that is, you know, put into positive growth and energy, and being done by people who can stay present while it's happening and still think clearly in the midst of it.
This is, I would say, the continuum most directly, I, I would say tied to what I call that less anxious presence earlier in other episodes.
I wanna give an example of a family enterprise that I actually know of that I believe has managed this [00:14:00] tension, this kind of tension well. So a specialty food distribution company heading into its fourth generation.
Business strong. A non-family CEO who is running day-to-day operations, and she is working closely with the third generation president. The two of them genuinely a solid, really functioning pair, so they have that going for them. The fourth generation, uh, really is just two siblings and, and at the time, neither had shown really any much interest in the business.
Then the president died suddenly. No illness, no warning, just literally gone overnight. What held the company together in that first stretch, first immediate stretch, I would say was the CEO. She's steady, very competent, a genuine less anxious presence in the room that honestly had every reason to spin out.
But interestingly and almost immediately, something happened that nobody really [00:15:00] expected, which was both siblings who'd never really shown much interest before suddenly stepped forward and, and each of them honestly with a real vision for where the company should go next A textbook classic triangle with the two of them and the CEO
The good news is the CEO was very well trusted by the family. She'd earned that trust over the years long before any of this happened. So I, I was brought in almost immediately. I'd be-- I'd been working with them for quite a long time, and with really at that moment one job, which was to be a less anxious presence myself, enough to help those three really, like, like I like to say, do their own best thinking about what's going on, both individually and then collectively, the three of them together, about where this enterprise should go.
My goal was to be a resource for their own higher functioning. I'm not [00:16:00] gonna walk through all of it, but what I think actually held this, uh, managed this tension well came down to four things. First, and I have mentioned this, is the CEO's own steadiness and competence holding the center.
I, I wanna make a comment too on this competence piece, 'cause I was-- I've been thinking about this as I've been pulling this, podcast together. Solid capability, solid skill, and raw competence are incredibly grounding. And yes, uh, organizations sometimes will put too much of a premium on that at the expense of things like how well does this person get along with others, etc.
But there is an absolute anchor and solidity to this idea of just somebody, in this case, really knowing the business, knowing the finances, knowing all the details. It was, it was very evident to me that that was incredibly grounding along with just her [00:17:00] own natural steadiness. So that's the first thing.
Second, both siblings were willing to work on, in varying degrees, managing their own rather than letting it run the room. And I, I recognize that that's a little unusual that you have two people that are willing to work it, but in this case, that, that was present. Thirdly, they were willing to look at the family and the enterprise historically at the functioning and see the patterns, see the processes that had really kind of governed this family for a while, and then really look at their own functioning and, and what has worked and what really hasn't worked.
Fourth and finally, they were willing to turn that clarity into real achievement goals. Actually, what is this o-organization-- what are the plans? What's the, what's the data? What are the plans, and how are we gonna execute on them? I could say a lot more, but I'm gonna leave [00:18:00] it there. So that was their ability to manage the tension well.
So tension management, number three.
Systems Thinking Dial
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Phillip Weiss: Number four, the continuum that Dan identifies is this idea of systems thinking, a mindset of systems thinking that runs from a more conventional approach, a simple sort of cause and effect where you get fixated, for example, on one person as the problem and get preoccupied with what's, what's wrong with them to a genuine systems approach, a lar-- which has a larger, bigger picture and that's willing to look about the facts of the functioning of this larger system.
Who, what, where, when, how. Factual data. Notice that I don't use the word why. Why gets really subjective. And one of the things that I have found so useful in the study of Bowen [00:19:00] theory is this emphasis on objectivity on the facts. That that can be very informative and can help calm individuals in the system down to begin to be, be able to do more objective thinking.
A lot more could be said on that, but I'll stop there.
So just to illustrate this systems perspective, picture two families, same kind of underperforming, if you will, family member who's checked out of the business doing the bare minimum. Family one asks, "What's..." you know, basically, "What's wrong with him?
Maybe he's lazy. Maybe he was, you know, always the difficult one," which, you know, and that feels kind of like a satisfying answer and kind of interesting and fun to gossip about, but it really doesn't get you anywhere. Versus family two, who asks a harder question, which is, "What's been happening in this system, in this family dynamic, that's led him to function this way?"
[00:20:00] And even more hard, difficult really, "What's our part in it? What role are we playing in this person's dysfunction?" Now, I'm not saying, and I don't think, and systems theory is absolutely not saying that this person doesn't have responsibility. But let's focus on this larger picture and what our roles might be and what options we might have in managing it.
So basically same employee, same family member, same underperformance, but kind of a completely different assessment instinct or mindset. So a systems perspective or systems thinking.
Goal Structure Dial
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Phillip Weiss: Fifth and finally, goal structure, which runs on the continuum from really no clear goals to highly developed goals I wanna note, though, a really useful distinction, that Dan Paparo draws here between what he calls achievement goals, sort of the [00:21:00] destination, versus process goals, which-- or functioning goals, how the family actually functions along the way.
So, most family enterprises are pretty decent at the first kind.
They've got the five-year targets, succession timelines, exit strategies. You know, healthy organizations are doing that. But almost no organizations write down the second kind at all, the process goals or functioning goals. Nobody puts down, for example, reduce cutoff between the second and third generation on a s-- th- that's not on a strategic plan
So here's a quick, clearly hypothetical illustration. Not a real family, just a, a probably a pattern worth naming. Picture a family enterprise that's assembled a leadership team purely for talent with one shared goal, and a good one. You know, for a successful sale within five years. They hit it.
Achievement goal met right on schedule, on [00:22:00] time, et cetera. And then within a year or two of that sale, the family itself starts fracturing because nothing was ever built deliberately to hold those relationships together once the, once the single shared sort of achievement goal had been met
That's what happens when an achievement goal runs out ahead of those process or functional goals.
How The Dials Interact
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Phillip Weiss: A great milestone followed by a fracture nobody saw coming Notice too how these five criteria in-interact with each other rather than operate in isolation. Improve tension management, and I think connectedness tends to follow because people who can stay present under pressure are typically people others stay in contact with.
Or neglect systems thinking and can suffer because a family stuck blaming one person never is able to really get around to actually [00:23:00] solving anything. And, and so much energy goes into the story about who's at fault instead of the work of fixing the challenge or working on the challenge A- and, and really, as I think about it, that's really the whole point of calling this a system in the first place rather than just five unrelated dashboard items or report cards
Unit Versus Individual
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Phillip Weiss: I wanna be honest about something rather than wrap this up really too neatly Going through Dan's paper again, I wrote a question in the margin that I personally don't still have a clean answer to, which is why focus so heavily on the functioning of the family as a unit, as a whole, instead of just each person's own individual functioning?
And again, this can be applied in any organizational system, family or otherwise. So let me pose the question again. Why focus so heavily on the functioning of the family unit as a whole [00:24:00] instead of each individual's functioning for him or herself? There is an obvious answer sitting right there, and it's Bowen's whole premise that the family operates as one emotional system.
So yes, of course, I think you absolutely want to look at it and assess it. And there's real, uh, very real practical evidence for it, not just theory. And Paparo himself points out that a family leader's own level of differentiation tends to serve as a proxy for the functioning of the entire family unit.
Meaning when one person, especially who's actually in charge, raises their own game, the whole system tends to rise with it. That's a core tenet of the theory. A less anxious, more solid presence at the top doesn't just help that one person. It changes potentially what's possible for everyone, everybody around them.
And, and I have to tell you, I [00:25:00] have watched this happen time and again, and it's one of the more reliably true things I've seen in this work, honestly. So here's, here's where my question actually gets interesting to me, and I'm just kind of throwing some thoughts out there. If one person's higher functioning, especially the leaders, can lift an entire system, does dysfunction travel the same road in reverse?
If a family's overall functioning is genuinely low, the whole family's, does that drag down someone inside who's doing real work on themselves, who's really trying to go that more differentiated path, manage their own tension?
To what degree does their own functioning actually maybe insulate them from the family drag? My gut tells me that, that there, that pure insulation is tough, but I think that I'll just kinda leave it at that. That's, I think, one of the goals of differentiation, which is [00:26:00] how do we create, one of my favorite words, that resilience from that potential drag.
One Continuum Exercise
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Phillip Weiss: So one quick, maybe uncomfortable exercise before we close here don't think about your whole family or enterprise or organization. Think about you and just one of these five continuums. Pick the one that made you wince a little, not the one where your family looks best. Is it maybe tension management? Do you go quiet or distance the moment money or succession comes up?
Is it maybe connection? Do you actually know how your sibling or parent sees the situation? Or do you just assume you do because you've been kind of in the same room with them at holidays for a long time? Or is it maybe the goal orientation? Beautifully developed, uh, say, achievement goals, but absolutely no process or functional goals at all.
Well, I'm-- And, uh, that's my word, functional. Nothing written down [00:27:00] about how you actually treat each other, you know, along the way. You don't have to fix it this week. You just have to... I'm, I'm just asking you to be honest about where you think you actually are and your part in it. Not, not your family's part, not the sibling who bugs you, not their part, but your part.
That's the exercise. That, in my opinion, is a move toward differentiation in miniature. Just small little steps that I think can make huge impact
Wrap Up And Next Steps
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Phillip Weiss: That's the foundation and the framework together where a family's real functioning actually shows up. The five continuums for getting specific about where things currently stand, the facts of functioning. None of it lives, none of it lives on a balance sheet, and all of it is already quietly shaping your families and organizations.[00:28:00]
Remember from last time, your org chart and your family tree as it comes to a family enterprise, your org chart and family tree are, are more often than we want to admit the same chart. This is, though, a more precise way of reading that chart instead of kind of pretending that that second undercurrent dynamic isn't there.
So at Iridium Leadership, we're working to take this model of Dan's and create a tool or process that family enterprises and organizations, beyond families even, and their leaders can use directly together in real working sessions. For now, pick your one continuum. Sit with it. And that's, that is truly enough for today.
I'm Philip Weiss, and thank you for joining us. This has been episode two in our series on Family Enterprise. Thank you for listening today.