3 Big Questions for a Frantic Family

"...keeping your family great" Ten Minutes with the Growth Guy

HEADLINES:
The 3 Big Questions for a Frantic Family -- this is the title of Pat Lencioni's latest, and maybe, most important fable. Famous author of Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Pat has done it again with a powerful message and process for Restoring Sanity to the Most Important Organization in Your Life, borrowing a line from the book's subtitle. And Pat has provided some powerful tools including a worksheet summary of the "three questions" at this link.   Here's also a quick link to pre-ordering Pat's book from Amazon.

Well Planned Businesses; Well Planned Families? -- I receive Pat's monthly e-newsletter which arrived yesterday. In his newsletter he makes the case for applying the same thoughtful time and energy to the family organization as we do to our business organizations. Below is Pat's concise and impassioned message from yesterday's newsletter under DETAILS below. And I encourage you sign-up for Pat's newsletter.

Weekly Family Meeting -- since hearing family experts Linda and Richard Eyre at a YPO event a couple years ago, my wife and I launched a weekly family meeting Sunday evenings with our four young children where we review our family's core values and set weekly goals, posted on the refrigerator, that align with our family's themes (getting ready for our India trip being the latest). And the children actually enjoy the meetings and love admonishing me when I don't meet my own weekly family goal! I encourage you to go to the Eyre's website (they've raised nine children)  and explore their 25 plus books.  Three Steps to a Strong Family is one of my favorites where they outline how to teach values; suggest an effective process for handling disputes; and provide a clever allowance system to teach financial responsibility -- a system we've adopted in our own family.

Rite of Passage Program -- this week we wrapped up the first year of a Rite of Passage program for our 12-year old son. Along with five other fathers and sons, we focused on 5Fs -- the importance of making decisions in the context of Faith, Family, Friends, Fitness, and Finance. And the fathers worked hard to make sure it was also Fun! Quick overview -- we organized a series of events to emphasize each "F" including an overnight trip to the mountains with a local pastor to discuss faith; a visit to the Sasha Bruce House in DC, a home for children without families (we purchased the home a television, games, and treated several of the home's children to box seats at an NHL game); organized a scavenger hunt (thanks Ben Hoffman with CityHunt) that emphasized the importance of working together with friends; travelled north to a local Marine base to learn about the importance of fitness (one of the fathers is a former Marine and commander of the base); and finished with a visit to Wachovia's DC headquarters where our sons played Robert Kiyosaki's Cash Flow Game (Rich Dad, Poor Dad fame) in their board room and then visited the vault. Another year of activities are planned, using Richard Rohr's framework for Rite of Passage initiations; and then we prepare each of our sons individually for a formal Rite of Passage weekend based on the King, Warrior, Magician, and Lover framework for manhood.
       
3 Weeks to Perfect Parenting -- and I've enjoyed immensely Rabbi Stephen Baars email-based parenting tutorial. Each day, for three weeks, you receive a short email emphasizing one key aspect of effective parenting delivered in a humorous and insightful manner. I've signed-up for my third time through the course -- here's a link.

DETAILS
Here is Pat Lencioni's impassioned message for focusing on the family from his August 27 newsletter -- please take two minutes:
      
Pat's POV (Point of View)

Most leaders I know have multiple jobs, even if they are only paid to do one of them. For instance, I am a leader of a small company, but I have leadership roles in my church, on my sons' soccer, baseball and basketball teams, and of course, in my family. However, when I think about all of those roles, and the constituencies who are impacted by them, I cannot help but conclude that my wife and kids have received short shrift when it comes to my leadership time and energy.

After all, I've spent hours and days and weeks thinking, reading and meeting about how to better run my company. I've worked with my team to identify our core values and to clarify our strategy. And I've worked to ensure that those values and strategies have been implemented consistently over time so that our firm can maximize its potential.

Within my church, I've spent many hours in long meetings developing plans to ensure that we're utilizing our resources in the best possible way. And I regularly spend time preparing for each soccer or basketball practice I lead, and on multiple occasions I've attended two-day classes to make me a better soccer coach. I've even read a stack of books on soccer to give me an added edge.

And then there is my family, the most important organization in my life. How many books have I read about running an effective family? Zero. How many family management classes have I attended? None. And how many off-sites have my wife and I had to improve the way we organize and lead our children? You know the answer.

As common as this is for many family leaders who also work in the 'real' world, it just doesn't make any sense. When we fail to be purposeful and proactive about the way we plan and run our home lives, our families become reactive, unfulfilled and frantic. And though we might not see a direct, short-term connection between this and downstream difficulties like divorce and childhood stress, it is hard to deny such a connection. Ongoing frustration and disillusionment among parents, even when it is minor, cannot help but have an impact on family members.

So what is a family to do? Something. Anything is better than sitting back and reacting to the next request or opportunity that comes along without any context. And that word 'context' is key. It is what is missing from most frantic organizations, especially families.

Context provides leaders with a framework and a perspective that they need so that every opportunity that arises doesn't create a stressful dilemma. In the business world, a leader deciding to acquire a company or pursue a client or hire a candidate for a job, can often fall back on a clear set of values, strategic priorities or goals that will allow him to make consistently good decisions and retain a measure of sanity in the process.

The same is true at home. Without clear context, our lives become reactionary and stressful and often a guilt-driven act of daily survival rather than the joyful, intentional experience that it is meant to be. Should we sign Johnny up for lacrosse? Go on vacation with the Martins? Remodel our home like the Jones' or buy a summer cabin like the Johnsons? If there is nothing clear to fall back on, each decision will create unnecessary anxiety, not to mention months or years of potential regret.

So what exactly can families do to get some relief? They need to create a sense of context by answering a few simple questions, and then use those answers to guide their decisions. The questions have to do with a family's core values, strategic priorities and near-term goals. And once those answers are set, the family needs to keep them alive and use them on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Of course, it's key to keep all of this simple and practical, and avoid overly structured or bureaucratic approaches, because families have even less time and tolerance for bureaucracy and protocol than companies do.

More detailed information about the questions a family must answer and the methods for using those answers on a regular basis are included in my new book, The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family. But for those of you who receive this newsletter and would like to get more information including a free downloadable tool, click here 

I hope this short article, and possibly the book and simple tool that go with it, help your family to become a little less frantic and a lot more purposeful and peaceful.
Yours,