Halloween is approaching and we’re seeing spooks, goblins, and jack-o’-lanterns everywhere. This year my wife and I will travel to Phoenix to celebrate the holiday by taking our 3 ½ year old twin grandsons trick-or-treating. They are very excited about dressing up for the occasion; one says he wants to go as a “dinosaur spider,” and the other as a “slimy spider.” Creating those costumes will be a test of their parents’ resourcefulness and creativity!  

My wife and I enjoy a good scare as much as the next person. If you do, too, then you might enjoy a book we read recently: American Scary: A History of Horror, from Salem to Stephen King and Beyond by Jeremy Dauber. His first sentence: “Show me what scares you, and I’ll show you your soul.”

Three Ways Facilitation Scares People   

It gives us no pleasure to note that some leaders of business-owning families find us scary. Really! Here are three ways professional facilitation commonly scares people – and what those fears reveal about the souls of apprehensive family members. As it turns out, what they reveal is often admirable.

Scare #1: Opening up family communication scares those accustomed to control.

The natural development of family business organizations is from governance by personality to governance by policy and defined purpose. But “natural” does not mean “easy!” The founder/wealth creator/controlling owner is often accustomed to calling all the shots. After all, he or she has earned the right. But as retirement beckons, or a health crisis looms, or age and infirmity begin to erode capacity, a change is needed. The founder, the family, and the enterprise can all benefit from a skillful, measured opening up of communication. But … it’s scary.

What does this fear reveal? Usually, a deep sense of responsibility. A founder who has carried the enterprise for decades has good reason to worry about what happens when more voices enter the room. It should be reassuring to know, then, that good facilitation does not take decisions away from anyone. We are a process guide, not an outcomes advocate. Our role is to help the founder pass on influence thoughtfully, on terms the whole family can understand and respect, rather than letting a crisis force the handoff.

Professional facilitation promotes fair, inclusive, and open processes that balance participation and improve productivity while establishing a safe psychological space in which all family members can fully participate. To help ensure that opening up family communication is constructive and generative, we may use one of two assessment tools Premier Growth created for business-owning families: Family 360, which helps a family explore its strengths and opportunities for growth, and the Family Enterprise Assessment Tool (FEAT), which anonymously gathers each stakeholder’s perceptions of family dynamics and the enterprise, so that every voice is heard and the family has a foundation for legacy planning.  

Scare #2: Facilitation can reveal sensitive family information, and the threat of it being leaked scares those who guard the family’s privacy.  

This fear usually springs from protectiveness of the family’s reputation and well-being. It is a legitimate concern, and we deal with it forthrightly. Our client relationships are guided by professional ethics, including confidentiality guarantees, which are explicitly codified in an independent contractor agreement and statement of work signed by both parties at the outset of our project.  

Besides, we’re basically shockproof. There is not much we haven’t seen in our decades of pastoral ministry and, in more recent years, working with business-owning families and their advisors. Psychologist Carl Rogers observed in his book On Becoming a Person, “What is most personal is most universal. … The very feeling which has seemed to me most private, most personal, and hence most incomprehensible by others, has turned out to be an expression for which there is a resonance in many other people.”

This is true of business-owning families as well. As the proverb puts it: “No family can hang a sign on the front door that says, ‘No problems in here.’” All business-owning families have experienced challenges related to unresolved conflicts, poor communication, generational succession, governance issues, next-gen engagement, and/or family purpose, legacy, and how to give back. Conflict and difficulty are universal features of family life, not evidence that a particular family has failed.

Trusting us is only the first step; the larger work is trust among family members themselves. Authentic trust is a skill that can be taught, modeled, and learned. Developing this skill enables families to strengthen family bonds of trust and rebuild trust when it is broken. Family business advisors Lisa Orlick and Gary S. Shunk, whom I met through the Purposeful Planning Institute, recently taught helpful concepts from Building Trust: In Business, Politics, Relationships, and Life by Robert C. Solomon & Fernando Flores. One takeaway is that trust is not simply a feeling, a personality trait, or an assumption that other people will do what we expect. Trust is an active practice that requires commitment, communication, integrity, and emotional maturity. To spark imagination and start dialogue, one helpful practice can be to invite family members to respond to this prompt: “Whom do you trust in your life? Tell a story about that person.”

Scare #3: The post-facilitation reality is unknown, and that scares those anchored in the present.

Fear of the unknown is a persistent theme in horror fiction, of course. Dauber writes of early America, “The northeastern part of the land that would eventually become known as the United States of America was covered in woods. Deep dark woods, a natural setting for tales told by firelight.” Native Americans and, later, early colonial settlers “had their explanations for the shadows that multiplied at the edges of their campfires, and tales of the creatures that dwelled within those shadows.” (p. 1)

For a family, an uncertain future can feel like those dark woods. Business-owning families engage professional facilitators during seasons of transition. They have often done admirable work to capture the story of the business’s founding and early development, the challenges and crises overcome, leading to the prosperity of the present. They have a proud legacy. Fear of the future is often the shadow side of that pride: when you have built something good, you want to protect it.

But what does the future hold? Professional facilitation draws upon the breadth and depth of a family’s collective wisdom and experience in addressing that vital question. It is a bit like gathering around a campfire: the family tells its story together, and the shadows at the edge grow smaller. Like Abram called to leave his comfortable ancestral home to follow the call of faith (Genesis 12), the family is moving in hope and expectation toward a future they will share but cannot yet define precisely.

Our work together will have clear deliverables and defined outcomes. And the process itself is one vitally important deliverable. As Craig Aronoff, Joseph Astrachan, and John Ward write in Developing Family Business Policies: Your Guide to the Future, “Policies governing the relationship between the family and the business are important to family business. What is more important, however, is the process family members engage in when they create the policies.” (p. 7)

As your family gains experience with professional facilitation and participatory decision-making, you will gradually enjoy benefits such as:

• Confidence in the wisdom and creativity of the family;
• The ability to listen openly and actively;
• Respect for individuals and their points of view;
• Patience to tolerate ambiguity while decisions evolve and gel;
• More resilient, durable, trusting relationships.

While you cannot know in advance what precisely your family’s future holds, the journey toward that future will be forming you into the kinds of people who can steward a great legacy while adapting to changing times and emerging family needs.

Conclusion

When our grandsons put on their spider costumes this Saturday, they will be doing something wise. Children often handle what frightens them by naming it and stepping right into it. Families can do the same. Naming what scares us is often the first step toward no longer being ruled by it.

If you are wrestling with fear as you consider reaching out to us, we understand. There are good reasons why engaging a professional facilitator can be anxiety-provoking. We offer a free 60-minute Zoom meeting to anyone interested. We often start with simple, low-stakes engagements through which the family can become acquainted with us and what we offer. We proceed to more in-depth engagements only if we believe we can be of authentic help to the family, and the family is persuaded that we are both capable and trustworthy. Our aim is to strengthen your family’s ability to steward its family business with wisdom, discernment, success, and generosity. Contact us today to explore collaboration.