What is expected of you if you work for your family, or you inherit wealth?
Have you ever had a conversation with your parents about their expectations for you? What was it like? Did they just come out and tell you what they expected, and there was zero negotiation? Did they describe a wish for you? Maybe they were really vague and only insinuated some of their desires. We will touch on the importance of the method later, but for now the important question is what are their expectations and how do you interact around them?
In order to illustrate my question allow me to first apologize for my absence from posting for the past two weeks. My wife and I welcomed into the world our second child and I took some time away from work in order to be with my family and aide in our transition from a three-person household to a four-person household. I knew that when this child was born there wouldn’t be any expectation that I hurry back to work, even though we’re in the middle of a massive system of work. My father knows that my family is my utmost priority. Needing to return to work immediately was never an expectation I had to adhere to. However, getting an MBA, working for an outside company, and being willing to talk business at almost any moment (including while you’re in the hospital visiting with friends and family after the birth of your second child) are all expectations that I have lived with. The first two we actively discussed, the third we didn’t.
I remember back in college talking with my dad about working with him one day, never as a true reality but just a hypothetical. He said he wouldn’t hire me right away even if I wanted to work with him. As he put it, I needed to work somewhere else to learn corporate discipline before I tried working in a fragmented industry. He was right; in my first job I learned how to answer to a hierarchy of bosses, I learned corporate politics, and I learned how to be a small cog in a big system. If I started working for him right away I would have adopted all of the his bad habits that he’s accumulated over the years, and to be honest some of them would have seriously hurt me professionally. The MBA was a conversation we had after I started working with him. He said it seemed like a good idea, and it was something he really wanted to see me pursue. In dad lingo that’s his way of saying: “hey you’re getting an MBA.” I chose the school and style of program I wanted to pursue, but he was involved in the approval process to be sure I was getting what I needed from the degree. Finally, we never discussed the expectation that we could and would discuss business matters at any moment, it just happened. My dad and I don’t see one another very often, so when we do see one another we try and catch up on anything that needs to be settled in person. We have had work conversations in the hospital, at family dinners in restaurants, and even at my brother’s bachelor party. In this regard we have not done a great job creating boundaries around certain events, and this should have been a point of discussion from the beginning.
So why bring all of this up, what’s the point? The point is that unless you have a conversation about expectations at some point someone is going to violate what you expected and there is a place for friction and resentment to grow. If you’re dad expects you to arrive at work every day at 7, and you show up at 9 with the rest of the staff, in his mind you’re late to work everyday. All of the sudden he sees you as always being late to everything and has now created an attribution for you. That sounds absurd to some, but it’s happened with families that don’t communicate well. If your parents aren’t going to have a conversation about expectations prior to you working in the family business, or before you inherit a large sum of money then you need to initiate the conversation.
I mentioned earlier that we would get to the how your parents communicate expectations. This topic will be explored in great depth in a separate blog, but in this moment we have to talk about communication styles and principles. More often than not, when a child enters the family business or they’re given a large sum of money the parents TELL their kids what they want to see happen. This has several outcomes. The first is an inflexible linear pathway. If a discussion were opened around the expectations, perhaps multiple alternatives could be explored and a greater degree of performance achieved. The second outcome is possible resentment. Children seem to be born to resent their parents for something, and being told what to do and how to do it is typically a list topper. But there is a sure fire way to manage the communication environment; if you as the child initiate the conversation, you’ve already won points by showing you can take initiative for serious matters. You also have the opportunity to dictate the flow of conversation, and if you lead with questions like: “What is your wish?” “What is your optimal outcome?” and “Is our current path leading to that optimal outcome?” then you can get at the heart of real insightful concerns for your parents. You have also allowed yourself to avoid any personal resentment.
The purpose of this post is to start a dialogue. I can honestly tell you it’s so sad to see families arguing over personal items that actually could have been avoided with a transparent conversation around expectations. This conversation should always be focused on wishes and opportunities, and never on fears or worst-case scenarios. If you plan through fear all you will get is exactly what you’re afraid of. But if you plan through wishes, you will get what you hope for. My wish for anyone that reads this blog that you will be able to have conversations around wish and opportunity, and hopefully avoid some dangerous pitfalls as you enter your family business, or receive a large amount of money. Both situations have the potential for incredible success and family closeness, or disastrous splitting and cutting off. Hopefully you will work to achieve the former.
Good Luck
Practical Summary
- If the conversation hasn’t been had about your parent’s expectations, it’s time for you to initiate.
- Lead with questions; ask multi-level questions that get deeper each time to get to the heart of your parent’s fears and concerns.
- Always stay focused on wishes and opportunities