The right kind of preparation is critical to the success of family gatherings. To do preparation well, one must understand the needs and expectations of everyone involved. This assessment work should focus on understanding the current state of the family and its capacities to address difficult issues. Good preparation often involves the use of a diagnostic tool, both to facilitate family conversation at the meeting itself and to ensure that potential issues are surfaced early and accurately. At the very least, family members should be individually canvassed prior to the gathering in a way that surfaces their candid concerns, gains their perspectives and insights into the family dynamics and issues involved, and determines what they individually require for the meeting to be considered successful.
Once the assessment work is complete, the gathering then needs to be carefully designed. Good design almost always includes educational and experiential components that serve to frame and shape the discussion. When done well, the facilitator can use these as process competencies that will bring gatherings that are going off the rails back on track. Bringing emotionally charged, high-stake issues into a family meeting agenda without knowing how people will react and having a structure that can address whatever reactions arise can end up doing more harm than good. Obviously, the higher the stakes, the more critical the planning and execution of the gathering becomes. In actually holding the gathering, most family leaders find it quite difficult to step back into a kind of facilitation role – they are eager to fully participate in the meetings (as they should and often must) but this frequently creates a flash points that quickly derails the meeting. They want to appear as a neutral arbitrator of the discussion but their own agendas undercut this and the family re-acts to this dual role.
In high-stakes environments, family leaders are well advised to consider retaining an outside consultancy to help with the assessment, design and execution of the family gathering.
Questions:
- Have you seen family meetings that went off the rails? Do you think the failure was due to poor preparation, meeting design or execution?
- What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of using outside consultants for family meetings?