The patriarch walked into the family council meeting knowing that the second-generation group was about to make an important decision that he no longer had a vote in. He had recently given up his vote on the council as part of the family’s ongoing continuity and estate planning process. This was new territory for him; he was working on trusting the governance development work being done by G2 to successfully steward the family’s significant assets and portfolio of businesses. During the meeting, he did not speak much except for the occasional muttered disapprovals and skepticism under his breath.
The G2 discussion was robust and when they finally reached a vote on a particular topic, it looked set to pass unanimously. It was only then, once the moment to vote had finally arrived, that the patriarch chose to speak up and express doubt about the choices being made. As a result, both the conversation and voting process were stopped in their tracks. The vote was delayed, causing frustration not only for the G2 group but also for the non-family CEO, as this unexpected pause was now potentially costing the family some significant revenue. The CEO was hoping this meeting would have the family well-positioned and ready to take advantage of a financial opportunity with a deadline for action on the immediate horizon. Dad was later confused as to why there was disengagement in the meeting and began to openly question the value and effectiveness of the new governance process.
What Happened Here?
The patriarch’s ambivalence flared up at a pivotal moment and the family ran directly into the challenge of the realities of formal and informal power, authority and influence. Ambivalence is defined as “simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings (such as attraction and repulsion) toward an object, person or action; continual fluctuation (as between one thing and its opposite) and uncertainty as to which approach to follow.”
While the patriarch no longer had any formal power, (remember, he had actively given up his vote to support a successful transfer of leadership and authority), he still carried an immense amount of informal power and a high degree of influence over the family process. The G2 group would have been fully within their rights to move forward with what looked to be a relatively easy vote, but they felt like the rug had been pulled out from under them. They had all been granted voting control for some time, but all it took from Dad was one short but highly influential comment, combined with some longstanding deflating behavior that was all too familiar, and the process was hijacked.
While Dad had the best intentions about transferring power and authority to both the next generation and the non-family CEO, he demonstrated clear reluctance to actually transfer power and authority. Instead, he took steps to hold onto and continue to exercise his high degree of influence and power within the family and the meeting. The challenge for the G2 group lies in how to assert their newly granted power and authority while Dad is learning to navigate this new territory of curtailing his longstanding comprehensive power, authority, influence and leadership. It is not uncommon for any wealth creator or founder to struggle with letting go, transferring and sharing long-held power and authority in this context.
Identifying an important Family Dynamic and Pattern
In this family, the second generation is aware that this kind of ambivalent behavior is not only a longstanding pattern with their father, but also a long-term source of inhibiting their individual and collective autonomy and leadership development. Their father’s ambivalence around trusting them to make decisions, both individually and collectively, is a pattern that has profoundly limited G2’s ability and freedom to practice and step into their leadership over the years. While G2 has been heavily encouraged to engage more actively in governance, their sense of trust in “stepping up” has been and remains quite fragile because whenever they made strides toward exercising their own leadership, influence, authority and power Dad was often unconsciously continuing to exercise control in a variety of ways.
The situation described here is common and understandable. When founders/wealth creators and their succeeding generations run up against the theory of generational change and the transfer of power vs. the actualpractice of change everyone can see just how difficult it is to engage in the process of succession and continuity. In this case, the situation is exacerbated by the fact that everyone in the family system is both unclear and significantly avoidant about what they think, feel, and believe about power, authority and leadership. Dad says he would like to transfer power, but his actions say otherwise; G2 would like to step into their power but are reluctant to do so fully. Both generations are living in a state of ambivalence in which they are conflicted; part of them wants to take new action, and part of them does not; this ‘in-between’ state generally leads to a lack of action, lack of effective communication and eventually, a lack of engagement.
Why Is This Important?
The unconscious ambivalencewe see in the founder/patriarch has already become generationally embedded in the family dynamics. It has become part of G2’s identity and approach to decision-making and it has the momentum and potential to continue to embed itself into subsequent generations over time if it is not successfully identified and addressed. This challenging unconscious behavioral pattern in a founder can unknowingly foster a dynamic in which ambivalence takes over and leaves everyone involved somewhat paralyzed, frustrated and handicapped. Unconscious ambivalence generally serves to undermine both a healthy family system and a successful enterprise, with a potentially large ripple effect.
If we follow the thread of Dad’s behavior we can see that he quickly and easily moved from confusion to concern about whether the changes taking place were effective, and whether the transfer of power was a good idea and/or “working.” It’s important to reiterate that dad’s confusion, coming on the immediate heels of his re-assertion of power/influence in the meeting, is one key indicator that Dad’s ambivalence is deeply unconscious. Dad has shown us how unconscious the ambivalence is by being so open and candid about his lack of clarity; he did not understand what happened and why it happened. The concern here is that if this pattern continues uninterrupted, we will inevitably begin to see G2’s motivation, willingness to participate as well as levels of trust in the process begin to fray, which endangers and places in question this family’s ability to carry out the work of succession and continuity that they have spent years developing.
What Next?
Doing the work of bringing some awareness to Dad’s unconscious ambivalence and the behavior that follows is an essential first step. The idea of letting go and transferring power into the hands, hearts and minds of others, even those we love and trust, is easy to consider and intend but much more challenging to implement. Ambivalence is tricky because it is a state of mixed emotion and contradictory ideas, a place where we are caught between one point of view and another inside ourselves.
Discovering what the source of the ambivalence is and the reasons for it is the key to opening the possibilities of shifting what is already becoming a negative and challenging pattern within the family and the board governance/family council. For this family, the ambivalence displayed by the founder turned out to be a valuable opportunity to look deeper at the challenges involved with the generational transition. Through a lot of support and coaching, Dad was able to do some introspection to better understand the mixed emotions that he was having around the transition. This increased level of self-awareness let him finally voice this inner conflict to his children. In turn, G2 was better able to understand how that pattern had affected their engagement in governance. Over a period of months, the family worked together to create some new agreements on how they made decisions together. Additionally, they were able to speak with the non-family CEO about how difficult the transition was for them, which helped him appreciate just how big a factor the underlying family dynamic continues to be for them.
The dynamics around ambivalence in a generational transition are common and to be expected. By bringing more self-awareness to the inner conflict and general awareness within the family and enterprise system around how ambivalence can impact the decision-making and group dynamics, people of all generations can better understand how their identity and relationship to power, authority, influence, and leadership can support or greatly hinder their progress as a family enterprise. This work is not easy, nor is it quick, but engaging in it can truly change how family members understand themselves and interact as a group of business owners so they can achieve their goals.