Ask Coach: What Sharing A Bathroom With 4 Women Taught Me About Family Strategic Planning
By Rich Anderson, executive coach with HTG Peer Groups
Editor’s Note: Few would argue that it’s easier to be productive at work when life at home is functioning smoothly. HTG Peer Groups founder and CEO Arlin Sorensen often talks about how succeeding at business while failing at home is still failing. He encourages HTG members to be intentional about both their work lives and personal lives.
Q: How do I do strategic planning with my family?
Coach: Have you ever shared one bathroom with four women? I have. It makes for an interesting study in human relations and tests communication and mutual respect like no other situation I know.
That shared bathroom and incidents around it led to what became my first formal facilitated event! My wife and three daughters, aged 6 to 13 at the time, sat before me and my newly purchased tripod and flip chart. Inspired by Gary Smalley’s Hidden Keys to Loving Relationships video series, I stood there. Four beautiful smiling faces looked up at the man who was determined to lead them to the promised land of bathroom peace and harmony. What came out of that extended, multi-evening discussion became our family constitution.
Why Strategically Plan As A Family?
Working on a strategic family plan or a family constitution will unify you as a family. Laying out your values, rules, and violation consequences will reduce family stress, fussing, and feuding. You will enhance communication that is honoring for all of your loved ones. Your family core values will be intentionally identified, prioritized, and documented. Your kids will feel more secure knowing they have been heard, knowing a resolution is in place and knowing the family rules.
How I Did It
I didn’t really know any text book principles of group facilitation back then, I just got up front and gave everyone an opportunity to share what bugged them and blessed them in our family. I wrote down what they said and together we identified, organized and prioritized the issues we all faced. With a little time and creativity we built what became our family constitution of core values.
A Bit Of Our Family Constitution
Perhaps these excerpts from our family constitution will help guide you. We use the word honor a lot as it focuses on value and respect — as you might honor your Grandpa’s military medal of honor or other family heirloom.
- Honor Each Other by respecting each other’s:
- Person — through our speech, contact (hugs not hits), and obedience
- Privacy — through knocking before entering
- Property — through sitting on the furniture (not climbing on or rocking back on) asking to borrow, not taking replacing borrowed property, not misplacing
- Peace — through the time and the volume of our voices, steps, musical instruments, and machines
- Honor Ourselves by being:
- Prompt in the time of our rising, arriving, working and retiring
- Polite in our dining
- Persistent in our homework, housework, professional work, practice, exercise
- Pure in our words, deeds, and consumption
- Honor Our Family through:
- Daily dinner together and engaging conversation
- Daily bedtime snack (for the kids) and reading
- Weekly family event, game, or movie
- Monthly bonding experience/adventure
- Annual family vacation (without work interruptions)
- Honor God’s Creation
- Reduce, reuse, recycle: autos, water, electricity, and garbage
- Toil in the soil: plant a vegetable and flower garden so we know where it all comes from, care for our house plants
- Here kitty/doggy: feed, water, clean, train our pets
- Valderi, Valdera: camp, hike, and picnic to nurture our sense of awe
Clarity And Consequences
We included a section which outlined everyone’s expected daily schedule. This brought clarity and reduced conflict around getting out of bed, after school activities, and bedtime. The kids set out their own consequences and rewards which either took away or provided additional time for favored activities.
Conditions And Review
Any effort to shape behavior and the culture of a family involves slowing down to communicate and regularly review the constitution, consequences, and rewards. We were able to do this without electronic daily calendars! Surely you can too with the all the tools and reminders now available to help you plan and execute around your priorities in your most important relationships.
Take the time with your loved ones to walk through a relational or family strategic planning session. Build your family constitution and shape your family culture.
Rich Anderson is an executive coach with HTG Peer Groups where he is most energized by helping people around their priorities. He also presents leadership workshops and seminars including team personality and judgment assessments and training. Prior to his affiliation with HTG, Rich was a private practice attorney where his practice included advising small business owners from startup through succession, estate planning, and conflict resolution. Rich also served four terms in the Iowa Legislature. You can reach him at randerson@htgpeerpgroups.com.