What’s the Deal? 3 Steps for Entrepreneurs & Spouses to Live Happily Ever After

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Entrepreneurs | What’s the Deal? 3 Steps for Entrepreneurs & Spouses to Live Happily Ever AfterAs a fan of classic films, I am always searching for films that apply to family businesses. I recently viewed the 1936 film, Dodsworth, that stars Walter Houston in the title role, as well as Ruth Chatterton and Mary Astor. Dodsworth, an entrepreneur, owns an automobile manufacturing company, who sells his company and retires without a plan for his future—not unlike many real-life entrepreneurs.

As soon as Dodsworth retires, his wife, Fran, begins to plan their extensive trip to Europe and throughout the process both Dodsworth and Fran encounter differences in their expectations for the trip. Their differences are similar to what my former colleague, Jeff Rothstein, referred to as “What’s the Deal?” Jeff’s assumption was that all couples have an implicit “deal” that is never spoken about and governs how they interact with each other. Jeff posited that when couples move into their 60s, they begin to discuss and question their expectations for their golden years. From Jeff’s perspective, this is an opportunity to dialogue and recalibrate your expectations and come to a common understanding about your future together.

Nearly all couples have implicit, unmentioned, assumptions about their marital relationship. As couples get older and consider retirement or changing their work relationship, many have not considered a plan for the future. They have no resources, no practice, no roadmap, and when they look ahead, they feel adrift.

I help business families address this change using a process I call Life Career Planning. Using Career Life Planning techniques, they realize a sense of fulfillment and purpose. Both the entrepreneur and spouse turn their dreams into reality. The couple enjoys peace of mind about their future. Most importantly, the process helps them devise a common perspective of their values. They can effectively share their goals and dreams with each other in a manner that honors and engages both. They redirect their wisdom and their knowledge of life to produce a realistic, engaging plan for meaningful work and leisure time. They look ahead by looking back.

Nineteenth century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard extolled, “Life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards.” To me that means we recognize, embrace, and celebrate our accomplishments so that we can use them to energize the future.

Life Career Planning unfolds in three simple stages that help draw the entrepreneur and spouse from the past to the future: Harvest the Past, Turn the Soil, and Plant New Seeds.

  1. The couple harvests the past by celebrating the blessing of their life. They own and let go of regrets and hurts of the past. I offer pathways that encourage candid exchanges and mutual encouragement. As the couple harvests their past, they can stand in the present, to make conscious choices about what they want for themselves, their family, and their business.
  2. By turning the soul, the couple speculates on all they might like to do. To get there, they may talk about their personal purpose, what’s meaningful in their lives, and the role that spirituality plays in their work and life. They discuss how to be content by aligning their gifts with all areas of their lives.
  3. As the term implies, planting new seeds puts the couples’ new ideas into a plan for the future. They create a new dream together based on their explicit, shared goals and values—the discussions they have had in harvesting and turning the soil. Many aspects are drawn together: work, relationships, money/wealth, community service, leisure time, health, and spirituality. By recognizing and aligning all of these aspects, the couple builds direction into their future and an enthusiasm to engage in it.

In the case of Dodsworth and Fran, their vastly different expectations were highlighted during their European travel. Fran was youth-obsessed and wanted to embrace a spontaneous and impulsive lifestyle. Dodsworth wanted a more secure lifestyle to enjoy experiences and the wonders of the world like viewing the Northern Lights and appreciating the mysteries of the universe.

Had Dodsworth and Fran realized that entrepreneurs are driven by their dreams they could have anticipated their differences and avoided the tragedy that their relationship would soon befall.

To achieve this new dream for work, our challenge is to understand our purpose and identify what gives heart and meaning in relation to [our] work. That may mean we don’t have to leave our companies, but basically change our job descriptions from day-to-day management to much less demanding daily activities. It also requires us to become the architect and designer, with our families, of the new ownership and management system of our companies.

The new dream for the family is the most important part of Life Career Planning. It is an opportunity to directly confront the question of “What’s the Deal?” and renew your relationship with your spouse and children and redefine your role as grandparents. Related to this is the opportunity to perpetuate your legacy for the benefit of your community and your family.

Likewise, the opportunity to create a new dream for leisure time is the chance to plan, as a couple, to do all those things you have never had the time to do together, but also is an opportunity to plan and do things you have wanted to undertake individually. Recently, while talking with an entrepreneur client who I will call John, who had been exploring his own Life Career Planning, he shared that he has been weighing the possibility of taking a one-month sabbatical to experience what it feels like being away from his company. What John discovered while on sabbatical from his business was that his initial fears of not having a sense of self-worth were not realized. The sabbatical gave him the opportunity to feel good about developing plans to follow up on some of the dreams that he always wanted to explore. In addition, quite to John’s surprise, even though the sabbatical was only one month, his executive team quickly adjusted and began to establish a successful leadership plan to effectively run his company.

To create a new dream for service and philanthropy is an opportunity to reflect on your skills of compassion and sense of gratitude. C. Michael Thompson wrote in The Congruent Life, that “service is on the outside like prayer is on the inside.” Creating a family foundation or donor-advised fund are a few of the ways that are available for you to give back. It is also an opportunity to engage the next generation and your grandchildren in the process of service and philanthropy. Several of my clients engage their entire family in service projects. As grandparents, you can be quite influential with your grandchildren and assist them in establishing gratitude for the blessings of their lives.

If order for you to begin the process of Life Career Planning in your own life, you can reflect on and answer the following seven questions.

  1. What are your seven most important beliefs?
  2. What are the 10 major steppingstones of your life?
  3. How have these events shaped your life and influenced you in regard to your life plan?
  4. What are the major strengths you have developed as a result of your life experiences?
  5. What are your spiritual gifts?
  6. What is your purpose in life?
  • What are your talents?
  • What are you most passionate about?
  • What is the most natural environment for your life?
  • Identify the most important elements of the three previous questions and combine them into a sentence that goes as follows: “My purpose in life is…”

7. What is my new dream in relation to:

  • Work (Achievement)
  • Family (Intimacy)
  • Leisure (Play and Creativity)
  • Service (Compassion & Contribution)
  • Philanthropy (Legacy – Values)
  • Health
  • Purpose (Meaning)
  • Personal Mastery (Know Thyself)

With an appropriate amount of planning and discussion with your spouse, you can avoid the pitfalls that Dodsworth and Fran encountered. Take the time to engage in Life Career Planning with your spouse to ensure that your golden years are truly the best years of your lives.

About the Author

Tom Hubler is the author of THE SOUL OF FAMILY BUSINESS: A Practical Guide to Family Business Success and a Loving Family (2018). He is a family business advisor and President of Hubler for Business Families. When Hubler began working with family-owned business in 1980, there were very few in the field and he has therefore played a major role in this area, from helping colleges and universities establish family business institutes to his work with countless families and their business enterprises.

The Importance of Taking Care of Yourself While Working

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Self-care| The Importance of Taking Care of Yourself While WorkingWaking up and getting ready for work in the morning is a routine that many people are familiar with. You get up, brush your teeth and wash your face, change, eat some breakfast and make sure you have everything you need before you head out the door. If you’ve done this long enough, your morning routine may start to feel robotic.

The question is, when was the last time that you really took some time in the morning to meditate? What about to make yourself a healthy lunch for work? Overall, when did you last set some time aside for yourself, in order to better your mental and physical health? This doesn’t only apply to your morning routine, but is incredibly important for your afternoon, evening, and during every hour in between.

Even something as simple as taking a break at work and stepping away from your computer can benefit you. Or even just going for a teeth cleaning session with the dentist at Cape dentistry West Harwich clinic can immensely boost your self-morale.

Here are a number of reasons you need to prioritize self-care while you are working a full-time job.

You can never be too busy

You are never too busy to take care of yourself, no matter how many deadlines you have or how pressing a particular project is. It is incredibly important that you learn how to properly manage your time while you are at work, and it’s equally paramount that you never leave projects to the last minute, under any circumstance.

Mental health and productivity

You will notice a significant improvement in your mental health and productivity if you take time for yourself. Remember, you aren’t a robot, and you can’t work like one. Make a habit of stepping away from your work computer and you’ll notice a boost in your work creativity. You will even start to feel much happier, overall.

Hobbies and activities outside of work

How often do you participate in hobbies and other activities outside of your usual work routine? This hardly needs to require a lot of money on your part, as even something as simple as taking time to read at night, or practicing meditation, can positively impact your physical and mental health alike.

Providing support for your family members

If you don’t take care of yourself, how can you possibly hope to take care of your loved ones?

Of course, the older your family members get, the more they will require additional assistance. People’s health starts to decline with age, and you will likely require non-medical elderly in home care, which you can read more about on www.inhomecare.com. It’s important that you understand the difference of being able to take care of yourself and whether you need additional help.

You need to be attentive to your surroundings and know that in neglecting to take care of yourself, you also are not providing the best possible support for your family members. If you are consistently working late nights, you may not even realize that your loved ones are facing certain health issues, themselves. You may not even think to get at-home support, either, as your mind is constantly focused on other matters.

There isn’t a single person that can tell you how to live your life on a day-to-day basis. That being said, it would never hurt to be mindful over what the healthier alternatives are and how they can impact your life. Consider some of the points that have been mentioned here, for instance.

Starting Your Own Business? The Areas To Gain Knowledge In

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Starting Your Own Business | Starting Your Own Business? The Areas To Gain Knowledge InStarting your own business could be one of the things that you want to do. You may already have an idea that you want to go with. Something you have nurtured in your mind for some time. You have the courage to finally do it. Take that plunge, but then you realise that perhaps, you might need some added support in terms of actual business and the things you can do to make your idea become the success you envision it to be. So here are some of the areas you might want to brush up on, in order to have everything you need to really go for it.

Knowledge in business

You may have a real cracking idea for a business, a product or service that you want to offer, but that isn’t all that is needed to make it a success. Knowledge in business, from the general running of it to things you might want to try in terms of marketing and accounting could really help your new business thrive. So it could be worth looking into things such as an mba program online in business. You could also look at attending marketing events and networking groups to learn off other people and really pick up on things you may never have thought about before. This is a great way to give yourself a decent platform to bounce off of when it comes to launching your new business.

Social media

These days a business cannot really succeed without some form of social media presence of advertising. So it may be time to start thinking about these things before you startup your business. It could be that you read various different articles about social media strategies and how best to use specific platforms. It could be that you might want to focus on only a few to begin with, the main contenders like Twitter, Facebook or Instagram might be good places to start.

People skills

Working for yourself might not necessarily mean that you think you need good people skills, but actually this will become important to you. Even if it is just you for a while, you may still have to deal with customers and clients. Either on the phone, over email or face to face. Having decent people skills means that you are likely to handle a situation professionally. This will also help when it comes to hiring staff which could happen for your business in the future.

Websites and IT

Finally, while you may not be an IT expert, generalised things such as website management or even creation might be something you want to learn before you launch your new business. It can save you money instead of having to commission someone to do it for you, and you get to learn on the job about what will work for your business and what won’t. Things like SEO and keywords will be important, alongside a decent ecommerce facility. Thankfully there is a wealth of information online that will have you creating a decent website in no time at all.

Let’s hope this has made you more comfortable with starting your own business.

StrategyDriven Podcast Episode 33 – Making Change Work: What are Systems and How Do They Influence Change?

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StrategyDriven PodcastStrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.

Episode 33 – Making Change Work: What are systems and how to they influence change? explores what systems are and their importance to effectively managing any change. During our discussion, Sharon Drew Morgen, the New York Times bestselling author of Dirty Little Secrets, shares with us her insights and illustrative examples regarding:

  • what systems are and their role in the change management process
  • why ignoring systems makes change harder than it needs to be
  • the types of systems leaders can expect to deal with when making a change
  • how systems go through the decision-making process to determine whether to except or reject a particular change

Additional Information

In addition to the invaluable insights Sharon Drew shares in Dirty Little Secrets and this edition of the StrategyDriven Podcast are the resources accessible from her websites, www.NewSalesParadigm.com and www.BuyingFacilitation.com.   Sharon Drew’s book, Dirty Little Secrets, can be purchased by clicking here.

Making Change Work!
This podcast is the second in a series that teaches leaders how to make change work. Coming editions of the Making Change Work series will explore the steps to gaining the buy-in and committed effort needed to implement change successfully. We’ll cover topics including:

  • The Problems of Change Management: bias and push
  • If decisions are always rational, why are changees resisting?
  • Why is buy-in necessary and how to achieve it?
  • Putting it all together, a radical approach to change management: real leadership

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is a New York Times bestselling author and developer of a change management model based on buy-in that she’s written about in her latest book Dirty Little Secrets. She is the visionary thought leader behind Buying Facilitation®, a decision facilitation model that focuses on helping buyers and those who would be impacted by the accompanying change manage their internal, unconscious, and behind-the-scenes issues that must be addressed before they purchase anything or buy-in to the requested change. She has served many well known companies including: KPMG, Unisys, IBM, Wachovia, and Bose. To read Sharon Drew’s complete biography, click here.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:50 — 52.0MB)

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Why Ethics are Essential for a Strong Team Culture

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StrategyDriven Corporate Culture Article | Ethics | Why Ethics are Essential for a Strong Team CultureBuilding a team culture that is magnetic or lasts means better productivity, positive engagement, and higher retention. However, what has been largely overlooked by many business leaders is the essential foundation for a culture that sustains and thrives: Ethics. An understanding and common ethical language is missing for many organizations. This makes it impossible to establish a strong, cohesive culture where the interests of the individuals and the collective move forward together. In order for both the individuals and the collective whole to move forward together, a common language and appreciation for ethics is essential.

The Culture Fad

Culture is a company’s collective personality. To fit into a company’s culture, your personal attributes as a team member should be compatible with the personality of the workplace. Culture entails work environment, vibe of the people, values, and mission. Examples of cultural attributes are values like collaboration, creativity, learning, and professionalism. Culture also entails environmental preferences like a casual workplace with a dog-friendly environment. Culture entails policies and rules, like a work-from-home policy or a vacation policy. A strong collective culture fuels the individuals and therefore fuels the mission, since when the individuals are supported and motivated, they contribute toward the collective mission with energy and dedication. With a strong cohesive culture, the individuals are aligned and united around the mission, as well as around how the mission is achieved day-to-day in practice. A strong culture is one where individual peace and progress thrive, and therefore the company’s progress thrives.

Ethics as the Essential Foundation

Why are ethics essential for a strong culture to work and sustain? Ethics are principles that guide our behavior toward what is most good or guide as to what is the right thing to do in a given situation. Ethics guide how we conduct our work and how we interact with and respond to others. Aren’t these the most basic, universal actions of any organization? Surprisingly, these basic requirements can be very tough to align around without a common understanding and appreciation for what is ethical. Though the individuals in an organization may all value the work-from-home policy and free lunch, without a common understanding for how to communicate with each other, build relationships, and foster development for each person, the work environment and perks become obsolete. Though a company or team’s culture may change with time – the policies, the environment, the people, a common language for ethics are timeless. A common language, understanding, and practice of ethics is the basic foundation for any strong culture.

Modern Obstacles to an Ethical Culture

An ethical language is challenging to design and align around. Many companies define their culture as built around Integrity as a value. Most organizations describe integrity as “do the right thing” and stop there. However, this leaves many individuals asking: What is the right thing in a given situation? There are a few reasons that this isn’t so straightforward anymore. Firstly, we have become so accustomed to hearing “do the right thing” that it has almost lost its meaning. Secondly, organizations have diverse teams of individuals that have different perspectives on what “the right thing” is. Finally (and most relevant for our need for ethics now), with the fast-paced, dynamic society we live in, new products and situations arise everyday that require a newly interpreted understanding of what “the right thing”, or the ethical thing, to do really is. In many organizations, people on the same team are speaking a different ethical language and this causes misunderstandings and does not serve the mission. Many organizations believe that is human-centered action is prioritized, business progress and impact will be jeopardized. However, actually the opposite is true. If human-centered action is not prioritized, business progress and impact will be jeopardized.

Ethics in Practice

In a business environment, the culture is often professional and mission-driven, however, it so often lacks an ethical backbone. This is to say that it lacks a common understanding for what is acceptable and conducive behavior toward work and toward each other. In interpersonal situations like meetings, team projects, or when giving feedback, people do not know how to treat each other in a way that both serves individual peace and progress, as well as collective peace and progress. The result? Lack of ownership, lack of productivity, high stress, low morale, and ultimately poor retention. Teams become environments of animosity that are not aligned or focused on the mission. Without this foundation of ethics, productivity and retention are impossible. Therefore, without ethics, a strong culture is not possible. Building a culture without building it upon a common language and appreciation of ethics is like building a skyscraper on a foundation of sand. In harsh weather, when misunderstandings and debates arise, the shiny skyscraper you have built will waiver and come tumbling down.

The Solution

Ah, the good news, finally. A culture built upon a foundation of ethics is a culture that will sustain and continuously thrive. How can you build a culture that that is build upon a foundation of ethics?

To build a strong culture, you must build a common language, understanding, and appreciation of ethics into your own cultural DNA. A common language of ethics can be found in Awake Ethics. This language of ten principles is a timeless system with clear, universal appeal. The interpretation and stories from the field are from recent business experience. Next, schedule regular ethics trainings for your team every quarter. With an understanding of ethics and time to share recent experiences as a team, you will feel more confident in your own decision-making. You will have a shared team understanding about what positive, constructive collaboration and interacts look like. Finally, encourage ethics. Incorporate ethics into performance reviews and acknowledge outstanding ethical behavior. Incorporate ethics into your cultural values, as the foundational value.

A common language, understanding, and appreciation for ethics is the foundation of a strong culture. Once you have the ethical foundation in place, then feel free to add your perks, policies, and decorations. A shared practice of ethics enables individual peace and progress, which fuels collective success. Ethics align and accommodate the desires of the individuals and the whole.

Get started in building your culture upon a solid foundation of ethics.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Hilary Jane GrosskopfHilary Jane Grosskopf is the author of Awake Leadership: A System for Leading with Clarity and Creativity (2018) and Awake Ethic: A System for Aligning Your Action with Your Core Intentions (2018). She is a leadership guide, strategist, writer and Founder of Awake Leadership Solutions.