I feel that all things happen for a reason. In May of this year I attended Dave Ramsey's Entreleadership Summit. I left the 3 day event full of inspiration and ideas.
Going to a conference after having such a jarring interaction with my daughter and hearing what I'm about to share changed the way I operated my business and my life.
The speaker that stuck with me was Pat Lencioni. If you don't know anything about him please check out the link attached to his name to learn his consulting, team building and family successes.
Pat's talk focused around clarity in your business. He laid out the following questions to create such clarity.
Why do we exist?
How do we behave?
What do we do?
How will we succeed?
What is most important, right now?
Who must do what?
As this sequence of questions was shared it hit me that my family was a team! And when number 5 flashed on the screen, butterflies rose in my stomach. THIS is what I'd been missing. Did we know what was most important right now? Did I know?
On the plane ride home I devised a plan of action for my team. We would define the questions above to help my family understand our rally cry and each family member's role.
Why Do We Exist? - The organization's core purpose beyond making money
To Support each other through good times and bad. Our family is a home base from the world where each member should feel safe, loved and free of judgement. We are here to create a place of belonging.
How Do We Behave? -The core values that all team members must share to thrive.
In order to create an environment free of judgement and belonging we have zero name calling. We must also show each other respect by not interrupting one another and fully listening to each other.
What Do We Do? - A simple statement that defines the organization's business.
For a business this is a little more simple because it's the nuts and bolts of what they do. For a family I felt like our purpose was simply to support growth.
How will we succeed? - The anchors that define the strategy of the organization.
We will only succeed if we stay a team and the way to stay a team is through team building activities such as family game night, dinner as a family at least 3 nights a week and clear and open communication of feelings when someone feels hurt or upset.
What is most important, right now? - This is the rally cry and overarching objectives that are shared.
This particular item is ever changing as it's what you would want to see in the next 3 to 12 months. At the time of my initial writing of this I focused on finishing out the school year as that's where my stress was stemming from.
Who Must Do What? - The role of each member in achieving the objectives.
In the past this is where I'd gone wrong. Each member never had a clearly defined role. This changed by laying out expectations for each family member.
Dad - Cook Breakfast, lay out clothes for Stella the night before.
Mom - pack lunches and snacks for school, do homework with Stella each evening.
Stella - Fully dress self each morning before breakfast, in charge of shoes and remembering book bag. Also in charge of homework daily.
Mitch - (he's 2) try not to cry about getting in the car (this is a pipe dream)
As silly as this exercise may seem to you it worked. My family made a complete 180 because we all knew what was expected of us. Even Mitch's crying was kept to a minimum because the stress level of the family was so much lower.
By defining core values and expectations for each family member a whole world of flexibility was born! I no longer cared how things were done, it was about why they were important and now everyone understood that.
I also used these questions to define my business needs and the important goals that needed to be addressed right now. I built this website, rebranded and even upped my social media game all based on this plan.