{"id":116,"date":"2018-02-20T10:04:26","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T10:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/good2talk.online\/?p=116"},"modified":"2018-11-21T11:24:02","modified_gmt":"2018-11-21T11:24:02","slug":"culture-communication-and-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/good2talk.online\/culture-communication-and-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture, communication and conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"
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  1. Introduction<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In Preparing Heirs<\/em>,[1]<\/a> Williams and Preisser report research which suggests that, of the 70% of wealth transition plans that fail (you may want to rewind and read that statistic again if you\u2019re not familiar with it), 60% of those failures are due to a breakdown of trust and communication within the family, and a further 25% to a failure to prepare the next generation for what is to come; itself, I would suggest, a symptom of failed communication.<\/p>\n

    Numbers of studies confirm that one of the keys to the successful management of family wealth across generations is to \u201ccommunicate, communicate, communicate\u201d[2]<\/a> and some suggest that without good communication, governance structures can provide a false sense of security, with predictable results.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

    I would just add that, in my experience, the difference between conflict managed constructively (which can be a powerful agent for invention and innovation) and conflict managed destructively (which is utterly corrosive of everything it touches) is the effectiveness of the communication between those involved.<\/p>\n

    This chapter examines why we find effective communication so difficult, and considers what we might do to improve the situation.<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. We are family[4]<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Speaking at a conference recently, Ken McKracken[5]<\/a> referred to the \u201cnatural governance\u201d that keeps families and their enterprises functioning as \u201cthe way we do things around here\u201d.\u00a0 That struck a chord with me because Joanna Kalowski,[6]<\/a> who first taught me intercultural mediation, uses exactly the same phrase to define \u2018culture\u2019, and I have long believed that every family has its own (micro) culture.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t believe me, think about the first time you celebrated a significant festival with someone else\u2019s family (I suspect that of a first serious girl, or boy, friend); didn\u2019t they do everything wrong?\u00a0 Sorry \u2026 differently?<\/p>\n

      So, if \u2018we\u2019 are those who do things in a particular way, how do we define our family \u2018in-group’?\u00a0 Who is family?<\/p>\n

      For some, it is the nuclear family (parents and children) that is most important.\u00a0 For others it is the extended family, and that can extend a very long way indeed, perhaps taking in all blood relatives, however remote.\u00a0 I almost used the term \u2018me and mine\u2019 in relation to the nuclear family, but that would be wrong; to those whose concept of family is extended, \u2018mine\u2019 inevitably includes all of those relations.\u00a0 Indeed, it is interesting that some ethnic West African languages, and perhaps others, have no words for \u2018auntie\u2019, \u2018uncle\u2019 or \u2018cousin\u2019, using \u2018mother\u2019, \u2018father\u2019, \u2018brother\u2019 and \u2018sister\u2019 instead.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n

      What of marriage?\u00a0 In some cultures it is a joining of families so that, where extended family is the norm, each marriage may increase family size by an order of magnitude.\u00a0 Elsewhere, marriage means a change of family, generally for the bride who may leave her parents\u2019 family (physically and economically, if not emotionally) and join her husband\u2019s, likely taking on the care of her in-laws in place of that of her parents.[8]<\/a>\u00a0 For others, bloodline is all, and in-laws are not really regarded as family proper.<\/p>\n

      Religion too may play a part, with conversion, apostasy or \u2018marrying out\u2019 potentially having an impact on family membership as witness, for example, the UK\u2019s Act of Settlement 1701 (an early family constitution?), which provided that the English throne would pass to the Electress Sophia of Hanover and her Protestant descendants who had not married a Roman Catholic.<\/p>\n

      All of which is to say nothing of the interesting consequences of divorce and remarriage and the relationships that gives rise to; same sex relationships; or the impact of adoption – not least the Japanese practice of adult adoption, sometimes credited for the longevity of Japanese family businesses.[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

      The point is that there is no one fixed meaning of \u2018family\u2019, no Platonic ideal form of which the families we deal with are mere shadows.\u00a0 Each family defines its own in-group, its own \u2018way of doing\u2019, and those of us who work with them must take care not to assume that our clients share our sense of family, or to project on to them the expressed norms of the broader society in which we live.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Who\u2019s there?[10]<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        We are each the product of our genes, of our environment, of our experience and, seemingly, of an element of randomness.[11]<\/a>\u00a0 Does nature or nurture predominate?\u00a0 Perhaps inevitably, it is not that simple.<\/p>\n

        Our genes, our DNA sequence, is fixed, but how certain genes express themselves, whether they are switched on or not, turns out to depend on our experience[12]<\/a> and, in no small part, on our interactions with one another (particularly those with our primary carers during our formative years – typically up to the age of seven), and that state of expression can be passed on to our children.<\/p>\n

        Research by Nisbett and Miyamoto[13]<\/a> suggests that we acquire our initial attentional patterns, the way we see the world, through those early socialisation processes, which both reflect the norms of the culture in which we grow up and, in turn, contribute to the \u2018default\u2019 neural firing patterns that are characteristic of that culture; a positive feedback loop.<\/p>\n

        Those patterns reflect in our personality traits.\u00a0 Siegel and colleagues[14]<\/a> suggest that each of us tends to focus predominantly on one of the following aspects of new situations and relationships:<\/p>\n