Beth Chapman is family services lead for the Cathy Family Office, part of the Chick-fil-A Corporate Support Center. Chapman discusses how she assists with effective family communication, including overcoming the challenges that arise when the number of family members increases:
How do you help with communication — among family members and between the family and the family office?
One of the first things that I did when I came here was to make sure that they had a consistent cadence of both family updates and business updates. I put together a family newsfeed so they could be up to date on not just business happenings, but also family happenings: family notables, family spotlights. You might think, they’re family — they should know everything that’s going on. With busy schedules, they don’t see their cousins or siblings all the time. The family newsfeed has been very well received. It keeps the family consistently updated as opposed to getting a major download of information that can be extremely overwhelming at the end of the year.
How, and how often, do you put this together?
I publish this every two months. I have representatives across different elements of the family business enterprise that I work with to help provide some of the content. They’re the subject matter experts in their respective areas, and they have been wonderful to work with on this.
What complications can you run into with family communications?
As with any family, mine or yours, communication can be wonderful and supportive. It can also present challenges as the number of family members increases, different opinions exist and decisions are being made. I think sometimes there can be a bit of a wall put up: You want to say something or give feedback but are a little afraid to do so when you’re not quite sure how it’s going to be received by the other party. This is particularly true because it’s family — these are people that you see at dinner time or at the family reunion. This can create another layer of hesitancy when you’re trying to make decisions — you may not want to rock the boat too much.
Another issue can be the pressure felt by family members, especially the next generation. They may feel, ‘I have to be super successful, because my great grandfather created this business, and anything I do has to be at the same level of success.’
Those are some of the things that can create challenges for family businesses.
How do you help family members improve their communication with each other?
The way that we frame requests, the way that we express our opinions, can be particularly challenging when there are many people at the table that have a lot of passion about something. I work with people on framing, clear communication and how to navigate making decisions with more people and more opinions in the room. Particularly when it’s a family business, communication can be challenging because when you leave the business conversation, you’re still cousins, brothers and sisters.
Before this job, I was a management professor focused on human resources and organizational behavior. My dissertation was on negotiation skills. It’s fascinating to me how we negotiate all the time — a lot of times we assume it’s just when we buy houses or a car. But anytime we need something, and we need someone else to help us with that, we’re negotiating. I have a section of the newsfeed where I have an educational component for topics like this.
The biggest thing is practice, and I have times throughout the year when I’m able to get family members together. We’ll do hands-on experiential learning where we do case studies or simulations, and they can practice these types of skills with feedback.
That’s the other critical thing: It’s one thing just to practice, but you don’t get a lot out of practice without feedback. You don’t know if you’re making the same mistake over and over again, or if there are areas in which you can improve. I think one of the roles they have entrusted me with is to be a teacher and truth teller.