Key Questions to Consider:
- Are family members able to change a Self-Defeating Mindset as it relates to relationships?
- Can you say that your family has developed the ability to resolve upsets and conflicts amongst each other?
What to Expect:
The Unity Encounter is divided into Two Segments.
- Living with an Outward Mindset: The way you “show up” – or, in other words, the state of your heart toward others, determines the outcomes of your relationships. You learn to truly “see” your own heart, or the way you show up to (with) others. Then, if needed, how to show up differently, in a way that lifts and unifies. This segment utilizes the Arbinger Group’s “Living with an Outward Mindset” workshop modified for use by families.
- Living with an Outward Mindset: Segment One above is the heart. Segment Two is the soul of a critical relationship skill – resolving upsets in a way that preserves trust and strengthens unity. How you resolve upsets (or choose not to), in large measure determines how much trust and unity your family has. Is it possible for families to live together, including through the teenage years, not having an upset or an insult – even unintentionally? Possible, but highly unlikely. Because we are human, upsets occur. Untreated, upsets never really resolve themselves. They get buried only to “bubble up” when you wish they wouldn’t. They undermine feelings of trust, love and unity for as long as they remain unresolved. This segment utilizes Carter International Training & Development Company “Resolving Upsets” workshop modified for use with families.
Primary Benefits:
- Discovering the mindset that creates productive and fruitful relationships.
- Learning how it feels to “hear” as well as be “heard.”
- Experiencing how to truly “see” and then deal with upsets (both and past and present) in positive and unifying ways.
Skill Sets Delivered to the Participants In Segment One:
- You personally experience how to:
- Detect the state of your heart towards others.
- Learn, then experience, the skills to change how you “see” others thereby.
- Changing your state of heart and the outcomes of your relationships.
Skill Sets Delivered to the Participants In Segment Two:
You learn, then experience:
- Where upsets come from.
- How they are formed.
- How they impact you individually and as a family.
- Operating from the foundation of the skill set in Segment One, what you can do to improve?
- You begin the process and will practice these skills together.
Key Questions to Consider:
- How well does your family communicate and handle sensitive topics?
- To what degree do family members understand what matters most to themselves and to other family members?
- How completely do family members understand what matters most to the family as a unit?
What to Expect:
Individual Communication & Leadership Styles:
Participants are coached on the use of tools that help them communicate better, learn how to understand the communication preferences of others, and how to recognize patterns of miscommunication. They are shown how stress can affect normal communication and how to avoid letting stress “hijack” both their own and other’s intent.
Personal and Family Values Discovery:
Family members personally discover and define their most important values. Then, if appropriate, they share them with the other members of the family resulting in all of the members of the family having a more profound understanding of one another. With that common understanding, the family starts the process of developing a unified set of unique Family Values that defines the future basis for working together.
Primary Benefits:
- Revealing Family Strengths Individually and as a Group;
- Establishing New Communication Channels by Understanding Preferences; and
- Discovering Key Values and Shared Meaning among Family Members.
Skill Sets Delivered to Participants
- Communication Style & Preferences: The purpose of this skill set is to magnify the feelings of safety and trust within the family. You learn that personal communication style is defined by unique preferences, both yours and those around you. Once you recognize those and learn to implement the skills to improve your communication, the feelings of safety and trust within the family improve dramatically. This segment utilizes the Stratton Interpersonal Leadership Style Training modified for families. In this Encounter, you will learn how to: • Understand your communication preferences. • Learn how to discern and understand the communication preferences of others around you. • Know how to adapt to other’s preferences and improve communication. • Recognize and avoid the impact of stress on communication.
- Personal & Shared Family Values: The purpose of this skill set is to discover what is most important to you and really moves you to act each day. It is also to learn what is most important to the other members of your family and what moves them to act each day. Doing this, alongside other family members, creates a deeper pool of shared meaning and understanding as a family. This is a pre-requisite to other skill sets that will be taught in future Encounters. This segment utilizes the Values Edge System modified for families. The family will engage together to: • Discover and define your key values. • Discover others key values and definitions. • Begin the creation of a set of family values that all can support.
Key Questions to Consider:
- Have you recorded what matters most to you for your life?
- What would be the impact of having a united, shared vision of your family’s future?
What to Expect:
During this encounter, all family members discover the answers to the following questions:
- What is most important about life to you?
- What guides your decisions then moves you to act?
- Who are you (individually)?
- How can you use this information to live your highest vision of you?
- What is really worth doing?
- Who do you want to be with doing that which is really worth doing?
Primary Benefits:
- Guiding each member of the family to discover and record a personal vision of the life they want most to live.
- Guiding the family to discover and record a shared vision of the future of the family that supports and sustains the achievement of the personal visions of each of the individual family members.
- Finalizing and recording a shared purpose around which the family can unite and achieve.
Skill Sets Delivered to Participants:
- Discover how to establish the correct order of what matters most.
- Learn how to bring together disparate ideas into a structure that unifies the family.
- Learn how to live in a way that fulfills what matters most.
- Learn another way to ensure that your “voice” is heard.
- Discover and record the truth about your future, both individually and as a family.
Key Questions to Consider:
- How aware are you of the unwritten beliefs that run your life?
- How aligned is the family with the fundamental principles needed to achieve the family’s vision of its future?
- How long do you want this family to last?
- How long do you want this legacy to last?
- How much documentation does the family have to keep the family aligned as it moves through time?
What to Expect:
- Guided by the vision created for the family in the last encounter, the family discovers the Beliefs and the Principles about what must happen within the family for your respective visions to be fulfilled.
- Based upon the principles discovered by the family, a formal organization will be created complete with an operating Charter and By-Laws to be the ship the family uses to fulfill the visions of each family member.
- Finally, the family selects its first action forward as a group. We call this the family’s First Stewardship. The family organization assumes leadership over that first stewardship. The ship is launched!!!!!
Primary Benefits:
- Together discovering and recording the principles that the family uses to fulfill its vision.
- Implementing a formal family organization whose sole purpose is to facilitate the family to achieve its vision.
- Choosing the family’s first stewardship roles and leaders.
- At this point, you and your family have created and launched the ship to carry you to the fulfillment of each family member’s vision!
Results Delivered to the Family:
Guiding Family Belief’s Statement Statement of the shared Beliefs (and their meaning) the family embraces to sustain the fulfillment of the Family Vision.
Guiding Family Principles Statement Statement of the shared Principles is a statement of the rules upon which actions of the Family Organization are based to sustain the fulfillment of the Family Vision.
Family Charter and By-Laws Statement compiled from the Beliefs and Principles described above plus a description of the roles, duties and how to make changes within the organization to sustain the fulfillment of the Family Vision.
The Formal Structure the family agrees to operate through for educating, training, and mentoring upcoming generations.
Launch of the Family Organization using the First Stewardship.
Key Questions to Consider:
- How often does your family meet for family fun, growth and development?
- How important is it to deliberately develop family leadership in each succeeding generation?
- How will you know when each family member is ready to receive their inheritance?
What to Expect:
- These programs should be carefully developed by an assigned team within the family organization to make sure that the larger purposes as defined by the organization’s Vision and Mentoring plans are met.
- Above all, these meetings should allow for all family members to meet regularly, discuss the business of the family, have fun, and provide development opportunities for each member.
Primary Benefits
- Family Development – Train, prepare and mentor each generation to: 1. Prepare and mentor family members to eventually assume the responsibility of leading the family before the leading generation passes away. 2. Prepare each family member to receive their inheritance before the leading generation passes away.
- Family Unique Identity – Solidify and share the unique identity of your family by: 1. Collecting and retaining the family stories, current and past (who am I?). 2. Collecting, organizing and retaining the family history (where did I come from?).
- Conduct the Business of Being a Family (not necessarily the Family Business)
- Have FUN!!!!!!!!!
Experiences Delivered to the Family Members:
- These events allow for the organization to customize training and development as needed and determined by the leadership. Topics that may be included are:
- Core Skills:
- Communication Skills: Styles & Preferences
- Values Discovery & Definition: Family & Personal
- Arbinger Mindset Assessments
- Individual Challenge Programs
- Charitable Challenge Program
- Grandparent’s Investment Club
- Outward vs. Inward Mindset training
- Conflict (Upsets) Recognition
- Vision Statement Development
- Story Development
- Leadership Skills Development ° Roles and Responsibilities ° Specific skills training (i.e. bookkeeping, historical record keeping)
