Family Learning and the “VQ”
The field of family dynamics and family enterprise coaching has evolved of late to focus on learning. Family offices are hiring Chief Learning Officers to prepare the rising generation for leadership. Luminaries in the field like Dennis Jaffe and Jay Hughes have written that for multigenerational families to remain successful, they must become “learning organizations.”
What does this mean and what are the conditions necessary for success? The easy things to learn are technical skills. More challenging and just as necessary, if not more so, are the interpersonal skills and the drive to continuously practice and develop them as the family grows and changes. As coaches, we must hold the family with unconditional positive regard and empathy while attending to their specific needs with impeccable discretion. For family members, it takes trust and a willingness to challenge themselves into new ways of being and relating. This requires an incredible amount of courage and vulnerability.
Allow me to share an example of this from a family meeting Graddha facilitated. The two sons, both young adults in their twenties, have grown up with parents who are always in the spotlight. The parents remain highly engaged in business and philanthropy. At one point during a family meeting, when asked how the family can support each other’s individual values and personal growth, one son says, “Mom and Dad, we just want you to take us seriously. To consider our pursuits real and valuable.” The other son nods his head, concurring. This is a moment of extreme vulnerability and it changes the tenor not only of that meeting but of all the meetings after that.
So what does it take to learn? Some research has supported the idea that emotional intelligence is critical. Our ability to identify our own emotions, read others, and respond appropriately to the variety of circumstances in which we find ourselves given these variables. Certainly, aptitude, and effort are not irrelevant. But they alone are not enough. There is something else — our ability to be open and vulnerable. Our ability to be beginners and to reconsider previously held positions with the advent of new information, changing times, and changes in leadership or group dynamics. In families and organizations, long term success requires the adoption of new paradigms. Each generation of leaders brings new and valuable ideas to the table. Successful transfers of leadership require openness and vulnerability on both sides.
The term “EQ” refers to emotional intelligence. Aptitude is captured by the term IQ. There is much debate about how to measure them. But they are useful because, in their existence, they get us to consider both the role of emotional awareness and also other kinds of intelligence in relation to outcomes. What if we had another indicator — that of a “vulnerability quotient” or “VQ?”
Brené Brown’s research identifies vulnerability as the birthplace of courage, connection, and innovation, and also essential for leadership. In order to succeed, families and family businesses must empower each individual and generation to contribute uniquely to the collective effort while maintaining their own sense of Identity and purpose. This takes courage, connection and innovation.
There are practical implications to identifying the concept of “VQ.” First, it acknowledges one key component of learning that is not described by EQ or IQ. In so doing, individuals, families, organizations can strive for it. Preparing the rising generation for leadership and stewardship of family resources requires training and mentorship. If leaders look for ways to model vulnerability, it might affect the way they engage with the next generation.
Family meetings and leadership activities often focus on vulnerability as a way to build trust. These activities raise the VQ of any group. And, with trust, comes group cohesion.
Novelist Haruki Murakami sums it up when he wrote in Norwegian Wood: “What happens when people open their hearts? They get better.” That is what we all want for our clients, our children and ourselves.
