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Boundaries for Your Inner Family Business · The Twenty One Clear Podcast

0:06
Adam Hatcher: Hey there.
0:06
Welcome to the 21 Clear Podcast where we talk about anything to help you
0:12
chaos proof your family business.
0:15
I'm your host, Adam Hatcher, the founder of 21 Clear, and today
0:19
we're going to start a two.
0:22
Episode string where I am joined by Melissa Mitchell Blitch.
0:28
Melissa wrote a great book called In The Company of Family, how to
0:33
Thrive When Business Is Personal.
0:35
Um, we met through a mutual friend.
0:37
I read the book and we've talked about it and their concept.
0:41
In this book that the day I joined my family company, I wish I had known.
0:46
I wish, in September of 2010, someone had had this book and
0:51
explained the ideas in it.
0:54
And what Melissa's gonna talk through is the concept of boundaries.
0:58
I'm gonna let her explain it in the.
1:02
In the podcast, but this is an idea that when you work with your family
1:06
for it to be chaos proof, it is an important foundational concept.
1:11
So.
1:13
I'm gonna talk with Melissa to introduce the idea, and then we're going to
1:17
explain it and unpack it a bit more.
1:19
And then in the second episode, we're actually gonna take one.
1:24
We're just gonna do a little popcorn and give you three things you
1:26
need to know in a family business.
1:29
I'll explain that more later.
1:31
Let me get to the first part of our podcast with Melissa Mitchell Blitch.
1:37
Melissa, it is so fun to be on the 21 Clear Podcast with you.
1:42
How are you today?
1:43
Melissa Mitchell Blitch: Good morning.
1:44
I am well and grateful for it.
1:46
How about yourself?
1:47
Adam Hatcher: We, I am well, and when we open this podcast, I do a little bumper
1:53
and I talk about the guest a little bit.
1:56
But what I found fascinating when you and I met, and I have not told this story
2:00
well for the listeners yet, is how you came to working with family businesses
2:07
and really focusing on their dynamics with each other, your career history.
2:13
Do you mind talking about that for a minute?
2:15
It's fascinating to me.
2:17
Melissa Mitchell Blitch: Glad to.
2:18
It is why I do what I do.
2:21
I had a window into the lives of enterprising families.
2:25
Families who had had tremendous financial success, always as
2:28
a result of a family business.
2:30
They were at a stage where they may or may not own it, work in it together, but their
2:34
lives were very financially interdependent and I saw the challenge that combining
2:40
family and wealth and enterprise.
2:43
Created and I was in the chair of a, a wealth advisor.
2:49
I worked for a big five firm and their family wealth planning group, we did
2:52
what may be called estate planning.
2:54
That was my window into their lives.
2:56
And I saw how challenging wealth is inherently, how challenging, you know,
3:04
that financial interdependence was.
3:06
And I wanted somebody to be able to help our families navigate that, explore that
3:11
thrive in the midst of that challenge.
3:14
And this was the late nineties.
3:16
Went to the worldwide web quite a few times, looking for who knows what because,
3:20
what do you call that sort of person?
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Couldn't find it, couldn't find that person.
3:24
And eventually in 2003, just realized, you know, there's a true need here.
3:29
I hope someone on on the planet is doing something about it.
3:32
But if they are, I'm not finding them.
3:34
This is a true need.
3:36
It's not going away.
3:37
I'm increasingly interested in it.
3:39
I believe this is my calling.
3:41
So I left finance in 2003, got a master's in psychology because I
3:46
needed to understand family dynamics and motivation and emotional wellbeing
3:50
and all those sort of things that I didn't understand as a CPA.
3:55
And that is what inspired me to do this work today, was just seeing a
4:00
need and felt feeling compelled for someone to help families with it.
4:05
And if I couldn't find someone else, it was gonna be me.
4:09
Adam Hatcher: I remember being at a conference of wealth managers
4:11
and somebody said something that reminds me of what you just said.
4:16
Uh, we were in a break and he said, Adam, he was a wealth advisor and an independent
4:22
advisor versus with one of the big firms.
4:24
And he said, Adam, there's something different about working on the
4:27
dynamics between family members.
4:30
He said, I have a client and his only goal is to make more money.
4:35
That is his legacy, and I've realized that in helping him make more money,
4:39
I am actually hurting his marriage and his sons and his daughter.
4:46
I assume you saw something similar.
4:48
Melissa Mitchell Blitch: Ooh, yes, I can.
4:50
While there were many clients who inspired me, I could.
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There I only needed one.
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I call him Jack, not his real name, but he hired us when he'd been given three to
5:00
six months to live, to create a plan for him to have what we call professionally
5:05
as controlled from the grave.
5:07
So that could.
5:07
The company would continue to go the the way that he wanted it to, and his
5:11
son wanted it to, but his daughter partnered with the uncle wanting the
5:16
company to go into another direction.
5:18
He wanted control from the grave, and yay we were able to create legal
5:23
structures to help him do that.
5:26
It was, ugh, devastating is not too big of a word.
5:30
It was devastating to me to see that we could get our job right as the
5:34
technical advisors to help protect, grow, transfer assets according
5:39
to the desires of our client and cause harm to their family members.
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It wrecked me.
5:48
It wrecked me.
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That was all the inspiration that I needed, and neither
5:52
had to be a better way.
5:53
There had to be a better way.
5:56
Adam Hatcher: What did you find then as you stepped into, you said you
6:01
stepped into the internet and you said, well, what do I even call this?
6:04
And then you stepped into psychology.
6:06
When you started looking for a better way, what did you find?
6:09
And dif, can you differentiate Melissa now from Melissa and Melissa then?
6:16
Melissa Mitchell Blitch: Oh, Adam, that is a big question that we could have
6:19
hours and hours of conversation on.
6:22
Um,
6:25
but what comes to mind is a, you know, thread as a part of that is, you know,
6:30
what motivations are we gonna act on?
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Are we gonna act on, you know, his des desire was to control that has a root
6:37
in fear or, you know, to protect against a future that he was afraid of, didn't
6:43
want, you know, or are we going to act on hope, faith, love, you know, freedom h.
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Um, choosing the motivation, being aware of the motivation that's driving
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our preferences, our values, and really being honest with ourself of what
7:06
motivations we want to live out of.
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That's a, a nutshell for a big all answer.
7:13
Adam Hatcher: Yeah.
7:15
Melissa Mitchell Blitch: Just just one, one part, but an important part
7:20
Adam Hatcher: And as, so that's a, something that you would have not
7:24
leaned into as a wealth advisor.
7:30
Like that conversation
7:32
would not have naturally come up with Jack
7:34
Melissa Mitchell Blitch: To, yeah.
7:35
To challenge Jack for his good, you know, around that, to invite him to,
7:42
you know, pressure test it himself.
7:45
Yes, within that role as the financial advisor, it's what do you want?
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Alright.
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Our job is to help you accomplish that.
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And that's been one of the ways that I've grown tremendously is,
7:56
you know, to get the right answers, you have to ask the right questions.
8:00
And being willing to ask those questions that invite someone to consider something
8:04
from a different perspective, to open up, you know, we all have blind spots.
8:09
What might I not have considered here?
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What might be another opportunity here?
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We didn't have that skillset as, you know, the technical advisors to ask
8:19
those insight provoking questions.
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Not to say that no technical advisors do.
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I didn't, I didn't, and I didn't see that in our, in our team either.
8:32
There wasn't the ability there or there wasn't any willingness.
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Or maybe it was somewhere in, in the middle, but we weren't.
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Typically asking those sort of questions to be sure that our client had considered
8:43
some things, to be sure that our client actually knew what they did want
8:47
Adam Hatcher: I, I shared with
8:48
Melissa Mitchell Blitch: the future that they were hoping for, not just protecting
8:50
against the future they were afraid of.
8:52
Adam Hatcher: right in, in a future that is not just financial but
8:56
has other components around it.
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I mean, I told somebody once, don't put, don't expect of, for example, a
9:02
wills and estates attorney for them to ask you about your interaction
9:05
between you and your daughter.
9:06
That's not how they're paid.
9:08
Or let me look at a wealth manager.
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They're paid generally to steward assets under management and to help you execute
9:14
a plan to expect them to understand and to focus on the dynamics between family.
9:20
Particularly if you have a family company involved that's just
9:23
outside of both their pay structure.
9:25
They might.
9:27
But having someone that can help you focus in a dedicated way on some of the
9:32
critical issues and dynamics between family, particularly when you have a
9:36
company, it's important and it's distinct, which is, when I read your book, did not
9:43
read like a wealth manager's book at all.
9:45
So you wrote a book called In the Company of Family How to
9:50
Thrive When Business is Personal.
9:52
If people are watching on YouTube, I'm looking 'cause I keep a
9:54
copy of it right next to me.
9:56
So you go, you begin to take this turn into psychology and working on dynamics
10:03
and then you anchor this book in some key concepts or even a key concept.
10:10
Share that with us.
10:12
Melissa Mitchell Blitch: I will, and with your permission, I wanna
10:15
backtrack for just a minute to say, you know, technical advisors that we
10:19
were speaking of, they may not get paid to have those conversations.
10:24
They may know their lane and their lane is not to have those
10:27
conversations and they may be.
10:30
Like, I was just kind of oblivious to how, how to, to have those conversations.
10:36
Comfort, confidence, competence, capability.
10:39
You know, the way that I grew the most, I learned a ton going back to
10:43
psychology, having a, a career as a counselor to get some experience
10:47
and applying what I had learned.
10:49
I learned and grew a lot as a professional.
10:53
I also learned and grew a lot as a person.
10:55
So my professional development, I can, I can remember me in my CPA
10:59
days and I can remember me now and gratefully, I'm a very different person.
11:03
I needed to grow a lot, so I need for it.
11:07
I wanted to do it, but I needed to grow as a person to be able to show
11:10
up in a professional capacity to have those sort of conversations.
11:15
Um, and one of the, one of the areas that I learned about in my
11:22
transition process, that growth process was learning about boundaries.
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Woo.
11:27
And I can imagine your listeners, some of them are lighting up some of those, some
11:31
of them are cringing, understandably.
11:34
But I really, I discovered, I saw in the lives of my clients and myself,
11:40
the power of healthy boundaries, and that is the focus of the book.
11:46
Adam Hatcher: I wish.
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So I started in my family company in 2010.
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I wish in my onboarding someone had sat me down and.
11:56
about this concept with me.
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I didn't find it until I was at a family conference in maybe 2016 was the
12:04
first time I heard it, and it took me about three or four years and different
12:10
mentors and coaches to figure out what this meant, this idea was, and then
12:15
how it applied when you work together or own a company with your family.
12:19
Can you explain the concept?
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Imagine Adam Hatcher is 28 years old.
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He is not, he had no reaction to you saying boundaries
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'cause he has no idea what
12:29
it means.
12:30
Like, talk to me then and say, Adam, welcome to your family company.
12:34
Let me explain an idea to you.
12:36
Melissa Mitchell Blitch: Yes.
12:37
Well, I love that we're starting here for a number of reasons, including,
12:41
you know, like words matter, you know, they carry weight, they carry
12:44
interpretation, they carry experience.
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And so if we're gonna talk about boundaries in our conversation,
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let's, let's get clear about what we're talking about.
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The working definition that I like to use of a boundary is
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that a boundary is anything that differentiates one thing from another.
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And its purpose is to promote the good and protect against the bad.
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That's a boundary.
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And so boundaries really just show up.
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It's not a matter of do we do boundaries or do we not do boundaries.
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Boundaries naturally result from our, from our choices.
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We can do that intentionally or we can do that accidentally, but
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boundaries just are, and in a family business, there are a lot of ways
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that, there are a lot of boundaries in a family business that don't have
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flashing lights of this is a boundary.
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They just show up in daily decisions and processes.
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Like who?
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Who gets to be involved in decision making?
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Who gets the voice?
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Who gets the vote?
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How, what are the criteria for hiring, promotion, and leadership?
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That's a boundary.
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Are they applied consistently?
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Mm-hmm.
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Is, that's a boundary, how feedback is given from what role, where
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decisions or where conversations are had when there's poor performance.
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How is feedback given?
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And where do the consequences of that lie?
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All those things.
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Those are boundaries.
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Those are boundaries.
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Those are boundaries.
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Those are boundaries.
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And so in the book I talk about principles of boundaries.
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You know, a lot of those, some of those are pretty straightforward.
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Some of those may be complex, um, choices for enterprising families to make.
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So in the book, I talk about principles that can help bring simplicity to
14:31
that complexity, giving you different angles, different principles of
14:34
healthy boundaries to consider.
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So they're meant to promote the good, protect against the bad.
14:42
Can someone practice boundaries in a way that feels manipulative,
14:45
controlling against me?
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Absolutely.
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But boundaries as a whole, you know, that's, that's just an
14:53
application and use of boundaries.
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It's not the boundaries themself.
14:57
Boundaries are meant to promote wellbeing for the individuals,
15:00
the family, the enterprise.
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They're meant to promote good and protect against the bad.
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What are some things that we might consider to discern what
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healthy boundaries look like?
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Adam Hatcher: Let me ask you about a simple boundary, then just a, a physical
15:17
world boundary, and then I wanna ask you about one of the principles in the
15:22
book that the way you expressed it, I just really enjoyed, okay, so simple.
15:27
Let me try to give you an example and see how you react.
15:30
All right.
15:30
Very simple.
15:31
Non-family business.
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Uh, I have a neighbor.
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I like my neighbor a lot actually.
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I like all my neighbors a lot.
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However, we have an eight foot fence between our yards.
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Is a property line that is very clearly.
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There's, very clearly here and there.
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Likewise, in my house are different bedrooms.
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There's a room where my wife
15:56
and I are, and there's rooms where my sons are, and I don't necessarily
16:01
like it when they, when they cross
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in at two in the morning and wake me up.
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Like those are, those are examples of just practical, real world boundaries.
16:13
Melissa Mitchell Blitch: They are.
16:14
Anything that differentiates one thing from another, that property line of
16:17
responsibility reminds me of a couple months ago, my husband and I were walking
16:21
around the backyard and you're like, oh, that tree died, and what do we do?
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The first place we looked, it was like, oh, whose line is that on?
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Oh, it's on this side of the fence.
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So it was behind some bushes.
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It's on this side of the fence.
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It's our responsibility.
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We need to take care of that.
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So boundaries, healthy boundaries, awareness of boundaries, can provide
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clarity and can, again, just protect what's, what's good, you and your wife,
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like having a quiet, you know, kid free bedroom when you were sleeping.
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And so it's like, all right.
16:52
Here, kiddos, you know, this is our space.
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It's meant to protect our sleep and, and that sort of thing.
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It's meant to protect, promote good, and protect against the bad, and to
17:02
provide clarity so that we know instead of being like an invisible, oops,
17:07
I, I violated your boundary, oops.
17:10
You know, like, oh, I'm gonna get shocked or zapped like a
17:12
dog with an invisible fence.
17:15
Adam Hatcher: Well, there's a freedom in it too.
17:16
As you were saying that I was thinking about the fence in my backyard.
17:20
So it's not just saying no, like that's his yard and this is mine.
17:27
When we cut the grass in my backyard, I get to stop at the fence.
17:31
Like I'm not responsible
17:33
for his plants.
17:34
I'm not responsible for the, like you said, your neighbor's, the
17:36
tree on your neighbor's property.
17:38
Like there is also a freedom that comes
17:40
with this because I only have.
17:43
A limited responsibility within the fence
17:45
line.
17:48
Alright, so in family companies, you gave a couple of examples
17:54
of how this can come up.
17:56
There's a principle that you write about in the book that
17:59
I wanted to ask you about.
18:01
It's boundary laden and I found it really fun and instructive.
18:05
Alright, so you have, uh, an idea where you say things.
18:11
Are they fair, firm, and friendly as a trial lawyer or former trial lawyer?
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I love alliteration, so I appreciated that.
18:22
So one of your principles of boundaries is fair, firm, and friendly.
18:29
Explain that.
18:32
Melissa Mitchell Blitch: Healthy boundaries are fair.
18:35
They are firm, they're friendly, and there's another chapter that you haven't
18:41
alluded to, but they're also flexible.
18:45
Um, again, this is, this is a big subject, but I wanna, if I, with your permission, I
18:50
want to zoom in on actually that contrast.
18:55
Fairness is a hot topic in family businesses, understandably.
18:59
Um, you know, like friendly when I, you know, when I communicate a, a boundary
19:05
or in the decision making about a, a boundary, you know, like someone's
19:08
gonna be prob maybe be disappointed, let's say leadership selection.
19:13
You know, someone may be disappointed that they weren't selected for the leader.
19:16
I can be friendly in letting them know, here's, here's what kept you
19:20
from being ready yet for a promotion.
19:22
I can do it in a friendly way that says, I'm for you and I'm gonna
19:25
actually support you and continue.
19:27
I'm here to help you continue to grow, to, to move, to have greater opportunities
19:32
for that advancement that you want.
19:35
But healthy boundaries are also both firm and flex.
19:40
There are times where it is wise to do what we said we would do, and there's
19:47
times when it's wise to actually flex that, you know, it's kinda like a, a
19:51
rubber band, you know, being able to just stretch it without breaking it.
19:55
Adam Hatcher: when you wrote that, uh, that's the cover of your book, how
19:59
to Thrive when Business is Personal.
20:01
I thought if you haven't worked with your own family, that might not hit
20:05
you in the heart when you read it.
20:07
But if you have, you know that like it's one thing I've had before
20:11
I joined the family company, 10 different jobs for free pay or credit.
20:15
I was a good fit in some of them and not a good fit in other ones.
20:20
So I know what the ups and downs of employment are, but
20:22
man, none of 'em felt personal.
20:25
None of them, not even like that.
20:28
Melissa Mitchell Blitch: And, and even if it has felt personal, you know, it being
20:31
someone that you love takes personal to a whole nother level because there are
20:35
people who are like, I care about my team members, I care about my employees.
20:38
It's hard to let 'em go, or hard to, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
20:42
So even for your listeners who have felt the personal nature of
20:46
some of these decisions, imagine it being with a family member.
20:51
Imagining it being with someone you deeply love, who you are likely to know
20:55
for the rest of your life and interact with for the rest of your life, you know,
20:59
not just until they take another job.
21:01
Just that history and that longevity and that depth of relationship
21:06
takes the personal nature of it just to a whole nother level.
21:11
Adam Hatcher: And I love as you, as you just played that out, and
21:15
I hope for people listening, they feel how different that is than
21:18
talking about what percentage of your portfolio is in cash versus equities.
21:25
Those are important conversations, but those don't naturally turn
21:29
into fair firm, flexible it.
21:33
It's focused.
21:35
Different and it's important work.
21:37
So what we did here for about, I think this has been about just short
21:41
of 25 minutes, is we wanted to, Melissa and I wanted to set these
21:47
ideas, okay, what are boundaries?
21:49
How do they relate to a family company?
21:51
What are some ways that they show up in the family company?
21:55
What we're gonna do in the next episode is we're going to unpack one word.
22:03
Melissa said that when I read her book, which is also on audio book.
22:07
Uh, so no matter how you take your book, it's there.
22:10
Uh, this idea of flexible in doing work with families in having been in my own
22:17
family company, this idea of flexibility, there's a lot to unpack there.
22:25
And what Melissa and I are gonna do is just give you three things to think about.
22:29
In the next podcast about flexibility in family companies.
22:34
So Melissa, thank you so much for joining this episode.
22:37
Uh, in the show notes, there is going to be a link.
22:40
You write a newsletter, right?
22:43
Melissa Mitchell Blitch: Occasionally
22:43
Adam Hatcher: Okay.
22:44
Some
22:44
Melissa Mitchell Blitch: flexible.
22:45
It doesn't let a flexible schedule.
22:48
Adam Hatcher: but Melissa's website is in the show notes and also her book in
22:52
the Company of Family, how to Thrive When Business Is Personal is there as well.
22:56
I enjoyed it so much.
22:58
We spent this time together and we're gonna do it again.
23:01
So Melissa, thank you so much.
23:03
Melissa Mitchell Blitch: My pleasure, Adam.
23:04
Look forward to part two.