As a business leader, you have a strong drive to create a positive and effective culture at work. Having a unified culture is one of the core elements to business growth and long-term success. But what about your family culture? It’s easy to view your colleagues as part of your team. I would argue that your most important team is the family you have at home. From my experience in working with men, even the most successful ones can be brought to their knees if they’re having challenges at home.
Marital issues, behavioral challenges with children and pressures from in-laws are common in every family. The things that can go wrong in a family are endless. The stronger you are and more effective you are as a team, the more likely you are to have a unified family that continues to have a functional and loving relationship. Your wife and your kids are your most important teammates.
The One Thing That Makes Teams Work
If you ask your colleagues at work what makes them effective as a team, they’ll have many reasons. When you dig deep enough, you’ll see that most of their answers all relate to having common values or principles. They work better when their values are aligned. They’ll have challenges when their values are misaligned. Think of a time when you worked with someone who just cared about the money he or she was making. They didn’t care about their teammates. Yes, the person may have been great at what they do, but they probably didn’t fit into the culture of the team. If everyone else is looking out for each other and this person is only looking out for themselves, it will cause issues in the team. Aligned values is what makes a team “gel.”
Your Family Values
Does everyone in your family know what your family values are? If not, this is the perfect exercise to bring everyone in your family together. When you have shared values, you have something to work towards. You can also easily determine who is living up the values and who is not. A great team member holds themselves and others accountable to live up to the commitments of the team. Shared family values can literally turn a chaotic family into functional one if everyone lives up to them.
What To Do Next
1. Schedule a day to bring your family together and do this exercise. Make it a fun day so that everyone is in a positive and fun mood. Make it rewarding for everyone involved. If you haven’t listened to my podcast episode on “Yes Day”, you can by clicking here (https://www.mindshotpodcast.com/e/1n24z56n). I highly recommend it.
2. Ask everyone what they value. Ensure that this is a team exercise and that each person has an opportunity to share what they value and why. Describe each value so that everyone is clear about the understanding of what each value means. Two people can value the same thing but it can be interpreted very differently.
3. Shortlist your values to the top five to seven on your list. Anything more will cause confusion. You want each person to be able to name the values off the top of their heads. There’s no point in having values that people can’t remember. Our family values include love, respect, kindness and teamwork.
4. Put your values up everywhere. You want them to be visible and noticeable. Make sure they are in everyone’s face!!!
5. Build a sustainability and accountability system. Decide as a family, how you’re going to reward positive behavior that is aligned with your values. Also, how each person is going to hold themselves and others accountable. This is the most important step.
Conclusion
A family with aligned values will always be stronger than one without. This is a simple exercise that can dramatically change your family dynamics.
All The Best
Purdeep Sangha
The Strategist For Businessmen
