High-Profile Consultant Peter Bregman on How to Deal with Difficult Family Dynamics in Business

Audio Transcription

You have questions. America’s number one business coach has answers. It’s your brought up from Minnesota. Here’s another edition of ask clay, anything on the thrive time business coach radio show. I am fired up about today’s show and let me tell you why. Let me tell you.

Well I am fired up about today’s show. I’ll tell you this one. It is always profound when I am, uh, above the ground. But in addition to that, we had a thriver who emailed us in a question today and it’s a very, very complicated specific question and I’m excited to answer the question. And, uh, the broader question is you, how do you work with family when you have different goals and values? But our, our thriver emailed us a very detailed question. And typically this doctor Zeller and I will answer the question, are ourselves. However, on today’s show we have the consultant of choice for Goldman Sachs clear channel, Pfizer, Deloitte, Victoria secret, L’Oreal Nasdaq Godiva converse, GE capital, Nike, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley. I could go on and on listing companies, but I won’t. We have the bestselling author, the legendary consultant, Mr Peter Bregman. On the show. Let me say this, Peter Bregman’s entire a niche. Peter Bregman, breg man, his entire niche and focus is teaching people how to bridge the gap between the big idea and the execution of the big idea. And he wrote a book called leading with emotional courage, how to have hard conversations, create accountability and inspire action on your most important work. And so Peter, welcome onto the show. Sir. How are you?

I am great. Thank you so much. I love your energy.

Peter. I want to start with with a question that we have from a thriver out there who asks this question. They write, I’m a partner and a medical practice with my father. I’m early in my career and he’s a in career. The practice has plateaued. Before I joined with a lot of inattention to growth and happiness with the status quo, I would like to grow it aggressively. And he says he agrees who doesn’t love growth, but he’s less excited when the bill comes for the increased overhead. For example, our building is older and we need to move in the coming years. Uh, he has no interest in planning or selecting the building we need to move to because an investment doesn’t fit into his investment horizon. How would you address issues like this with him? Uh, the father, son dynamic can be tricky.

I would say the, um, you know, the, first of all, your interests have to be alive, right? So if, if your dad’s interest is to get out with, you know, a bunch of income and capital appreciation and your interest is to invest a lot and grow the business and with no cap, you know, with, with capital appreciation outside of the time horizon of your father, then your interests are not aligned and you have to, you know, the first step is to align your interest or figure out what you need to do to align your interest. So there might be taking a loan out that pays off your father. I don’t know what it is, but if your interests are not aligned, it’s going to be very hard to get on the same page. And I’ll say you gotta respect your father for having built the business, right? I mean, this is your father’s business. So you’ve got great aspirations for growing it, which is awesome. And He, you know, he, he needs to be respected for that. So I take, it’s like really sitting down and having an adult conversation about what our interests are and putting them on the table and then figuring out in negotiating how do we achieve both our interest. And that’s almost always possible. And the second, yeah, go ahead.

No, we’ve got, we’re headed to the same destination. And if not, you’re saying let’s figure out a mutually agreeable exit plan. Maybe, maybe a buyout plan, maybe a right, I mean that’s what you’re saying. If we can’t agree on the end or ways in which our interests can be aligned. So like maybe, maybe it’s not an exit plan, but maybe you, you dad likes the idea of growth but doesn’t actually want to lose the capital flow that he’s going to need because he wants to retire in five years. So how do you protect your dad? How do you ensure, what’s your business plan for ensuring that the investment money comes back to him in some way? And it may not come back to them from the returns on the business, but it’s got to come back to them in some way. And that’s why I sort of thought about a loan or something that allows your dad to be just as excited as you are and doesn’t require, it doesn’t end up with you benefiting and your Dad, your dad, uh, deficits and uh, for, you know, in, in the decision. It’s got to be a benefit to both.

Now Andrew does a great job call screening, but I think this guy’s dad called in, which is almost impossible because this is not live. This is a podcast. But I think he called in and Andrea was able to just get, get, get them off the phone cookie. But this is what he had to say.

Ooh, Ooh, I am your boss. Sounds like his, his, his dad’s busy right now. So

that was amazing. The audio there, Andrew, thank you for capturing that. That’s very nice. I mean, this particular thriver asked for us to not give him a big shout out, to not disclose his name, to not disclose his address. And so he wanted to do was we wanted to just, uh, only disclose his social security number. So it’s four, four. I’m just kidding. Just messing with you. So, uh, again, if you’re out there and you have a question and you want to ask us, please email us to [email protected] and you never know who we might have. Answer your question. And A, for you, Mr Thriver code name Ronald Reagan. It takes for the question and we’ll see you tomorrow without any ado. Three boom. Three dogs and American dog and a Polish dog and a Russian dog. And they were all having a visit and the American dog was telling them about how things were in this country. He said, you know, you’re barking, you have to, your bark it long enough, and then somebody comes along and gives you some neat Napolese dog said, what’s meet Russian dog says it’s bark.