When Facts Meet Feelings: Turning Conflict into Clarity, Trust, and Forward Momentum

Cory: Welcome! Thank you for joining us for today’s webcast, titled Beyond the Gate, Aligning Enterprise Families through Clarity, Trust, and Forward Momentum. My name is Cory Gagnon. I’m a Senior Wealth Advisor at Beacon Family Office at Asante Financial Management. I work alongside successful families as they navigate the complexities of wealth, business, and leadership transitions, helping them align vision, values, and legacy with clarity and purpose. I’m excited to have you here today for what will be another fantastic conversation.

Legacy Builders Live is produced by Beacon Family Office at Asante, where we help successful families design and integrate strategies for their wealth, business, and legacy. Through values-first planning and intentional stewardship, we support enterprising families in creating successful successors and securing multi-generational peace of mind. This webcast extends that mission, bringing together forward-thinking leaders and proven frameworks to help families and their advisors lead with clarity, confidence, and purpose across generations.

If you have any questions during today’s session, please feel free to drop them in the Q&A box, if time permits. We’ll address a few questions live, and if not, we’ll be sure to follow up afterwards.

Before we begin, just a quick note. The content shared during today’s webcast is intended for informational and educational purposes, and does not constitute professional advice of any kind. The views and opinions expressed by our panelists are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the organizations that they’re affiliated with, and I encourage viewers to consult with qualified professionals regarding their own specific circumstances.

Now, let me introduce today’s panelists.

Sharon Gray is founder and partner at RDT Valuations Group. A boutique firm serving business families, entrepreneurs, and corporate clients. With over 25 years of experience, she specializes in valuations for reorganizations, acquisitions, and litigation. Sharon holds both CBV and FEA designations among a few  in Canada that has served as an expert witness in Alberta’s Court of Kingsbench. She also sits on the Family Enterprise Exchange Board in Calgary. Sharon, welcome.

Sharon: Great to be here, Corey. I had a bit of technical difficulty signing in, so my nerves are a little on edge, but I’m very excited to be here.

Cory: We’ll give you a moment to take some deep breaths, we’ll take some with you before we put you on the hot seat.

Sharon: Perfect!

Cory: And Darrin Hotte is a family mediator and family enterprise advisor with over 35 years of experience in conflict resolution and leadership. Since 2010, he’s helped over 900 family and organizational disputes. Darren, I’m sure that is a very quickly climbing number, and might be above that.

Today, Darrin teaches at Simon Fraser University and the Justice Institute of British Columbia, and partners with one of our friends, David Benthal, and his team at Next Step Advisors to support enterprising families. Known for de-escalating conflict, he helps families move from tension to trust. Welcome, Darrin.

Darrin: Hey, good to be here! Thank you.

Cory: Now, during today’s webcast, our goal is to explore 5 key questions that examine how families can navigate conflict with greater clarity, empathy, and structure. We’ll look at how tension around ownership, valuation, succession, and strategy, can be addressed early, with approaches that support trust, objectivity, and long-term alignment across generations.

Cory: Now, let’s dive into our first question. What makes the difference between conflict that strengthens a family, and conflict that breaks it down? Now, in my experience, working with families across both business and wealth dynamics, conflict is often not about that presenting issue. It’s what’s underneath the misunderstandings, unmet expectations, or unsolved rules. When families choose to face those head-on, conflict can actually become a moment of clarity and reconnection. And when they avoid it, it tends to build walls.

And, Darrin, that’s when you come in. Headed over to you first on this one. You’ve seen this up close, often in high-stakes mediation settings. What tends to shift conflict from something that’s useful to something that’s harmful?

Darrin: You’ve touched on it there, about the presenting issue. People get locked into what the presenting issue is, and it’s never about the money, it’s never about the position. It’s about what all of that means. And so families get into habits of just sort of dealing with it at above the water level. Imagine an iceberg, 10% above the waterline, that’s the presenting issue, that’s the solution to the problem. They focus on that, and they don’t dig into what’s going on underneath the 90% that holds up the 10 above the waterline.

And so, the conversation has to get around to the place of, what does this mean? Why is this important? And where’s this coming from? And this isn’t therapy, we don’t do therapy with clients, it’s not at all, but digging into what’s really happening, and the why, and the reason that things are important. And families and people in general, just don’t have the right, it seems like, the language to be curious, and the mindset to be curious. So that’s, I think, where the gains happen, when we stop. Okay, let’s stop talking about that, let’s talk about what it means. And it gets revealed in conversations, it shows up, and that’s where the magic happens. We get to some real solutions that way. That’s the best way.

Cory: Right. I appreciate that. Where curiosity’s left the room, and we get into a spot that’s quite difficult.

Darrin: And I’ll add on to that. Families are notorious for not being curious, because instead of being curious, we make assumptions. And people you know really well, you assume you know why something’s happening. And so if you’ve grown up with somebody all your life, you know so much about them. It’s natural to think, I know why Cory’s doing that. But maybe Cory’s got another reason that I’m not clear about, maybe I don’t know. And so it’s a problem with families working together, and being in conflict, but it’s magic when it comes together, because families care about each other too.

Cory: Absolutely. And Sharon, I hope you’ve had a chance to take a few breaths. We’re going to come over to you for a minute. From your seat, when you’re brought in to clarify valuations, look at those financial statements around those shareholder issues, how can you tell when this dispute is no longer really about the numbers?

Sharon: Well, the telltale sign is language, and that can be body language, or how they’re discussing things amongst the group. Often what happens is one person comes in already knowing the answer, and that’s often a telltale problem, because mediation is shared interest, shared objectives, so if you’re already coming in thinking you know what’s best for the other person, or what the solution should be, or how you’ve all worked it out in your head, that, of course, always doesn’t lead quickly to resolution, because you haven’t thought through the other person’s perspective. I think it gets bogged down in past behavior. We all start to tell ourselves stories about the past. And to be constructive, people have to be moving to a place of the future. It’s about teamwork, and how collectively they can make a decision that the mutual interests of the parties are heard and then explored in terms of different ways to meet those objectives.

So the language, of course, is paramount, and just behaviors. We all have our personality traits we bring to the table, and often they’re masked because of fear. And I think recognizing fear of everybody in the dynamic is important, because even though you may be the person sitting from a position of wealth, when you’re mediating an issue, especially on a divorce, per se, where you actually are, in your view, giving money to the other party, there is a sense of fear if you’ve always had control of that.

So both people come with their different perspectives, and that’s sort of what you have. The language has to be appreciating and understanding that perspective. And I think Darrin is quite right in saying, if you don’t know what to ask, ask why, because often there’s “help me understand.” That should be the language, as opposed to “you never, you always.” And so, as soon as you make accusations of the other party, people shut down, because we were used to our own behavior on that.

So, the other thing I would always say is the terminology or the thinking in the room has to turn away from “me” and back to “we.” Instead of me being impacted all the time, it has to be how we can move together in a productive way.

Cory: Darrin, as Sharon mentioned, where there’s a disparity on the amount of knowledge of the situation, or sometimes it might just be around acumen. From that financial perspective, what do you see in those senses, where there’s a difference in who has that information traditionally? Maybe not keeping it from other parties, but maybe it just hasn’t been part of the culture.

Darrin: That’s a problem, isn’t it? And that’s a power issue. You come into a negotiation, and somebody knows a lot less about the finances or whatever it is, and there’s a lot of layers of power that can be there and show up. But that’s so important to have other professionals show up and support people like that. That’s my job as a mediator, to find out how we can get everybody into the room, figuratively speaking, because they may not actually be in the room together, get them to have a conversation that is at an even level, that one person’s not overpowering the other, that \people feel empowered, they feel like they’re able to speak assertively and listen assertively, so that they can have the right conversation.

Sharon: I’d like to just make a comment on that. Power can be silent, too. It’s just not who’s talking the most, and I feel that some of the most powerful people in the room are the passive-aggressive people who don’t want to deal with it, or abdicate responsibility, or are silent, because you don’t appreciate what that other person, or what that person is really thinking until they share it with you. But often they use their lack of voice, per se, to control a room.

Darrin: Especially when you need their buy-in, right? You need their vote, you need their agreement on something. If they lock up, that’s tough.

Cory: Absolutely. Keeping us moving here, and we’ll have lots of dialogue, I’m sure we’ll build on this. How can families prepare for conflict before it escalates or becomes personal? As a family enterprise advisor and coach, I see how much strengths families gain when they normalize preparation, whether it’s clear governance through shared decision-making frameworks, or simply just that habit of talking regularly about difficult things. Families don’t avoid conflict by being perfect. Perfection is the enemy, and they avoid a lot of damage by being ready for it.

So, Sharon, we’ll pop over to you first. From your position, what types of structures, frameworks, or agreements tend to bring clarity and reduce confusion when things get tense?

Sharon: Well, I think it’s every day. You start by what you do every day, and then you build up from there, but there’s certain critical points where they’re going to happen, it’s just a matter of when. I mean, succession is going to probably happen at some point. We don’t go on forever. Death to that point as well, and marriage breakdown is a real thing, and the probabilities are high. And so anticipating what that may look like outside of the event well in advance of an event obviously gives you time to be more organized and thoughtful, and think through, because when you’re in the middle of anything that’s emotional, your ability to manage and take time to process shuts down. Then it’s fight-or-flight circumstances, and you’re just trying to get a decision through, and that’s not the best thinking that we do.

So in terms of just every day, I would say regular meetings are really critical, and I think allowing everybody to participate and setting proper tone to those meetings allows for sharing, and the sharing should just be both factual sharing, but also emotional sharing, because people who are responsible for the family business, although they may be top of the pile in terms of control, they have issues, too. They’re making decisions for the betterment of the whole family, and that’s stressful, and that has to be acknowledged, because often, I think, successful people are often viewed as successful people with no issues, but they actually are carrying enough weight on their own to ensure the success for everybody. So, that’s a burden in itself.

So we all have our layers, and we all have our perspectives that we come to, and the more that we can appreciate how someone else is thinking and feeling about things, I would hope that you could, people would take that into account when there’s shutdowns. And also become more willing to give people the benefit of the doubt when they’re under pressure. We all get under periods of time where we’re not our best selves for lots of different reasons, and we need a bit of grace during that time.

Darrin: Absolutely. Appreciate that, grace. I want to build on what Sharon said there. That’s so good, Sharon. Here’s what comes to my mind. The preparation for any negotiation is really key. What I want to encourage people to do when I’m working with them or when I’m teaching, is understand your own interests and what’s driving you, get to the bottom of that and understand yourself. And then put that over to the side, and then go, okay, what about the other person? What’s driving them? I want to get into their world as much as I can, and you’re kind of making assumptions, but you’re open to learning more, obviously. But understand as much as you can about what’s driving people, and that’s a massive deal.

And here’s what I see in families, that where they get to meetings and conversations and they’re stressful, what I often see is that they only meet together and come together when there’s a major problem to solve, when there’s a lot of conflict and a lot of stress. And so they’re not used to having just regular meetings. We get together to talk about the facts and the numbers and also the emotional stuff and relational stuff, as Sharon said. So it’s almost like when, if you’re working in a company, and the only time you talk to the boss is when there’s feedback that’s difficult to hear. Otherwise, you never hear from that person. So every time the boss shows up, your stress just starts to go through the roof.

And so families that aren’t regularly meeting and having really good quality meetings, sometimes those meetings are going to be a lot of fun, and there’s just great news to share, and there’s affirming feedback all around. Great. Other times, those meetings are going to be tough, because there’s a lot of tough things to work through. But if the meetings are always only tough things to work through, then when it comes to doing that stuff, they’re high-stress conversations, and just hard for people to have those and to take. So it’s unfortunate that people don’t meet more often and be curious in those times when it’s just regularly.

Cory: Well, and building that habit of celebrating and enjoying each other’s presence. It’s a framework, and just that foundation of we do fun things together, and we do tough things together, and we can do both.

Sharon: And I think that ability to look at the other person’s perspective in a non-judgmental way is critical. I’ll just tell you a short story on a very large litigation we were involved with years ago. There was lots of money on the table. There was about $100 million between these two companies. And they went to mediation, and the mediator, who was an ex-judge, listened, obviously received briefs in advance of that meeting, and so he was well apprised of the issues. So they all got in a room at the beginning of the morning, and he went through everyone’s positions, what the brief said, to make sure he understood what everyone’s position was, and then in the afternoon, he said to both sides, now what I expect you to do is go argue the other person’s case.

And so they spent the afternoon going and looking at the other person’s case, and there were lawyers in the room, of course, and they had to take the offsetting position. And when this litigation had been in play for 10 years, it settled that weekend because people’s narrowing of thought happened because they had to see the other person’s arguments in a very different way with a judge there as oversight. So it’s so critical for people to appreciate that not everything looks great from the other person’s chair. And so, you have to acknowledge that in order for you to have just a lens to how they’re feeling.

Cory: Our next question. When conflict involves money or ownership, how can families balance facts and feelings to avoid escalation? When I’m sitting with families discussing succession, exit strategies, or wealth transfer, emotions are almost always entering the room, and well before the numbers are. Those facts bring structure, although they don’t tend to settle the conversation on their own. And I find that there needs to be a bridge between that financial clarity and the emotional intelligence, or else families get stuck.

Darrin, how do you help families navigate the emotional side of these big decisions, especially when fairness, identity, or control are part of the mix?

Darrin: Well, I like to share with families that I think that every decision we make in life is made to meet an emotional need. The biggest ones, like the careers we choose, and the partners we choose, and all the way down to the socks that you picked this morning to wear. And it sounds like, you might think I’m crazy, but that’s the way it works. There’s a reason why we do things, and it doesn’t mean that we make every decision irrationally or emotionally. We can have very rational steps in choosing the house you’re going to buy, for instance. You’re looking at your budget, you’re looking at the houses around the market, and you’re thinking about your lifestyle and what you want, and how big your family is, and all those things. Very rational. But at the bottom of it, there’s emotional reasons why you want those things.

And so, I like to help families just learn that that’s normal. There’s emotions behind all of it, and so we’re going to talk about that, and what those things mean. This keeps coming back to this thing about the why, and being curious, and all of that. And so if families can change the way that they talk to each other in these conversations, that can change it. And that’s something, too. I mean, every family’s different, and some families have come from a high level of dysfunction, and so it’s a custom-made sort of conversation every time with families. But families, generally speaking, there can be a lot of love there for each other. And there’s something that’s pretty disarming about when you hear from a family member that they’ve been hurt by something. They’re not just driving to get this outcome because of the outcome. They’re looking for some acknowledgement. They feel like they got left behind, or they got lost.

Again, it’s not therapy, we’re not doing therapy here, but we’re just getting down to what people need, and what they mean when they say things. I want to take families into those areas a little bit and explore that, so that we can make decisions that will last, because durable decisions come when they’re made for the real reasons why. If they’re not, then they tend to flip up. So it’s like that, it’s the iceberg thing again. You see an iceberg flip in nature, it rolls around. That’s what happens if you make an agreement that’s not based on what’s on the 90% underneath. Down the road, that agreement comes, I’m done, the iceberg rolls, and somebody says, you didn’t acknowledge me, you didn’t care about that, you didn’t listen, whatever. We want durable agreements.

Cory: That just makes me think of that voice. Making sure that everyone is heard in those decisions. That love that’s keeping us together. And amongst dysfunction, there is a deep reason why families continue to operate together, whether it’s at operating business, or sharing wealth together.

Darrin: Or the next generation cousins are connected, and that’s important for sure.

Cory: Now, Sharon. You’re often the one walking into those emotionally-charged rooms, with some facts, some financials in hand. How do you present those realities in a way that families can hear and work with that information?

Sharon: Well, I think the one thing is, people have to be ready, and by that, I mean everyone in the room has to be ready to have those sorts of meetings. You can’t preempt wanting to push through an agenda, or wanting to get to the end, if people aren’t actually ready to be accepting of the process. So that’s number one. It has to be the right time.

It has to also have a layer of education and understanding, of course. Facts are of importance, of course, but other people can interpret facts very differently, because if you come from a background of finance, what I’m saying to you, the lingo that I use, the reality of what the numbers say, you’re very comfortable with that, where somebody else may need a lot of time to come up to speed so that they can actually understand what the numbers are saying, or what my commentary is.

So, often, you have to make sure you bring the less educated people in the room up to at least an educated enough point, so that you can have effective discussions. Communication has to be open all the time, and that’s not one party, perhaps, telling their story. It has to be people having conversations back and forth, or a mediator, or me, who is often a joint expert, having the floor to be less emotionally charged about the numbers, and possibly balance out people’s perspective, because as I said, everyone has different safety issues, and everyone sees things like one person’s life is easier than the other, and it’s not. There’s challenges both sides of the street.

The one thing I do notice,though, it is quite a dramatic shift, is that often in divorces, there’s such a change in control in the room. And by that, I mean often one of the less sophisticated financially, you know, spouse hasn’t shared in the same conversation about money. There’s often a control person in any relationship with money, the money control. And so, in a divorce, what happens, though, is one person gains control, which is the person with limited past experience on financial matters. So they’re gaining control because they have counsel, and they have different rights that come with a divorce. And the person who’s used to having control, their control level diminishes, because they don’t have a say over what’s going to happen in the future.

So it’s a very unsettling time, and the dynamics in the room really play to that, where you have one person assuming that because they’ve always been responsible, they’ll continue to be responsible and can make decisions on behalf of. And that’s just not the way it works when you enter the divorce process. And that is very unnerving for the spouse that is really not used to that. And often, the situation is people have done extremely well by managing their asset base, so there is money to be shared, they have worked hard, there are profits and assets there, and so to all of a sudden say, you can’t do that anymore, or you have to ask permission to the person who’s just done it, it’s a very unsettling time for them.

Darrin: Even in families where that’s a healthy division of labor, and that’s how they’ve set it up, you get to that place, and now we have to do this together, we have to collaborate on this, and it’s a really big shift for people.

Sharon: And I think people also need to know, when they’re in these disputes that tend to be more litigious just by their nature, you’re going to get to the end. It’s going to resolve itself one way or the other so it’s how do you want that to look? Do you want it to be resolved in a manner that you have a say in the resolution, or do you want to abdicate control? Because there’s someone out there with time, money, and enough fighting, that will make the decision for you. Divorce is a funny thing, because you’re splitting up for a reason, and yet you have to be teammates in order to have an effective divorce that doesn’t take you hundreds of thousands of dollars to get through. So it’s a different time, but long-term implications, you have to recognize the cost of fighting and continuing that emotional state, because it takes a toil financially, it takes a toil emotionally, it takes a toil in how you live your lives from there on in. So the worth of all that just isn’t worth a lot of, you know, the fighting, in my view.

Darrin: It’s long-term, what do people really want? We’re into talking about separation here, but if you’ve got kids, co-parents for life. And if you’re lucky, co-grandparents. And you’re writing your family history the whole time this is going on. What do you want that to look like? What do you want your kids to think about when they think back 10 years from now, this time of their life? Was it a train wreck, and mom and dad were going all the way through court, and now our wealth is reduced because of that, and we have this, it’s public record? Or do they do it the honorable way and work together, and there’s a lot going on there, we could talk forever on that one.

Cory: We sure could. I think of, Darren, your previous life, all the training that we could do, there’s no training required to get married, or training required to become a parent, or business and be a partner. But there’s some exercises that could help, as far as do we create that mock division and get everyone to learn a little bit of how to agree to separate, even if they’re not.

Sharon: Yeah, well, you know, remember that book, All You Ever Needed to Know You Learned in Kindergarten? It’s the basics of respect, sharing, and openness. And if we could all dumb it down, that would be what our daily objective should be.

Cory: I was thinking a bit of a visual metaphor as you were speaking about the loss of control, Sharon, almost like having a balloon, and that control beam, the air in the balloon, and how uncomfortable it would feel when that balloon pops.

Sharon: And I’ve seen that happen.

Cory: Of course. So, I think asking yourself, why is the balloon inflated, or how much pressure is there in the balloon, and why? And we can discuss that another time, because I want us to move on. Our next question, how can families use conflict as a chance to grow stronger instead of just moving on? And I’ve seen how families resolve conflict, but never actually talk about what happened. And so it lingers in the background, and families who truly grow stronger are the ones who pause and reflect, carry something forward from that, whether it’s that shift in mindset, new agreements, or simply a deeper sense of empathy and understanding for each other.

Sharon, in your experience, what do families tend to learn from high-stakes disputes that helps them avoid that next one?

Sharon: Well, often that they wouldn’t do it again. Experience is the best teacher, unfortunately, because you learn the hard way. But if you settle into the process and trust in the process, and you end with a good solution for all, because that’s how conflict should end. It meets everyone’s shared or their individual objectives, I guess, but they’re shared in terms of how the resolution derives itself. You should feel empowered that that’s possible. And once you know that you can work your way through one series of conflict, I think, and get satisfactory or even positive resolution, we should take away the good things. Not what was bad about it, but what was done right to allow that to happen, and try to implement those in how we deal with people on a go-forward basis. If conflict is resolved satisfactorily, they should have lessons to opine. They should be able to move on. They can put things in perspective, and the anger isn’t there. That’s a successful resolution. You would hope that all parties would feel that way. If there’s not, then there’s something unresolved that still needs to be worked on.

The one thing I would really emphasize is once you’ve lost trust with somebody in terms of behavior, it’s very, very hard to right that trust. So what you say and do should be creating trust, not destroying trust.

Darrin: Absolutely. And just, I like the idea too, Sharon, of somebody highlighting, what you said at the beginning there. I just want to highlight, you build a foundation of relationship when you work through something difficult. We did it, we got through that. If it comes again, or something else happens again, we know we can do that. We’re a little more confident, and so our stress is a little bit lower.

And somebody needs to name that, somebody in that system needs to go, “guys, look what we did, we got through this.” It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t fun, but we did it, and we’re hanging together here. We’re going to move forward and try to avoid the nasty parts of that, and highlight the good parts, like you said. Somebody needs to name that, and that’s an important part of that.

Sharon: I think anything that ends where people can still sit across the room. I’ve worked on some incredibly difficult separation and divorces, but where there’s always been success at the end is where there’s always been respect. And people need to know that you may disagree with whatever they said, or you may have issues with the numbers, but you have to respect the process and who they are. And that’s a challenge, of course, when you’re in that kind of disagreement, but it can be positive.

The one thing I would like to add that we touched about a few minutes ago, just my sort of hot topics from my seat, is this concept of fairness. I know, Cory, you said that word, and fairness, I just want to throw out that fairness is so perspective-based. This whole concept of fair treatment, or what you deserve is fair, or what you believe is fair, it’s so embedded in all those other emotional aspects that go along with it, and everyone has their positions, so that word is… is an overused word, so I wanted to say that.

And one other point earlier is, one of the things I think families particularly have to take away when there’s issues and disputes and things like that, or decisions, or even decisions made, succession plans, is document the whys as to why you made the decisions you did. And this resonated for me. I forget who the fellow I was listening to a podcast about, but he said it’s just as important to highlight why people didn’t do what they did. For instance, if somebody was invited to buy into the company’s shares and made a decision not to, you have to document that as well, because 10 years down the line, there will be a decision, or something will happen, or the business will sell, and they’ll feel that for whatever reason, they were not party to that success. But they have to remember why they made the decision they did at the time they made it, maybe perhaps for very specific and great reasons, but they have to be reminded of that, is the point. Decisions and not making decisions are equally important.

Cory: Darrin, I think that it’s important what you said about, what you’re doing is not therapy, and it’s so beautiful, your reference of mediation and firefighting being so similar. I want to ask you about what repair looks like for families in conflict, knowing that we’re not rebuilding the house, but that there’s something that starts in the middle of that conflict. And so, what can that look like at the epicenter, that beginning of repair?

Darrin: That’s such a good question, and many of my clients have relationships that are very dysfunctional, even abusive, and so as Sharon said, trust is such a key thing. Trust is, like, not just at zero, it’s underwater. They’re coming to a process feeling like, I don’t even know who this person is anymore, I’ve been married to them for 20 years, I’ve been in business with them for 20 years, and I’ve known them all my life. I don’t even know who they are anymore. The way they’re acting, the decisions they’ve made, this person’s a ghost to me now.

And so, in those situations, the thing that works is for people to make agreements and follow through. That’s the first and only thing that starts to build reasonable trust, to build trust back up to even just baseline. If you can make some agreements on what you’re in dispute over, put it on paper, and then do what you said you were going to do, that starts to build a bit of trust, because then the other person says, okay, at least I know how they’re going to behave. They have this agreement, and they’re going to follow through. They’re following through. I can start to count on that. Then you have just the first little handhold on a rock face that you can grab. But otherwise, before that, there’s nothing to hold onto. And so it builds over time. But if people can make agreements and follow through, to me, that’s one of the biggest things. For families that are really in a tough spot, that’s a big deal. That’s how you build trust.

Sharon: I would concur with that wholeheartedly, and I also think it starts with just the little things, the basic things. If you say you’re going to show up, if you say you’re going to produce information, if you say you’re going to commit to a Saturday morning, that’s how you build trust, you show up every time, and you do what you need to do to right that ship, so to speak, in terms of people starting to believe in you again, because that’s what they’re trying to do, is to believe in you. And it does take time, and I’m not sure you ever fully recover it, but, it’s possible to at least resurrect it to some level.

Cory: Baby steps, it’s like back to kindergarten. So our final question, how can families create a culture where conflict is not feared, but used as a tool for growth and alignment? What I’ve witnessed in family enterprises who are thinking long-term, they’ve built this culture, and culture really is everything. When conflict is something that’s feared, families walk on eggshells, and when it’s embraced as part of growth, innovation, and they’ve got that clarity of values, it becomes a strength when they have learned how to endure this.

Now, Darrin, what are some of those long-term practices that you’ve seen work well for families who want to normalize hard conversations in a constructive way?

Darrin: Person that’s changing their mind about what conflict is about. For all of your listeners to this podcast, if we did this word association exercise and said, okay, I’m going to say a word, and then what’s your word that comes to your mind? And if you say, conflict, most of the time, the words back will be, like, anger, fighting, stress, discomfort, whatever, and sometimes it’s resolution, sometimes it’s other things, too. And I see for, not just families that I work with, but people in general, that conflict is such an awful word for people. And they’ve had bad experiences in the past of conflict, so they bring that, I had a conflict, and that’s conflict. And it was awful then, and I don’t want to have any conflict anymore. And generally, as a culture, we’re conflict avoidant more than we should be. So it can be painful. But I want to help families.

When you think about it, conflict, if it’s just two forces coming together, it could be just differences of opinion. And so, anytime you’re sitting down talking about a concept or something and you’re debating an issue, that’s a conflict, strictly speaking, but that’s enjoyable. Like sitting in a class or a course and debating issues and ideas. That’s really engaging and fun, and so that conflict actually is quite fun and useful. And so, I want people to start thinking about conflict a little bit differently, that there’s a range of conflict isn’t just up here, and it’s harmful and going to hurt you, and flight, freeze kicks in. So lower the bar for that.

And then, as far as the practices go, of how to get there, the more we can come back to this, the more conversations that families have together where they are listening to each other and pushing each other’s ideas and thoughts around what’s true, what’s real, what’s best, what’s right, sharing their perspectives when people are listening and getting it, and trying to understand that. Have lots of those conversations. And then when you get to those conversations, we need to have them to resolve something. It’s not so stressful going in, because it’s just what we do. The habit is the conversation, and so I’d lower the bar, and then just have lots of conversations. That’s where I want to take families when I’m working with them.

Cory: Awesome. And, Sharon, what do you find helps families shift their thinking so that disagreement becomes part of a healthy decision-making, ongoing?

Sharon: I think that having great conversations is a learned behavior, and I think that sometimes they need some coaching in order to do that effectively. I mean, in families particularly, we all have our roles, and we all have what we were told as kids, bringing those to the table, so the dynamic is very different in family circumstances. But I would say that coaching can really help, because you need to have language to both explore people’s positions, but also to ensure that you don’t use words that are very offensive to people. You know, you did, you always treat me, all those terms are just so defensive-driven mechanisms. So, coaching with language and how to have conversations is important.

I completely agree with Darrin, you have to have forms for open communication on a regular basis to talk about lots of issues. And those things in family succession planning or family dynasties would be having regular meetings and having very formal, and when I say formal, I mean organized process to have conversations, which don’t include someone just delivering information to the other person passively listening. It’s having discussions about the business and what the options are, what the circumstances are, and to allow everyone to have a conversation, not just one or two people who believe they have the most knowledge or vested interest. And so much of it is if you can treat conversations like education, educating people, as opposed to telling them how it is. That’s a whole different way you talk to people. It’s just making sure that they are involved and appreciate the issues at hand, and they have the facts they need to make them feel comfortable. Because without that information, people are blind. They can’t make appropriate decisions when they feel that they don’t understand and have the information at hand to do so.

The other thing I would definitely say is that building on your successes is critical. When you’ve had successful discussions, it’s like any sort of muscle. The more you do, the better it gets and stronger it gets. And the last thing is whoever’s in the room, there needs to be another voice, and there needs to be a different person, perhaps, in the room, or people may need support some other way. Darrin, you talked about you’re not a formal counselor, per se, in your mediation practice, and I would definitely say the same as me. I’m an accountant by background, I have no formal training. So, often, people need to deal with certain aspects or certain issues outside of the meeting, because they are things that need to be discussed in private with someone else who maybe has different tools to allow them to deal with their voice in their head and be able to listen differently. And inside a dynamic, that’s not where that’s going to be effective.

Darrin: That’s so true. I’ll pick up on the coaching thing, too, Sharon, that you mentioned. It’s so key. I think an important part of coaching is modeling, and I think that any good mediator is trying to do two things, create durable agreements, and help people be better off when they leave. And so, for me, the better off is often that their stress is reduced because the conflict is managed, or they’ve got some things they can work with them moving forward. But also that their communication habits are different. And for families that are in business together, or couples that are separating, anytime there’s a relationship, that’s going to be ongoing to help people change their patterns of communicating.

And so to have somebody in the room that can model how to ask a curious question, can model how to pause and leave a bit of dead air so that thought can sink in. Someone that can model using neutral language instead of accusatory language. That’s something that’s, I think, under-emphasized in some of this work, but I think, so important. So that’s the coaching and modeling for me, those things are connected. All part of coaching, for sure. And Sharon’s right, we’re not therapists. But done right, there’s some therapeutic value to this work, even though we’re not trying to be therapists. I think that it does show up, and that’s magic when it happens.

Sharon: Well, I do think that the benefit that we can add, Darrin, is we’ve seen it all before. Often you’re reframing from a conversation you had with someone else last week. You’re seeing the same thing over and over again, and so you can give a different lens to it because of what you’ve seen in the past. That’s what experience gives you, some practical solutions, maybe.

Darrin: You can list multiple perspectives that are possible for somebody that they never thought of, because you’re right, we’ve seen that. We’ve seen all 18 of those perspectives before.

Sharon: We’ve also seen what happens if you don’t reach a solution, which is equally terrifying, because you are going into circumstances where someone’s going to make the decision for you if you don’t come to a consensus here.

Darrin: What’s the fallback if this doesn’t work.

Sharon: Right.

Cory: Leading by example, rather than necessarily leading by fear. That also can do some damage. But I think that there’s so many examples of consulting, facilitation, coaching, and therapy, and there’s nuances that one method doesn’t solve all, so understanding who needs to help us at this point. And it might not be the same person who’s been helping us all the time. It doesn’t mean you’re replacing one person with another, but maybe you need to take a moment and have somebody else join you in the room.

Darrin: Absolutely.

Cory: Now, before we wrap up, and I don’t see any questions at the moment, I’d love to give each of you a chance to just share one final thought. It could be a takeaway, piece of advice, or just a reminder to our audience of something that we discussed today. Sharon, I’ll start with you.

Sharon: You did this to me when I was on the other podcast. I completely froze, so I’ll probably freeze again. One final thought. I would say not much matters. People want that victory of whatever victory it is, and at the end of the day, what are you fighting for? I mean, are you fighting for your grandkids’ inheritance as to who gives them more, especially in a divorce circumstance? Why?

And the other thing is, 80% of the solution is already there. It’s the last 20% that you’ll spend all your time and energy trying to figure out. And so, just be careful how you spend that time and energy, and how much time you spend on it. Walking away is sometimes the win, right?

Cory: Awesome. Thanks, Sharon. Darren, over to you for your last words.

Darrin: I want to go back to what we’ve been talking about a lot about, which is just being curious, understanding yourself, understanding the people you’re in dialogue with, taking the time to do that, and not just assuming you know, but to really dig into that, and imagine, and be open to the idea that there’s something here you don’t know. There’s more to this story, more to what’s going on here than you know. That’s a nice, kind of open-handed way to approach it, and my clients have the best outcomes when they come in like that, which is why I try to prepare them in that direction.

So I think that’s where they need to be to have those kinds of outcomes, like Sharon was talking about, where afterwards there’s some respect, and they can walk away and be in relationship and whatever form that needs to be. So be curious. Listen more than you talk, isn’t that the golden rule? Pretty much two ears, one mouth, yeah.

Cory: Exactly. And let’s make sure we can join each other for dinner at the holidays. That’s kind of what it’s all about. So, thank you both, so much more that we could discuss. I appreciate spending this hour with both of you. All the stories and expertise that was shared was just fantastic.

And I wanted to just give, for our audience, join us next month. We’re going to continue to explore different topics, and stay in touch. So thank you everyone for joining us. And we’ll be joined next month for another great topic with two fantastic panelists, so thank you.

Darrin: Cory, thank you. And thank you for doing this, by the way. I think these are really helpful podcasts, and what you’re putting out there is making a difference. So thank you for that, appreciate it.

Cory: Thanks so much.

Sharon: Likewise.