In this transcript, Dan interviews Tom Hubler, a family business consultant, who stresses the importance of gratitude and appreciation in family businesses. Tom speaks about the importance of expressing appreciation, recognition, and love, and emphasizes the need for a common family vision and a reciprocal commitment to each other's success. The discussion revolves around his book "The Soul of Family Business" which sheds light on the family dynamic issues that arise in family businesses.

Transcription

Katie: You're listening to Never Go Against the Family, a podcast by the University of Northern Iowa Family Business Center. In this episode, Dan interviews Tom Hubler, a consultant in the family business space and a true wizard of working with families. He talks about his history as a family therapist and how he helps our families through their resistance to change and tackling the toughest of conversations. Keep listening to hear more about Tom and his perspective when working with families.

Dan: Hey, everybody and welcome to another edition of The Never Go Against the Family Podcasts here at the UNI Family Business Center. I'm your host today, Dan with the Family Business Center and I'm joined today by Tom Hubler, distinguished consultant of family businesses, family business owner himself over several decades of work in the family business space. I would say one of the pioneers in this space of family business consulting and the fact that it, that family businesses are different as we like to say. Tom, welcome, maybe give us an introduction on yourself and your background.

Tom: Well, you know, in my book, I mentioned, I'm looking for it right now. This is when I was a very, very young professional. And someone asked me, how did I get into the psychology business? And I said, whether, and I spontaneously without even thinking about it, said there are two answers. The first answer is I did well in psychology. And so as a result of that, I decided to major and I said, but the real answer is I started as an unpaid volunteer in my own family at age seven. So, so I've, so I've made a career of working with families and started with my own. And, you know, if, if eventually I was a, did it work out for your family, you know, to some extent, you know? Ok. Ok. Ok. OK. So, another quick story as a part of my original training, as a family therapist, I was a family therapist to begin with. And as a part of the training, we had to develop an understanding about our family over three generations. And I was sitting with my mother going through a genogram of, of our family over three generations. My father was deceased and she was filling me in on his family and, and all the people and so forth. And I spontaneously said to my mother, I said, you know, mom, I've been trying to change you all of my life. And she said, you know, you're not going to win. And I thought, oh, ok. Mom, I got it, I got it. I got it. So as soon as to some extent, as soon as I stopped trying to change my mother, she began to change. And so, that's one of the other things that I've learned over the years is if you could put your hands up now, Dan, like I'm pushing on you as I push on you to change what happens?

Dan: Well, I think I'm gonna push back buddy. That's right.

Tom: I create my own resistance. And so people don't realize that when they push each other to change in families, they're creating their own resistance. And the only thing you can do is change yourself, but people tend to want to focus on the other and have the other do the changing process rather than themselves.

Dan: Well, that's what we think is right. We think we're right. They're wrong. need to conform to our whatever it might be. Values, morals, thoughts, decisions, et cetera.

Tom: So anyway, we can get back to your question. I started as a family therapist and then I got a Bush fellowship, studying organizational development. I got that by saying that mental health professionals don't do within their own systems what they teach their clients to do, which is true. So my original plan was to work for the nonprofits and help them get their act together. And it was a brilliant idea. And I got to go to school again and all that. But it never dawned on me that there's no money in the nonprofit's budget to pay for those services who went. So then I, so then I began to do work for law firms and physician groups that have a terrible time managing their differences. And then in the early eighties, I was in Cleveland to deliver a paper at a conference and I accidentally came across an unpublished paper on family owned businesses by Elaine Kepner and, and her husband at the time. And basically, I read that on the airplane coming back to Minneapolis and said to my partner, Steve Schwartz, who was an attorney. I said this is a much better blend of our backgrounds. So we developed a practice that became nationally known partly because it was a family therapist and an attorney working together. We were the first multidisciplinary team in the country. And, so that's how I got my start in working with family businesses. And then one other quick story when I think about it, when I was dating, my, my wife at the time, we were just going together and she was the oldest of nine and we were having dinner one Sunday, they had Sandy dinner all the time. And so we were having a discussion and at the table and as far as I was concerned, it was table talk where they were talking about the business they owned, which was a bakery and I start, you know, I chimed in, you know, and, and threw in my two cents as, you know, because it was table talk. Right. But my mother-in-law looked at me and scowled at me and I thought holy smokes. But I stuck my foot in at that time. That's where I got some of my first family business lessons. Whoops. Whoops.

Dan: I'm sure after that, after that meal, the future father-in-law and mother had to sit down with that girl and talk about what a private school agreement is. I don't, we're not sure about this, Tom. Yeah. Are you sure? What do you see in this kid? Really? I don't know. I don't know. He didn't like my meat loaf. Oh, Tom. Ok. Well, that's kind of interesting that you paired yourself up with an attorney to begin with.

Tom: But that, you know, what happened was he was, you know, he was a corporate attorney and he told me he said that he was getting kind of bored by the, with the law and he was really, really, psychologically minded, you know, you, you wouldn't expect that or I didn't expect that from an attorney but it was fairly psychologically minded and he didn't practice law anymore and I wasn't really practicing family therapy but we, but we were really, you know, developing a practice in working with family businesses and in managing you know what I call managing the boundary between your business and your family relationship. And, so that's how we got started.

Dan: Ok. And, then it became Schwartz and Hubler Hubler Swartz. Oh, hey, hey, easy, easy big fella. Ok.

Tom: And we, and our first employee, as a matter of fact, I ran into her last week. We just had the 16th annual Minnesota Family Business Awards. And our first employee was my wife's youngest of the nine in her family. And she, her name was Abigail Barrett, is Abigail Barrett and she was our first employee. And she's the one that developed the leadership development program that we created, which was the first in the country to create leadership assessments for younger generation, adult Children, family business, working in family businesses. This was before Hogan and some of these other Hogan's don't exist.

Dan: Look at you, Mr Pioneer. OK. I had no idea before I went any further. I want to give a plug to your book, The Soul Of Family Business. It was a great read.

Tom: Thank you.

Dan: Very great. I think I increased my psychological family communication quotient about tenfold by reading that and thinking through some things. And one thing I learned from that book and I've learned from subsequent conversations with you over the years was the need for the upcoming generation to show appreciation and gratitude, thankfulness to the generations that are moving out. It's a way, I think to grease the skids of succession, it's something that the older generation maybe desperately needs to hear. I want to hear. I don't know if desperate is too strong of a word, but they need to hear and they're not gonna ask for it. And so you just have to give it to them. And sometimes I tell next gen folks when I talk about this that you gotta tell them, you appreciate them and are thankful.

Tom: Even if you're not, you got no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you have to be genuine. I mean, so you can't just say that, you know, you appreciate all this other stuff if you're not really genuine.

Dan: Well, you know what George Costanza taught me when I was growing up, it's not a lie if you believe it.

Tom: Right? Ok.

Dan: Ok. So let's walk through this appreciation thing.

Tom: Yeah. And so basically, originally, this was a part of my David Letterman list. I had David Letterman list of the 10 obstacles to succession planning and it's in the book. But it, you know, when I give talks publicly like today, I'll say to people, you know, what do you think is the number one obstacle? And so I used to go number 10, number nine and so forth and I'd ask people what, what they thought number one was, well, they thought it was taxation and they thought it was this and they thought it was that and it was money and so forth. I said no, no, no, no. It's the lack of expression of appreciation, recognition and love. And that's what drives the system in family businesses. And it's overlooked dramatically by most people who work with family businesses. And I would suggest to you and the research, by the way, indicates that when family businesses are in harmony, they are more productive and profitable. So the love thing has to do with the reality of family harmony. There are some things that, you know, that sort of drove me, you know, to this and, you know, I just didn't automatically say this. One of the things I read early on when I was starting to do research on family businesses and so forth was a book called Father Loss by a guy named Neil Cheick. And he was talking about his, his experience with his father and grandfather and he basically was saying that the grandfather had died and he and his dad were at his grandfather's apartment, you know, picking up and cleaning up and doing all the things you have to do when somebody is deceased and, and it got to the end of the day and it got dark and they were quietly sipping the old man's scotch as he said, and all of a sudden in the darkness, he heard this gurgling and he went over and put his arm around his dad and his dad said to him, you know, so you won't have to go through what I've gone through. I want you to know that I loved you. I love you and I admire the life you created for yourself. And it dawned on me that that's what everybody wants. Then another thing occurred, to, you know, for me, a couple of things. Well, I'll mention there's, there's a Pulitzer Prize winning play called Fences by August Wilson. And he wrote that play right here in Saint Paul when he was living in Saint Paul. And it's a story about a AAA black man who grows up playing baseball in the Negro Leagues and he's too, too, you know, he's because of, prejudice and so forth. He doesn't make it and he ends up being a bitter guy and he builds this fence in his backyard. So he has a son who has terrific athletic ability and has an opportunity to get a big time football scholarship. And the father because of his jealousy medals and the son gets angry and he goes off to live in Japan or Korea someplace in the far east. And while he's there, his father dies and he, and, and so the son announces to his mom he's not gonna come home for his father's funeral. And so she insists that he come home and he, she, he comes home and he says to her, you know, he tried to teach you to become all the things that he wasn't and at the same time you became all the things that he was. And I thought, wow. Wow. So, that's a little bit of the background.

Dan: Well, then that's really interesting right there. Isn't that interesting? He tried to play and is incredibly famous. Yes. Won many Tony awards. Yes. Two times around. Yeah. Do you know who the lead was in the first one?

Tom: No. What's his name? Denzel Washington played, the father, I think in the,

Dan: James Earl Jones put, really did that play as well back in the late eighties.

Tom: He was fresh off a field of dreams at the time, I think, which was first performed here at the pan number theater in Saint Paul, which is a little local black theater that has done some of the major research on, on black productions and so forth. And then the other other sort of major thing that has influenced me and I'm a movie and you probably know that because you and I have talked about this in the past, but there's a, a movie called The Bridge on the River Quai, which was a 1957 film that won an Academy Award for Best picture. And Alec Guinness got the award for best actor. And Alec Guinness was the combatant of a, a group of British prisoners of war who are being forced to build a bridge by the Japanese. And so the movie takes place about all the trials and tribulations of building the bridge. And at the very end of the film, the day before it was going to get blown up. Alec Guinness is unaware that British commandos have come to blow up the bridge and he's standing on the bridge reminiscing about his career. And he said to the Japanese Colonel, the combatant of the prison camp, he said, you know, I've been in the service for 28 years and I don't think I would be home more than, you know, 14 months that whole time and I wouldn't have it any other way. And I loved India the best. But when you realize that you're closer to the back end than to the front, you begin to wonder about whether or not your life has meant something or not, particularly in comparison to other men. I don't know if that thinking is very healthy, but I must admit I've been thinking like that from time to time. I've been thinking like that from time to time and what it dawned on me is that when everyone, particularly men get into their sixties and seventies and they've been doing their family business work for 30 or 40 years. What they're looking for is validation. They want to know whether or not what they've done over the course of their life has meant something or not to their family members. And of course, what happens in families is the younger generation, adult Children love their parents, but take them for granted and don't tell them that, don't tell their parents, their dads in particular that they love them and appreciate them and so forth and so on and vice versa. The parents love their kids but they take them for granted and don't tell them. Well, that's what creates the dilemma in family businesses. Is this lack of expression of appreciation, recognition and love. And by the way, you know, from my perspective, despite the fact that entrepreneurs secretly are desperate, in my opinion, to get this kind of validation, they will deny to their dying day that they need it or care about it or looking for it. And, and 11 little examples now, I was giving a talk last year at a local resource here in the Twin Cities. And at the end of the presentation, someone asked me about my book and why did I decide to write the book? I said, well, I've got all these great ideas and so forth about family businesses and I really, I need to get them whatever I said. But the truth of the matter is I'm just like my clients, I'm at the stage of my life where I'm looking for validation and I'm looking for people. Easy, easy, Dan, you're not supposed to laugh at this. You know, I'm looking for validation. I'm looking for somebody to tell me that what I've done over the last 30 or 40 years in my work with family businesses has meant something to somebody, that type of thing.

Dan: Do you think that'll be generational, that need for gratitude? Or do you think that in 25 years I will also not say this to my kids? I need to hear you.

Tom: Tell me how awesome I am, you know, or do you think my, my generation of folks, every, every, every, every generation, that's what it's all about? OK, I just heard a futurist talk about what's the, what's the world gonna be like? And he had four things that he was concerned about and he was talking about work and he said that work is not gonna be like work and the real work is going to be people oriented. And so the idea of validation of each other and connecting as people in connection is what's critical and that's what people are looking for. And and that's what people are looking for in, in whether they're in a family business or not, they're looking to be connected and to have some sense of relevance and, and wanting to know that their life is, is purposeful and meaningful and until they get that feedback, that gratitude, that expression of thanks, do you feel like they're holding on?

Dan: And maybe that all plays a little bit of a role in the tug of war that happened.

Tom: One of the guys that I worked with and taught at the University of Saint Thomas said to me one time that his father-in-law had three Firestone stores. And he said to Glenn one day he said, Glenn, you know, when I go to heaven, I, so I hope I can still sell tires. So his fantasy of going to heaven was selling tires. Entrepreneurs love to do what they do. And the fan, the idea of not doing that anymore because that's where they've got their relevance isn't their validation from that, don't they? I mean, they, you know, they get so used to, it's a substitute. It's a substitute. It's a narcotic. It lulls people.

Dan: That's deep stuff there. Grandpa Tom. It is a bit of a substitute, isn't it? It's a little bit narcotic. It's a bit of a, a for the validation. They're not getting at home if you will. I didn't even think about that part of the reason. They're not getting that at home. They're not asking for it though.

Tom: Right. Oh, that's the other thing, people, when I, when I was a young boy, we would go visit our relatives and we'd go into the living room and sit down in the living room and there was a chair, you know, a sofa and chairs and coffee table on the coffee table was a candy dish. And what was I told? Do you remember?

Dan: There's originals probably back in your day.

Tom: But they said basically, I, I'd say I want a piece of candy and I was told it was more polite to wait till, you know, until it was offered. Well, I waited and I waited and I waited and then I got married and I waited and I waited and I waited. Well, if she'd love me, she'd know what I want. Right. So, that's the problem. People are avoiding asking for what they want. They confuse what they want with who they are. And they basically say, if, if I ask you for something you say no, that must mean I'm a bad person. So they don't bother to ask. And so, that's another dynamic that goes on in all families, but particularly family businesses. People have these expectations, expectations about what they want from each other, but they don't tell each other. No, we're too afraid.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah, things are ok right now, let's not screw this up. Right.

Tom: And that's, and that's, you know, gets us into another dynamic that I call. It's a very famous theory that I'm sure you're teaching at the University of Northern Iowa. It's called Hubler speck of dust theory.

Dan: Absolutely. Absolutely. I knew you did.

Tom: I just have a little speck of dust in my eye. Yeah. And I better not bring that up because if I do it we're all gonna get together next week for Thanksgiving. And if I bring that issue up, it's gonna upset our family and screw up our Thanksgiving or I'll let it go and I let it go and I let it go and I let it go and I inadvertently create the very problem I'm trying to avoid, which is not, you know, having family harmony by not talking about our differences.

Dan: So, absolutely. So the dust theory, I kind of forgot about that one a little bit. But you know, you were mentioning Alec Guinness. I don't remember him from the bridge over the river Coy, but you know what I remember him from.

Tom: Yeah. Right. So walk me back. That was a 1957 film and probably you weren't even born that it was.

Dan: But 20 years later when Star Wars came out, I was ready for it. I was ready for his teachings. Use the force Tom. That's it. And I'm thinking back to this, you know, and I've seen the clip where he's on the bridge and he's retrospecting and, and saying, and talking about, you know, measuring himself against other people, how, you know, walk me through that again of how we get from that to the need for validation. He needed to hear it from somebody else that he had done these great things and, and, and that it mattered.

Tom: So the issue here and the question here is, how do I, how do I, what kind of impact have I had on you over the course of our lifetime? You and I are brothers in a family together or we're a father and son? It doesn't really make any difference. But what I'm looking for is, have, have I made a difference? And all of us are, I think, at some level wondering about whether or not we make a difference in the world. We want to make it that I was here.

Dan: Right?

Tom: And, and so, you know, the only way we can get that is from other people. And, and, so I need to know that somehow or another. I made a difference and I need to know that, that, you know, that my, my, Children, whether my, like, like my kids now are adults obviously and I need to know that what, what I did for them and to help them and so forth and so on. Made a difference. And, and, and again, this is a quick story, my daughter Kirsten who lives in Illinois now. And, there's a woman who's Brad Pitt's wife. What's the movie star that they were divorced from? She, anyway, they adopted, they had adopted some mixed racial kids, Angela Angela. What's her name? Jo Jo Angela Jolie. Well, anyway, there was a press release about how she had adopted mixed racial kids and how important it was for people who have got kids that are mixed race to do things to help them develop their identities and so forth. And, and, and I don't know if you know this, but both of my adult Children are adopted and both of my Children are black and, and so spontaneously, my daughter sent me a text message which I never do. I got a text message from her and said, dad, you were way ahead of the curve and which is like holy smokes that just boosted my, my sense of, of pride about knowing that my daughter recognized some of the things that I had done when she was a little girl. One of the things that happened, I, I used to say to my daughter, I wanted to my Children to know that they were black and when my daughter was about four years old, she said to me, you know, we were sitting on the front porch and she said, you know, daddy, I'm not black, I'm brown. So she did know them. So anyway, getting that kind of feedback was like holy smokes. That makes it all worthwhile.

Dan: Yeah, it sunk in, right. It mattered that you were here. And so when you see next gen struggling with current gens or, you know, they're in their forties even maybe. And mom and dad still haven't left the driver's seat, so to speak. You know, what kind of advice are you giving that younger generation? Who's feeling the frustration of 5, 10, 15, 20 years of working for, for the old man, let's just say, and, what am I, you know, my pushing hasn't worked, right?

Tom: Not gonna, that's not gonna work because they're pushing back.

Dan: What am I supposed to do other than wait for them to die?

Tom: So what your parents don't know? Or in this case, you, if you're the dad, what you don't know is how committed I am to helping you be successful. And so one of the things that I, you know, that I recommend and suggest and implement with family businesses is the importance of having a common family vision to unite the family at a superordinate level. And then related to that is one of the things I talk about is the old part of the boss and, and the boss, everybody thinks when I mentioned the boss that I'm talking about the senior generation and I say sorry, mom and dad, I've just demoted you. You're no longer the boss around here. And the real boss is an acronym and the B is for the business. And what do we need to do to take care of the business? And the O is the most important part from my perspective, the O is what you want for the other about what the other wants. And so like a younger generation person, what does he or she want for their parents about what their parents want and vice versa. And this is the key, there needs to be a reciprocal commitment to each other's success. And that's what creates a team in a family business. Is this, this idea of a reciprocal commitment to each other's success? And the first test is what do you want for yourself? It's important to be able to articulate what you want for yourself, but you can't have a team if people only think about what they want for themselves. And so that's the reason for the banking common family vision to unite the family at a super level. So that they articulate what they want for themselves and stand under the umbrella of the Common bank and family vision. And then the last test is what do you want for the other stakeholders which I would define as the family as a whole, the employees, the customers, the vendors, the board, the community and so forth. And so what we're looking for is to create win-win solutions that would honor the boss to help you become a vision driven family, own business as opposed to problem focused. And so, so basically, this notion of the key here is the reciprocal commitment to each other's success. And so that, you know, that I expect and hope that all of my clients will recite on a daily basis, their commitment to each other and make it a part of a family in quotation marks, prayer and quotation marks.

Dan: All right, Tom. I feel wholesome again. It's always great to have you on. It's always great to chat. I always take it away.

Tom: Thank you. Thank you. I always enjoy talking with you and I appreciate the fact that you like my ideas and, I'm gonna give my mom a call and tell her how I appreciate it. It's really, really, really important and she'll probably deny that she's looking for that. But I want you to know she'll desperately appreciate it and say thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Dan: I would say that I have done it a couple times over the course of this last year in response to what I've learned from Grant to Tom. And it's terrific. It has been terrific. It's helped me. It's helped me feel better too.

Tom: Yeah, that's terrific.

Dan: That's what it's a legal drug, you know. Yeah, I appreciate that, Tom.

Tom: Yeah, you're, you're really welcome, Dan.

Dan: Thanks again. Our guest has been Tom Hubler, Hubler for Business. The website is Hubler family business dot com.

Tom: I've got a new website called Tom Hubler dot com.

Dan: Oh, I didn't know that. Ok. That's Tom Hubler dot com. Look at you, Mr 21st century.

Tom: I'm trying to catch up.

Dan: I guess. So. The Soul of Family Business is the book. What a great read. It was for me, I'm being honest and sincere on that, to help me kind of touch into the softer side of what family businesses go through and, and how you mentioned earlier that it's not because of financial issues, that family businesses don't succeed. It's most of the time because of the family dynamic issues, the boundaries between family and business. I hope we have you on again here soon on the Never Go Against the Family Podcast, Tom. And thank you for that. I'll wish you well with the rest of your day and thank you for your tools.

Katie: Thanks for listening to this episode of Never Go Against The Family, a podcast produced by the University of Northern Iowa Family Business Center. You can find more information about the center membership and upcoming events at https://unifamilybusinesscenter.com. As Vito Corleone advises, never go against the family.