10C • SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2014
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Why happy families need 12 great relationships I love my family. We were on a group tour recently. One of our fellow tour members, a woman we didn’t know prior to the trip, who had shared a bus, hikes and meals with us for a few days, said, “I can tell you all really enjoy being around each other.” It was one of the nicest compliments I’d ever gotten. Our family isn’t perfect, but our observer was right, we do enjoy being around each other. I realized in that moment, creating a happy family is about multiple relationships. Each person has an individual relationship with every other member. In a family of four,
Forget Perfect
Lisa McLeod there are 12 relationships. Each person has a personal relationship with the other three. That’s six total relationships. Then there are two sides to each relationship, so that means 12 dynamics in play. The same exponential relationship model applies at work. Even if everyone has a good relationship
with the leader, if one team member dislikes another, it has a chilling effect on the entire group. Case in point, my younger brother and I ruined many a family trip (and dinners, and TV nights, and zoo, museum, Dairy Queen trips, and just about every other thing my mother tried to plan) with our constant fighting. In any group, if one relationship, or even one side of one relationship is out of whack, it makes every single other relationship worse. My colleague Seth Kahan (www.visionaryleadership.com), says the exponential relationship dynamic is actually a mathematical formula: 2
n – (n + 1) where n is the number of people in the group. This formula factors in the sub groups, trios, quads, etc., that occur in any group of more than two. For a family of four, the exponential number is 11, 24 - (4+1) = 16 - 5 = 11 total relationships. Which doesn’t include the two sides of each relationship. But you get the point. No matter which formula you use, the exponential relationship concept reinforces what you already know, families, and groups, are complicated. Imagine how much different our family trip would have been if one of our kids had been angry with one of the parents. Actually you probably
don’t have to imagine it, you’ve likely made that trip yourself, as have we. Imagine, or remember, what a work team is like when two key players have an unspoken disagreement. You can feel the tension in every meeting. So, what does a leader or parent do with this information? You have to create conditions that enable your team to have successful, independent relationships with each other. Yes, I know it’s more work, but you will ultimately benefit. Here are three tips to get started: 1. Set aside time to spend with each member alone. 2. Provide team members with space and time to get to know each other individually, outside the
larger group. 3. Set an expectation that people will put time and effort into their relationships. The last one is critical. Many work places, and many families, focus exclusively on output, creating the best product, doing the project faster, or getting the best grades. But one of the secrets to creating great output is through mutually supportive, enjoyable relationships. The team that dislikes each other is rarely innovative or successful, much less fun. Group relationships are complex. But they’re worth it. When you look around the table and realize, we all really like each other, you’re destined for great things.
Tales of the hot pink luggage Some missing something or the other required me to prowl through closets at Mama’s house. That’s when I found it. I pulled it out and smiled broadly, warmed by the memories it evoked. You know the feeling I am sure. You find something that somewhere back in time meant so much but years have passed and you have forgotten its existence. Then you find it and it’s like running into an old friend who reminds you of happy times. You would probably laugh if you saw it — a piece of hot pink Samsonite luggage. I’m laughing now because it’s part of a three-piece set that includes a beauty case (a thing of the past), a tote bag and a 22-inch Pullman. What that luggage — so 1970s — means to me can never be adequately summed up here. But let me try. When I was just a kid, the age where I still tugged on Mama’s apron strings and sat in Daddy’s lap, my small arm reaching up and stretching partway around his neck, I loved suitcases. I was fascinated with what they represented — travel to somewhere different than where I was. My family never traveled for they couldn’t afford to stop working long enough to take time off. In my entire growing up, my parents and I only took one true vacation — two weeks when we traveled to West Virginia and Pennsylvania to visit some of Daddy’s family and stayed in Holiday Inns along the way and ate at Howard Johnsons. It was a grand adventure. I was 11 that summer and so thrilled that I planned my wardrobe for two months. Mama and I sewed and made me the most wonderful set of clothes for the trip including a polyester blazer with a light gray background scattered with tiny navycolored anchors because nautical was trendy that summer. It had gold buttons with anchors on them and I thought it was the smartest, chicest garment I had ever seen. I was so happy to be able to pack a suitcase and go on a trip. When I was still that little apron-strings-tugging girl, I played often with a piece of brown, real leather Samsonite luggage which I
Ronda Rich
was always packing with clothes and pretending to go to New York on book business. When I was in the seventh grade, I began to beg for pretty luggage. I had seen the hot pink, stylish Samsonite in Belk department store and I was captivated. If only I had it, I told myself, then surely travel would find me and take me off to see the kind of things of which I read — airplanes, big cities, taxi cabs and historic places. It took two birthdays and one Christmas to get those three pieces of luggage and each one received made me happy beyond measure. I still have all three since I brought that one home from Mama’s. Two pieces have flight tags from the old Eastern Airlines which went out of business 25 years ago. When I got home, I set the Pullman at the foot of the stairs, intending to take it to the attic. But, for days, I couldn’t. It made me smile every time I saw it and reminded me of how a girl’s childhood dreams came true. Every one of them. Just recently I bought a new set of luggage that is designed with bright, cheery colors all over it. It makes me happy just like the little girl who sat in her daddy’s lap. Tink laughed as I wheeled it to the check-out counter. “One thing’s for sure — you’ll be able to spot that at baggage claim,” he said. I adore it. I baby it and scrub marks off of it when we return home because, just like the hot pink luggage, it reminds how childhood dreams came true. Now, that’s a nice piece of baggage to carry around. Ronda Rich is the bestselling author of “There’s A Better Day A-Comin.’” Visit www.rondarich.com to sign up for her weekly newsletter.
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