Navigating Family Dynamics with Love and Logic: Polarity Thinking with Cathy Carroll
Cathy learned about family business leadership the best way you can – by leading her family business. After a twenty-year corporate career, she left United Airlines to lead her father’s business and instantly recognized a difference between leadership in a family business vs leadership in a large corporation.
Founder and President of Legacy Onward, Inc., Cathy Carroll is a family business leadership coach and author of Hug of War: How to Lead a Family Business With both Love and Logic. She also trains advisors serving in family enterprises as well as coaches who maintain their credential with the International Coaching Federation.
Cathy earned certificates in both Leadership Coaching and Executive Facilitation at Georgetown University, an MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and a BA at Boston College. She is also a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) in the ICF.
An active member of the community, Cathy currently serves as Vice-Chair the Board of the Purposeful Planning Institute and co-founder & Treasurer of A Leg To Stand On which provides prosthetic limbs to children in developing countries.
Kirby Rosplock
Welcome to the Tamarind Learning podcast. I am your host, Dr. Kirby Rosplock, and today we have a very special guest. Her name is Cathy Carroll, and we are talking about her new book. It's called Hug of War, and it is an excellent read, so I encourage all of you to pick it up if you have an interest in learning about all interesting deep dives into family dynamics, communication, working together, resolving conflict, understanding the complexities of relationships, leadership, governance, governance, decision making, communication, group dynamics. So, Kathy, welcome to the podcast.
Cathy Carroll
Thank you, Kirby. It's a delight to be here with you.
Kirby Rosplock
So, Cathy, you have a very interesting background and came to be doing this family business consulting, training, coaching work in a different way. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to be doing this work.
Cathy Carroll
Yes. Well, I learned the hard way. I grew up in a family business. My grandfather was actually the entrepreneur. When I was a grandkid, when I went to his office, we were going to the family office. We just didn't call it that. The terminology didn't exist back then. But I was a grand kid, and watching my father and uncles and aunt squabble like eight-year-olds. When I was out of school, I said, I don't want any part of that. I went corporate for 20 years. Started as a pension actuary, got an MBA, and then joined the travel industry in finance, marketing, then sales for about 12 years. Then in 2009, my father sucked me back into the family business, and I actually ran his businesses. His businesses are different than my grandfather's. When my grandfather died, my father inherited some of his companies, and he sold them, and he started buying companies in his personal passion, which is an interesting industry. It's rodeo equipment. We make ropes and saddles and training equipment, primarily for team ropers, but for all the rodeo competitors. I had the privilege of leading that business for a few years and learning about leadership in a family business when you're working for your father.
Cathy Carroll
And that was a very unique and universal experience at the same time. I think that most of us who have operated and navigated a family business, we all know that it's challenging, and it's challenging in its own unique ways, and yet there's some universal experience of that challenge. So I left, and it was a really difficult transition for me leaving that business because I had put a lot of my identity into it. I really wrote Hug of War to help me make sense of my experience leaving my father's business. The title is Hug of War: How to Lead a Family Business with Both Love and Logic. If I were to give it an alternative subtitle, I would have said, What I Wish everyone knew about family business because I really think it's a unique leadership dynamic. I think it's incredibly challenging, and the whole premise of the book is about why.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. Well, I just brought the cover up on the podcast because I want everyone to get a visual, so they'll go out and find it either in the bookstores or online, since that's where we mostly buy our books. I won't say which purveyor you might buy it from, but certainly it's accessible. I know that's where I found my copy. It was online. I know you even said you'll be recording an audiobook, which will be super cool if you're an audiobook listener. But there's an e-book out there, too. I know this is probably the first book you've written, but maybe it won't be the last book. I hope you'll be inspired to be a serial author like myself because it's really well written. So congratulations.
Cathy Carroll
Thank you. And congratulations to you. I have a deep respect for those who have published books. Having gone through it once, it's a big deal. So the fact that you've done it many times at the quality of level that you have is pretty extraordinary.
Kirby Rosplock
Well, when you have one, it's like having children. You forget how much pain and suffering you go through when you're writing it and you're like, Oh, I can do this again. And then you labor, go through it all over again, and you're like, This is so much work. What was I thinking? But there's a lot of gratification, as you know, and you're really proud, and you've done such a beautiful job. Your writing style is so wonderfully descriptive, and it really draws the reader in. Let's just jump in. I think one of the topics that really captivated me was around the topic of polarity thinking. Maybe we can start there. Can you give the listeners and viewers today just a high-level understanding of what is polarity thinking?
Cathy Carroll
Absolutely. Polarity thinking is basically a tool to bring to what seems like a problem, but isn't really a problem, it's a polarity. So let me draw the distinction. A problem is, should I go to have Mexican or should I have Italian for dinner? That's a problem. You're choosing between two different options. A polarity is when you're choosing between between two things that define each other.
Cathy Carroll
I'll give you an example. Let's think of in the family enterprise space, reveal and conceal in the context of estate planning. So the big question is often, should I reveal my estate or should I conceal my estate from my children? And that's the wrong question. Because when you're facing a polarity, if you bring either or thinking to a polarity, you're not going to get a right answer because there is no right answer to that question. Polarity thinking is a way to actually harmonize two opposing truths. There's value in revealing the estate information. There's value in concealing the estate information. And what polarity thinking does is it invites you into a creative question about how to get the best of reveal and the best of conceal over time.
Cathy Carroll
So the answer is not static, it's dynamic. The answer to, should I reveal or conceal? Is is a changing answer. It's actually, how do I reveal and conceal? It depends on the circumstances. It depends on the age of the children. It depends on the size of the dollar amounts. It depends on what they're able to take in and process. That seems like a pretty straightforward explanation. But what so often happens is that we end up with some people, one person in the couple who's adamantly attached to concealing information, and then another person in the who's adamantly attached to revealing information, and they just argue their point of view without actually stepping back and seeing it as two halves of a hole. Polarity thinking allows you to step back, see the bigger picture, and then actually manage the tension and hold the tension between these two opposing right answers in a much more helpful manner for the family.
Kirby Rosplock
You've really unpacked the concept. Help me think about the practice and the process. Now we've got this wonderful example of reveal and conceal. I'm imagining a husband and a wife saying, husband saying, conceal, wife saying, I think we should reveal. What would you do in that circumstance? How would you harmonize those polarities?
Cathy Carroll
That is the ultimate question, right? So it starts with mapping out the benefits and the overuses of each end of the pole. So if we start with reveal, let's brainstorm some of the upsides or benefits of revealing. Some things could be like, well, our kids can conduct their financial planning with really reliable information, and they could actually influence what we put on paper because they're going to have to live with the outcomes. So there's some legit benefits to revealing. But what happens if you overreveal, or if you only reveal everything and there's no consideration to the dynamics and the circumstances of the family? What are some of the risks? Well, the rising generation, your kids may not actually develop good self-esteem and purpose because they've been given or they know that they're going to inherit a ton of money, so they start to live an entitled lifestyle. That's usually the biggest fear that people who prefer, conceal, have. They're very concerned about the overuse of reveal. Another problem could be that the parents have to defend their decisions with their kids, and they don't want to have to deal with defending decisions that the kids don't like.
Cathy Carroll
They're like, let's just conceal it because then we don't have to deal with that conflict. Well, understandable upsides and understandable concerns with revealing information. So then you go to the flip side. Well, what are the upsides? What are the benefits of concealing information? Well, one benefit is that the kids, they're not burdened by the responsibilities of inherited wealth. It's a big deal to take on substantial wealth responsibilities, and it's a blessing and a burden at the same time. And there are a lot of responsibilities associated with it. So if we conceal it, our children don't have to deal with it. And we don't have to defend any decisions that we make with them. But what happens if you over-conceal? What's the risk of happening if you conceal information? It could be that your kids end up doing a career of work that they hate. They just despise whatever they're doing, only to discover really late that they could have afforded to pursue their passions and lived a much more fulfilling and joyful life. Another overuse could be that they're not prepared for the responsibilities of wealth. If they suddenly come into this surprise amount of money, they're going to have to climb a really steep learning curve really fast to take on all that responsibility.
Cathy Carroll
Once you've got these things mapped out, then you say, Well, how do we actually get as much of the benefits of reveal and the much of the benefits of conceal as we can the same time? For the sake of what? Why are we holding the tension between these two polar opposites? Well, what our aspiration is, is for a flourishing family. We want kids who are well-prepared for the future. That's our North Star. That's why we're going to actually engage in this conversation. And so you bring the family into a much different question. It's not, should we reveal or should we conceal? But it's, how do we get the best of reveal and conceal? And that answer changes. So when the kids are, let's say, five, seven, and nine, maybe the conversation about talking about family values and what is important to the family and what long-lasting traditions we want to have on an ongoing basis, what philanthropy things are of interest to each member of the family. Maybe when they're 15, 17, and 19, you might start talking about more specifics, getting the kids involved in some of the philanthropy discussions, maybe allowing them to collaborate and decide a charity that they want to get involved in.
Cathy Carroll
Maybe you start introducing some of the vocabulary, like what is a trustee? What is a trust? What is a beneficiary? Some of the language that are starting to get familiar, but you may not necessarily share a lot of the details, the dollar amounts, for example. Then maybe when they're 25, 27, and 29, the conversation starts to get more transparent. And again, it's really going to depend on the family and the dynamics of the family, the capabilities of the parents, the capabilities of the children. And the question that you ask is a dynamic question because the answer changes over time.
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. Well, I love how this polarity thinking can really help shift the conversations. But how do you help some of these families and family businesses that you work with identify that you're having polarity thinking conversations? I mean, I'm sure you're bringing this to their attention that they might not even know. Hey, these are polarity conversations. Do you know that?
Cathy Carroll
Yeah. It's actually fun for the professionals, the advisors who know polarity thinking, because they'll often say, I think you guys... It sounds like you think you have a problem, but you don't have a problem. You have a polarity. If you're open to exploring what that could look like, I'd love to see if we do have a polarity, then we can bring the right skills to the right challenge. Because if you bring problem solving skills to a polarity, it's like bringing a knife to a gunfight. You're just not going to get anywhere. You're going to get stuck in loops. You're going to get stuck putting forces force against force because there is no right answer in a polarity. So what I start with, literally, is I pull out a piece of paper and I draw a big plus sign on it. It's literally a plus sign. And then I say, All right, it sounds like we've got a tension between two opposing right answers. Let's name the poles. I'll give you another example. This example that I use is really the core premise of the entire book, so it'll be a good example. Let's say the core tension is the mindset of the norms of the family and the mindset and the norms of business.
Cathy Carroll
The example I'll use is the question is, should I fire my brother-in-law because he's not performing, or should I give him a raise because my mom wants me to because he has a special needs child? If you listen to the business norms, the business norms say, Look, you're focused on profits, you're on competition, you're meritocracy. This is rational system, you need to fire your brother-in-law. Come on, get rid of the dead weight. If you're following the family norms, which is an emotional system, and it values fairness and sharing and unconditional belonging, the answer is you give them a raise. Because that's what family does. Family takes care of family. When you're leading in a family enterprise and you have these two completely opposite right answers, how do you decide? It's really, really difficult. As as an advisor, or frankly, a family member, if they can identify the polarity that's within the family, say, You know what? I think I'm sensing a polarity. Let's frame it as a family mindset, business mindset polarity. If we do that, let's talk about what are the upsides of the family mindset. Well, we care about each other and we're taking care.
Cathy Carroll
We really love each other and we're looking at family looks out for family. Then what are the overuses of the family mindset? Well, we're coddling poor performers, and we're making it too easy, and we're not creating the conditions for them to thrive on their own. What about the upsides of the business mindset? Well, we're running a really lean, profitable business, and we're generating opportunities for our community and profits for our family and all sorts of good stuff. And what's the overuse of the family mindset? Well, we could actually be so we're focused on profits that we're not even thinking about the needs of the family or caring about the fact that we're a family business and we have the opportunity to help each other. So once you've got the four quadrants mapped, then you go back to, All right, how do you get the best of the business mindset and the best of the family mindset at the same time. It generates tons of creative thinking because there isn't an either or answer. You're not either going to fire him or you're going to give him a raise. You start to get creative. Well, I wonder if we could put him into a special project situation because he's actually really good at cost accounting, and we have this really important cost accounting initiative we need to get done.
Cathy Carroll
Let's see if he can do well in that specific area for a three-month project and see how it goes. Or maybe the answer is we're going to get him some outplacement because he's not the right fit here, but we're going to support him, and we're going to give him a good solid outplacement resources so that he can land in an area that's really, really happy for him. Or maybe we say, You know what? Let's split up the differences between the benefits of being an employee and the benefits of being an owner. And he'll get ownership benefits because he's married to an owner, and he's not going to get employee benefits because he's not an employee. You get the idea. The right answer is whatever is appropriate for that family in that circumstance at that point in time. Again, the answer could change 10 years later, 10 months later when the circumstances change. But that's how you bring the right tool to the right challenge.
Kirby Rosplock
I love it. When we're thinking about the listeners on this call, how can listeners assess how well they are managing maybe the tension between between family mindset, business mindset in their family enterprise or family office? What are some of the things that you would suggest they think about if this could be applied in their realm?
Cathy Carroll
The first clue is when you hear someone say something and you go, What? That is so wrong. They need to do the opposite. And what is really helpful about that reaction is that you can start to ask yourself, I think I'm an either or question. Is this a polarity or a problem? Because I am really convinced that they are dead wrong. And so if they are dead wrong, maybe I have a blind spot. Maybe I really need to think about what are the upsides? Because they said the opposite thing for a reason. So let me get curious and ask what they see as the upsides of it. This is going to be maybe a little alarmist, especially in election season. But I'm going to frame this in the context of politics. We all have what we call pole preferences. I'm going to stipulate that liberal and conservative is a polarity. They're opposites. And so we all have our pole preference. Some of us lean liberal, some of us lean conservative. And those of us who have these pole preferences, what we tend to see is the upside of our preferred ideology and the overuse of the other one.
Cathy Carroll
Let's pretend I lean conservative. If I hear someone say something liberal, I go, Ay, golly, what a nightmare. They are so dead wrong. That's an invitation for me to say, Well, they said it for a reason. Let me think, what would be a value to that point of view? Then it forces me to actually recognize that I'm in a polarity and that they're interdependent and that really the answer is, how do you get the best of liberal ideology and the best of conservative ideology? I'm sorry to bring in such an emotional issue during election season, but I think it is such a great example of how we have pole preferences, how we are blinded by an ideology where we're convinced one part of the map is right and we don't see the full map.
Kirby Rosplock
Well, I think it would be wonderful if polarity thinking could be brought to our political process. Imagine how much better democracy might work. I don't know. I'm crazy. If polarities are unsolvable, how do you make a decision? I mean, how do you make... Is there a way that it can work or is it, does it not work?
Cathy Carroll
Yeah, no, you absolutely can make it work. It's by focusing on getting the upsides of both sides of the pole. That's how you make the path forward. The question is, how often do you come back to revisit? Do you come I have to revisit every week, every year, every decade, every generation. And that depends. It depends on the circumstances of the family, the circumstances of the business, even the climate, the external climate that you're operating within. So as things change, one of the questions to ask is, is it time for us to revisit this polarity and revisit the strategies we're going to use to harmonize these two opposites?
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah. Well, this is just one little microcosm of your book. There's so many wonderful other elements. Is there any other pieces that you want to tease the listeners, viewers today with and talk about from other parts of your book? Because I know there's so much good information, and I don't want to short-trift all the other pieces that you contribute.
Cathy Carroll
Thank you. Well, I actually love the chapters on power. There are some really unique power dynamics that show up in a family business that don't show up anywhere else. And it's basically due to these dual mindsets, this family mindset and this business mindset that exists. And I'll highlight a couple of them. The first one that I talk about, it's a form of hard power. I call it domain crossover power. It's when you use power in one domain to get what you want in another domain. One example is when a second-generation leader said to his dad, Until you give me full control of this business? You're not going to see your grandchildren. That's leveraging power in the business domain to get what he wanted in the family domain. Then the inverse was true. I worked with a client where her father said to his daughter, My father said to his daughter, You're not going to get promoted in this company until you make nice with my new wife. There was a leverage of what she wanted in the professional domain wouldn't come available to her until she behaved in the way that he wanted in the family domain.
Cathy Carroll
That doesn't exist outside of a family business. You don't have two domains that you get to play with, to toy with. I talk about there are some really healthy and important uses of hard power, and usually hard power is is far more problematic than helpful. So I caution people in the book as to when it's appropriate and helpful to use hard power, and when you should really avoid hard power because it's not in service to the long-term relationship and the long-term goals of your family. That's one.
Cathy Carroll
Another one that I like is shadow influencers. And shadow influencers are people who aren't owners in the business, don't have a job or a role in the business, and yet they will enormous influence in the business. I'll give you an example. This one really gets to me. There was a family that I worked with, and I guess I'll share it from the perspective of the Chief Operating Officer, Bibi was his name. He got fired, and he had no idea what happened. Here's how it happened. His CEO, who's a woman, hired a a new sales and marketing person who was a partier. And so the CEO's husband, who knows that his wife has a substance abuse problem, said, Oh, no, no, no.
Cathy Carroll
We're not going to put a party animal as a direct report to my wife because that's a slippery slope. I don't want her to go down. So what we're going to do is we're going to elevate our son to be the President, and the Chief Operating Officer is going to report to the President, and then the President will to his mother. The Chief Operating Officer got demoted and suddenly was reporting to the child of the CEO, who was really sharp and capable, but still, it was too early for that person to be the President. And so the CEO was mad. First of all, why wasn't he informed in advance? He found out the same day that the whole rest of the company found out. He was completely blindsided. And the second thing was, why wasn't he considered? He thought he was in line. So he really was miffed and didn't perform well as a result. And six months later, they terminated him. And he had no idea why it happened. It had nothing to do with it. But it was because of the fear of a shadow influencer.
Cathy Carroll
The dad didn't have a job in the business. Dad didn't even own shares, but he was doing it to protect his wife. It's a long story, but it's an example of the incredible influence that shadow influencers have. And that, again, doesn't exist outside of a family business.
Kirby Rosplock
That's incredible. Well, I hope that makes people curious. I would love to contemplate a sister, smaller monograph to how a lot of these concepts probably play out in a family office because I think many of them are very corollary. I'm planting those seeds to you, Kathy, because I am extraordinary I'm extraordinarily curious. I will just leave it at that. But if there's one or two things you would love to drop or leave with our listeners, viewers today, what would you say about your book, about the concept of polarity thinking or any other things that you've written about in your book?
Cathy Carroll
Thank you. I think if there's anything it has to do with how do you know when you're in a polarity, because when you don't know you're in a polarity, you've got blind spots. And you can bring bias into a family dynamic. If you're a family member, you bring just tension because you're convinced you're right. If you're an advisor, you bring bias because you can't see the full picture. And I've interviewed some financial estate planning attorneys, I should say. And many of them have said, When I first started in my career as an estate planner, I really thought concealing from the kids was the right way to go. And so I advised all of my clients to conceal. And over time, I saw the problems that can result when you don't share information with your children. So now I actually really strongly advocate for reveal. And now that I understand, thank you, Kathy, I understand polarity thinking, now I see it's attention that needs to get managed, it needs to It needs to get changed over time. So as advisors, we bring our own assumptions and biases into the work that we do. And so what this book can help you do is uncover your own biases.
Cathy Carroll
The second thing I'll share is that sometimes finding a way to harmonize the poles really means you have to face some deep fears, because when you recognize that you have a pole preference, your preference comes from an aversion to the downsides of the opposite pole. And so until you've really done your work about those fears, it's going to be really hard to find a way to find that both and, to find the way to harmonize these opposites. Sometimes it takes some deep work. Sometimes it's just a simple, This is easy, we'll figure it out. Sometimes it actually takes some deeper work to do.
Kirby Rosplock
And it might take a Cathy Carroll. It might take a coach or a trainer or an outsider to just help you put the pieces together. So again, You can't write a book like this unless you've walked the talk. So, Kathy, thank you so much for sharing all your wisdom today on the Tamarind Learning podcast. I encourage you all to go pick up your copy. There will be links with the Tamarind Learning podcast information all about Kathy, her website, how you can find her, how you can find her book. So we are so grateful to have you share your wisdom, your knowledge here today, and I'm sure you can find out more. Cathy has done so many wonderful podcasts, so I know this is a good one, but there's a ton more when you go to her website. I encourage you to listen to as many as you can because you'll pick up more interesting things in all the places that she's been able to share her thoughts. So thanks again, Cathy, for being here. You're wonderful.
Cathy Carroll
Thank you so much. It's been a delight, Kirby.
