WEBVTT

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Today, we're going to talk about managing complicated relationships in the work context.

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And particularly if you're related to someone or you're a very close friend with someone

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that you work and that friendship or family relationship has complex dynamics.

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We're going to talk about how using the concept of a two-hat solution really creates relational

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space.

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You know, we want to help each team member be professional at work even among complex

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relationships.

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To help this, I want to tell two stories quickly.

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The first one I first heard from Dr. Henry Cloud and it's a story of a father who employs

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his son.

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The father owns a manufacturing company and he's walking through the factory one day when

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he notices his son publicly humiliating and berating one of the older managers.

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And he says, son, in my office.

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Well, they get in the office and the father sits down and he says, well, in this relationship

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I wear two hats.

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On the one hand, I'm the CEO of this organization and on the other hat, I'm your dad.

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So with my CEO hat on, I'm telling you, you're fired.

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We've talked about this.

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I won't have this in my culture.

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We've sent you on training.

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Nothing's caused any change.

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So you're fired.

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One moment.

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Change his hat and he says, son, with my dad hat on, son, I heard you lost your job today.

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Is there anything I can do?

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Now there's something so wonderful about that because what it's done is it's created, took

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a complex relationship and brought clarity.

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There's another great story which actually just happened to me in the last few weeks.

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And I was teaching this two hat solution to a team and then I got some feedback.

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And it was a husband-wife team.

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And the husband was the CEO of the company and the wife was reporting to him.

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And then she realized that she has a wife hat and she has her work hat.

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She has her executive hat on.

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And so she said, well, after you said that, it brought so much clarity because I realized

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with my work hat on, I really don't like my boss, referring to her husband.

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But with my wife hat on, I adore my husband.

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He's the kindest, most thoughtful person.

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I absolutely love him.

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Now you can see exactly what happened there.

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And of course, they very quickly worked out that should not be their relationship.

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I've come across this so many times, especially in family-run businesses or in businesses

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where family members are involved or maybe even just two very close friends.

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You know, one of my very closest friends, we started a business together.

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We grew up and then as it worked out, you know, I ended up as the CEO with 80 employees.

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And, you know, he he was one or two removed from me.

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And I had to keep putting my my CEO hat on when I talked to him.

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But then after hours, I put my friend hat on.

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Now, here's some there's some tricks to making that work.

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So I want to share some power hacks, if you like, that really work through this.

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But let's also just take a second and say, why is this important?

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You know, nepotism favoring family members and so on is a real serious problem.

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You know, there was a recent survey in Inc.

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Magazine around the asking people.

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And it was interesting that nearly half of people who were polled believed that being the boss's child was the secret to getting ahead.

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Only a quarter of the people interviewed thought that success comes from just doing good work.

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Now, that is really sad.

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You cannot have that in an organization.

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And even when I employed some of my own children, I used to tell them, you know, your your promotion comes from your first name, not your last name.

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And by that, I meant that you stand on your own, you know, as an employee.

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And then at home, we're family and we act as though we don't work together.

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So, you know, I've seen some of the solutions to this is not employing family members.

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That might be a bit extreme.

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Some people really love creating businesses they can hand off to their children or have a brother or sister or even parents involved.

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But it can absolutely work if you use the two hat solution, because what the two hat solution does is it creates a firewall, a divide between these separate roles.

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So what is so if we just use the one hat solution and I'm just one person, it creates all this complexity and it blurs these relational lines.

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And it sends a message to the other team members who are not family members that somehow they're on a lower tier of promotion, that somehow.

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being the boss's child or spouse or parent is some sort of an advantage and

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so we end up with these dual standards that one applies to the family members

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and the other applies to everyone else and we cannot you cannot have that and

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build a successful team of leaders if some of the leaders feel like you know

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we're all equal but some of us are more equal yeah you can't have that so we

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have to manage these perceptions and be aware of these conflicting ideas so a

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couple of examples so here's some rules to the two hat solution and then I'm

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gonna take a minute and give some examples so there's three rules when

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applying the two hat solution the first rule is what we call the firewall this

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is creating a professional boundary that kid that you have to keep in place to

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protect your relationships the second is called the exclusion principle we're

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wearing the one hat you pretend the other hat does not exist so in the case

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of the husband and wife when they were at work and they had their work hats on

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the executive hats on they were acting like they were not married at home when

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they got home they acted like they didn't work at the same place so when

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you wear the one hat you act like the other hat doesn't exist you exclude it

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hence the term exclusion principle so when I'm at when I'm at home I'm your

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spouse but when I'm at work I'm your boss and we act like the other hat

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doesn't exist exist the third principle is really important it's called the

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leveling principle now the leveling principle is the question is would I do

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this to someone else would I speak to them this way if we were not related so

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if my friend reports to me would I let any other other person reports me do the

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same thing if the answer is no then what's happening is we've broken the

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leveling in other words would I behave the same if we didn't have a special

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relationship would I allow any other employees so let me give some examples

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so we had a couple that worked for us and we'll just call them Sally and John

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and they work together married couple John's very affectionate guy he would

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come in and you know it gives Sally a little a little kiss and get her coffee

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and all that stuff and you know it looked innocent enough but there was

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something odd firstly Sally was a director in the company John was a

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manager one step below but he didn't report to he wasn't in her team that was

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on purpose to to not make their relationship any more complex than it

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needed to be so one day I asked him and I called him and I said John you're not

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doing you're not putting up the firewall when you're at work you have to act like

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the two of you are not married yeah yeah I do that I said no you really

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don't you show affection and do other things so my let's use the leveling

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principle would you go around and kiss other directors on the cheek and bring

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them coffee and he blushed and he said no no no of course not that would be

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entirely inappropriate I said there's the leveling principle you have to put

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the firewall up and act like the two of you are not married and when you get

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home you act like you don't work at the same place you can complain about your

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terrible boss even if you're referring to your spouse and what this does is it

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protects relationships but it also creates a lot more relational space so

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when the couple gets home they get to talk about their jobs in a way that's

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free as a couple would not as people who are on the same team this is a very very

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helpful process so there was another couple where well there were two

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brothers and they're in a in working together and what did happen with these

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two brothers they found out they had even more than two hats because they

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were on the same board of the company they were in the they were on the

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management team and they were brothers and then also they were also owners of

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the company so this created all these complexities so what they simply started

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doing is I'm wearing my owner hat I don't like our board even if you're

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talking about yourself or you're sitting on the board and you're saying I'm not

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sure we like our CEO even if you're talking about your brother what this

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does is it creates firewalls and it creates clear opportunities to be very

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very effective so you know I had a situation where I came in as the

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president of a company and one of the owners she also worked in the company

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and she reported to me so as the president of the company running her

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company in some ways I reported to her when she was wearing her owner hat but

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when she was wearing her team hat she reported to me so we used to just joke

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and say so which hat are you wearing well hang on a second put on your owner

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hat so I can tell you owner things and as a president let me tell you as an

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owner this and then we'd switch hats and then I could say okay so now

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As as you know, with your team hat on,

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hey, you need to correct this and this, you need to improve that and so on.

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Can you see how this would create tremendous relational space?

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So let me summarize again.

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The two solutions has three core principles.

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The first is the firewall principle.

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You must put up a firewall.

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A firewall refers to a gap that doesn't allow things to mix in.

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So you've got to separate out the roles.

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That's what firewall means.

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So you can also call it the separation principle.

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So you separate out your different roles, count them, how many how many roles?

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And we'll keep call each of those and create a separate hat for each role.

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So there's the the separation principle.

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The second is the exclusion principle.

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When we're wearing the one hat, we pretend the other hats do not exist.

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So when I'm your boss, I'm not your spouse.

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When I'm your spouse, I'm not your boss.

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And thirdly, the leveling principle.

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And that is while I'm the boss, would I treat any other person

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who is in a similar role, who is not related to me in the same way?

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Now, is there a level playing field?

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The answer to that is no.

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Then I haven't really created a proper firewall.

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So I hope that was helpful, that this will create huge

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relational space with a close relationship.

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Doesn't just have to be a family member.

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Can also be, you know, a lifelong friend that you're working with.

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But when you at work, you have to act like you're not friends.

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I know it sounds it sounds maybe complicated to implement.

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Actually is extremely simple.

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And every single person or leader we've taught this to has come back and said

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this was one of the most helpful things I learned in the Edge training.

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Enjoy.