Why Family Harmony isn’t the goal and what to build instead | Thomasina Williams of Sankofa Legacy Advisors

Connor Maki (00:00)
A lot of people are looking for harmony within their family, but is that really the goal that we should be leaning towards? Is undermining your authority and your leadership within your family by doing so? That is what we’re going to be discussing today with Thomas Sina Williams, founder of Sancova Legacy Advisors.

Chris Tanke (01:06)
Welcome back to Navigating in Abundance. I’m Chris Tankey and today I’m delighted to have as our guest once again, Thomasina Williams of Sankova Legacy Advisors. Always a privilege to talk to you. We appreciate your wisdom in dealing with families and we’re super excited to talk about today’s topic, which is why family harmony isn’t the goal and what we should be building

instead which is kind of not what we would initially think would be right. What do mean family harmony is the goal? That’s the very best thing of all, isn’t it?

Thomasina Williams (01:47)
Hello, Chris. Thank you for having me back. We are often told that family harmony is the goal. The challenge is, while it sounds good in theory, what that often means is someone is trying to convince others to agree with their position when they don’t necessarily agree. What tends to happen a lot in families when we’re striving for this goal of, quote, harmony and unity,

it assumes that everyone has to be thinking the same way. And that’s just not realistic, particularly when we’re talking about multi-generational families. What we want is the ability for people to be able to express themselves, their genuine thinking and feelings. But oftentimes family harmony and family unity means that someone has to simply kind of go along to get along.

That can be dangerous because over the long term tensions build if there’s some discomfort, discontent that is simmering below the surface. So it really can stifle a family moving forward. What you really want to build instead is a family that is connected and capable of navigating whatever differences and challenges life might throw their way.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone is going to agree all the time.

Chris Tanke (03:11)
my-

So be careful to count the cost of the family unity, the family harmony that you’ve developed. Is it really just on the surface and people aren’t being honest on what they’re really feeling? and essentially, you you can’t have that, I guess, true unity of family unless people are being their actual selves. So a lot of this has to do with being heard, being able to speak, being accepted.

be able to understand our differences and if we can’t come to complete agreement, that’s okay, but ⁓ at least we’re healthy in the way that we’re communing with each other. That’s critical. We can’t sacrifice that on the altar of perceived harmony, right?

Thomasina Williams (03:57)
Absolutely, and I don’t want to suggest that anyone is being dishonest. People are doing what they think is necessary, frankly, to keep the peace. And keeping the peace may feel like the right thing to do in the moment, but over time, as other tensions arise, as life’s challenges unfold, those tensions are simmering and can erupt, frankly, at the most inopportune time.

Chris Tanke (04:05)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Thomasina Williams (04:26)
So the challenge is how do we make space and have grace to allow differences of opinion, differences of perspective, and still remain connected as a family.

Chris Tanke (04:40)
Very good. Very important goals, very important tools to develop for sure. what I would like to do is you’ve given us some great bullet points that we’ll be covering. I’d like to go through all five of them, have you respond to them as sort of an outline for what we’re doing today, if that’s all right. So the first bullet point you have is why striving for family harmony or family unity can backfire and unintentionally

Thomasina Williams (04:46)
So.

Chris Tanke (05:06)
undermine leadership. Can you develop that a little bit more? I think we’ve started on that, but can you develop that a little more for us?

Thomasina Williams (05:14)
Absolutely, because oftentimes what it means is everyone needs to agree to the perspective of one or two people in a family. And if you don’t really agree, but say that you do and quote, go along to get along, that may be okay for the immediate. But again, as time goes on, as other challenges arise, those simmering tensions are

The goal, I think, is to avoid fraction your family. That does not necessarily mean unity in the sense that everyone is going to agree. We’re going to respect each other’s opinions and

agree that we see it differently.

Chris Tanke (06:01)
Mm-hmm.

Thomasina Williams (06:02)
So that

it’s not a requirement to agree. You want to again create that climate, that culture within your family where people feel free to express who they really are and don’t feel as though they have to somehow hide parts of themselves, what they’re really thinking from their families. That’s really the goal is for everyone to be able to share their real authentic thinking and feelings.

Chris Tanke (06:23)
Yeah.

And that was the word I was thinking, you know, there’s a price for not being authentic. And that could build up over time, right? If you feel like you’re not being heard or you’re afraid to be heard, even with your opinion. Boy, we don’t want to have that happen. So we want everybody to feel like they’re valuable members of the family of or the business sort of the case might be that they can share what they’re thinking graciously, honestly.

And ⁓ I think that as other family members, it’s important that we’re receptive to that because again, I think that the downside of that could be significant if it’s underneath the surface. So yeah, I love that. So the second bullet that you gave to us here is why is this work of leadership development

Why is it best considered that and not therapy? Because I imagine some people are to say, wow, Thomasina, this is touchy feely. No, no, no. It’s not therapy. It’s leadership development. So go get them Thomasina. You tell them why.

Thomasina Williams (07:31)
you

It most absolutely is leadership. It’s interesting, whenever we may need a little support in navigating relationships within our families, the first thing that we’ve been socialized to think about is therapy. Therapy suggests some kind of pathology or that there’s something wrong. Whereas what we’re really trying to do here is to build capacity, the capacity to manage ourselves through the discomfort of tensions so that we can have the conversation

conversations

that need to be had we can make the decisions that need to be made and Draw on the best thinking and innate wisdom of everyone in the family in order to move forward If you think about Therapy the way it’s generally discussed is we’re talking about a focus on an individual again There’s something wrong with a person we tend to

want to have someone to blame or locate challenges within an individual. From a leadership development perspective, what we’re doing is looking at the family system and the context in which behavior is unfolding. A great analogy to think about here is that of the canary in the coal mine. Back in the day when coal mining was a big thing, a big industry in this country, we had

men going deep into the bowels of the earth where there were all kinds of noxious gases, but you couldn’t see them, you couldn’t smell them, and people were literally dying in mines. And someone got the bright idea to take canaries down into the mine with the miners, because canaries have very sensitive systems. And if that canary started to keel over or was about to expire,

then you knew it was time to get the humans out of there. No one blamed the canary for the canary sensitivities. They recognized that it was the environment that was the challenge and our family systems, our ways of interacting and engaging within our family are essentially invisible to us. So we tend to focus on what we can see, which is an individual

rather than thinking about the system’s context. And this way of thinking about leadership helps you to recognize that there’s a lot going on below the surface. The individual behavior that you see is happening within a context. That context is impacting you and how you respond to that context, as well as the other individuals. So it helps to depersonalize things.

to recognize it’s not a situation where we’re talking about one individual, but that systems require an engagement. There are at least two people in these systems and that family systems are multi-generational. So sometimes whatever may appear to be a difficulty that those of us who are here today are experiencing, if you pause,

Chris Tanke (10:26)
Right.

Thomasina Williams (10:46)
zoom out and look again at the system’s context, you’ll see that the family has experienced these types of challenges and responded or reacted in the same way in prior generations. And so these kinds of patterns tend to repeat from generation to generation unless someone exercises the leadership to engage differently themselves.

as a way to interrupt those patterns.

Chris Tanke (11:19)
And what a beautiful lead in to the third bullet point. What are the four relationship patterns families default to when tensions arise? Now everybody listen to this, this is going to be really good. What are the four patterns when tensions arise that we tend to default to? Help us out, Tomasina.

Thomasina Williams (11:39)
The four patterns are triangles. I’ll name them and then come back and explain each of them. Triangles, over and under functioning, conflict, and distance. Whenever there is some kind of tension, discomfort, or unease in a relationship, it could be something as minor as being nervous, talking to your kids about what they may inherit, or something as big as letting your family know

I really don’t want to continue working in the family business. I want to strike out on my own. So there is a spectrum of engagement interactions within families that can cause us to be a little anxious. Humans instinctively, automatically to ease that discomfort will resort to these four patterns. Triangles are a really important one because triangles are considered

the most stable relationship. A triangle happens when two people have some kind of tension between them. They’re not even oftentimes really consciously aware of it. Rather than dealing with that tension, they will draw in a third party. And that’s how the triangle forms. Triangles are not good, they’re not bad. They can be used to ease discomfort.

or disagreement or tension in a relationship, the challenge is that underlying cause remains. Our first triangle that we all have is with our parents. You know, I don’t know about you or your listeners, but when I was little, you know, I’d go ask my mom for a cookie. And mom’s kind of strict, and mom would say no. So I was like, okay, then I’d go ask dad for a cookie. And if dad was busy doing something and not paying attention,

He would say, sure, that’s a triangle. Rather than me trying to negotiate with mom, I go and ask dad. Now, if dad was focused, dad would usually say, well, did you ask your mother to avoid engaging in that triangle? But so now I’ve created not only tension between me and my mom, because I have gone and asked dad, or I’ve actually had this cookie, gone and asked dad for the cookie.

Chris Tanke (13:36)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Thomasina Williams (14:03)
But also now I’ve spread that to my parents. Mom’s not going to be happy to know that dad agreed to me having this cookie when she told me no.

Thomasina Williams (14:15)
So that is triangles, again, considered the most stable relationship. We’ve been socialized to think that the ideal relationship is two people. But when those two people have some sort of discomfort between them, they will instinctively draw in a third person. The next pattern to look out for is referred to as over and under functioning. Classic example of an over functioner

is the helicopter parent, the parent who does everything for the child so that the child doesn’t develop the capability to do for themselves. And this again is about discomfort within the person doing the over-functioning. It’s not about the capability of the other person. And when you have one person over-functioning, that means someone has to be under-functioning.

Classic example there is the child who fails to launch. Parents do everything, you’ve got 40-year-olds still living at home in the basement. Third pattern is conflict. We tend to think of conflict as being between two people. But again, if you take a systems view and appreciate that everyone is interacting and reacting to each other, the conflict simply happens to have landed

in this relationship. But the tension is within the system. And conflict, again, is there’s a spectrum. You can have the out and out disagreement, argument, and also, as we discussed earlier, the person who’s just quiet doesn’t agree with anything happening, but also doesn’t say that. And it’s just going along to get along. That creates conflict as well down the road.

Third is distance. And distance, like conflict and over and under functioning, there is a spectrum to it. So obviously, distance is being far apart. That can be physically distant. I’ve worked with young people who literally, one young woman moved from Texas to Alaska, she said, to get away from her family. Literally, she couldn’t go any further. A young man who moved from

Chris Tanke (16:32)
my. Wow.

Thomasina Williams (16:39)
Manhattan to Los Angeles to get away from his family. If the reason that you’re moving is to get away from your family, that is an anxious response to get rid of that discomfort. By the same token, you can also have families that frankly are a little too close, where there is no space for people to disagree or to have their own opinion. I worked with a couple where the

Chris Tanke (16:42)
Hmm. Hmm.

Thomasina Williams (17:09)
Wife just wouldn’t meet without the husband because she wanted to make it appear that they were always on the same page about everything. They had a great relationship, but they weren’t always on the same page about certain things as it relates to their children. To ease the discomfort of that disagreement that they weren’t themselves always aware of.

But that was clearly there as we did the work and the situation unfolded. Always physically appearing was their way of easing the discomfort of not dealing with the fact that there are some fundamental issues about how they wanted to deal with their children as related to inheritance. So there you are. Triangles, over under functioning, conflict and distance.

And the important thing to remember is these are all natural ways that humans react when there is discomfort. Think about them as coping mechanisms, a way to protect yourself. So therapy is pathology. Something is wrong. There is nothing wrong. It’s just that people haven’t developed other coping skills.

Chris Tanke (18:30)
So as a leader, how do I gain a better understanding and better sensitivity to sometimes what’s going on right in front of me? So I can be aware of the system that might be in place here that is a result of describing the behavior that I’m seeing.

Thomasina Williams (18:49)
You gave the answer in your question, aware. That is always the first key is to be aware, to know what to look for. First to be as aware of what are my own reactions here? How do I tend to behave when there is some tension, when there is some discomfort in a relationship? Do I tend to distance or am I someone who maybe draws in a

third party to help me have a conversation or to have a conversation for me. So first and foremost, it is becoming aware of your own behavior. We tend to look outward and you know, the saying goes, we want everybody to change while we stay the same, but we can’t control anyone else. And because it’s a relationship, if I change my behavior by definition,

the relationship will change even if the other person does nothing.

Chris Tanke (19:54)
Hmm. Very good. So.

This is really foundational information for us, a really good backdrop to this final bullet point that I wanted to read to our audience. You’re saying there is a simple framework that we can utilize and begin applying immediately to lead ourselves to more effectively reduce tensions or deal with tensions when they rise in the family.

Thomasina Williams (20:11)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Tanke (20:22)
What is that framework and can it really be an immediate help?

Thomasina Williams (20:28)
Absolutely. It’s a lot more simple than people think. The thing that’s challenging is to do it consistently. So it starts with awareness. I’ve created an acronym to help people think about what they can do differently. You talked about awareness. In my acronym, it’s observe, to observe yourself. Now we tend to think about feelings

Chris Tanke (20:36)
Hmm.

Thomasina Williams (20:56)
⁓ try to speculate about what other people are not only what they’re doing, but why they do it. The acronym is OPRAs. O-P-R-A-S. And it starts with simply observing ourselves. How do I tend to react when there is a challenge? Am I racing, making assumptions about what other people are thinking or why someone did something as opposed to thinking about

what, when, where, how something happened, not why. So just to observe ourselves, just to notice how do I feel in my body when it’s time for me to have a conversation or even be in the presence of someone who I’m a little nervous about having a conversation with. Noticing ourselves lets us then begin to prepare in advance to interrupt these automatic tendencies.

The P stands for pause. Because we are reacting really biologically, instinctively to protect ourselves from discomfort, it happens in an instant. So it takes some intentionality to train ourselves to just pause.

long enough that I can come back into my body. We’re oftentimes in our head in a state of fight, flight, freeze, appease when we’re in this state of tension. I have a client who is a devout Catholic and what we settled on for her to help her to pause, she loves the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. So she simply recites to herself,

Chris Tanke (22:17)
Mm-hmm.

Thomasina Williams (22:40)
the first line of that prayer. Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. And it’s funny, every now and then I’ll get a text message from her saying, you would be so proud of me, Thomasina. I didn’t snap back at my daughter. I just repeated the prayer, the first line over and over and over so that it becomes easier to remember it. And if you then like my client are able to not

be reactive, then that stops the other person rather than the two of you going at each other and down a rabbit hole, so to speak. The R is for reframe. Again, we tend to look at what other people are doing. I talked to a young lady the other day who was upset about something in her family. And I said, well, you know, you could just say that you choose to see it differently.

She’s like, yeah, well, I say that, you know, I’m sorry that they, my view doesn’t resonate with them. There’s a difference. You’re making it about them to say, my view doesn’t resonate with you. That instantly puts up people’s defenses, as opposed to saying, I see it differently. It’s all about me. I’m accepting responsibility.

And the reframe really is focused on figuring out what is it that I want to do, being clear about my own guidelines, my own boundaries and adhering to those rather than trying to get other people to change. The A stands for allow space and grace. And essentially what that means is to be patient with yourself and with others.

because these patterns that we’ve locked into in our family relationships, they’ve developed over years. And in many cases, as I said, they’ve been passed down generationally. People have learned to deal with discomfort and conflict in a certain way. So we want to give ourselves space and grace and also give others space and grace because the reality is most people

Most people are doing the best they can with what they know. And what this is doing is helping to develop some different skill sets, different way of being in the midst of conflict. And then the S in the acronym stands for stick with it. You know, in our day and age, if something doesn’t happen when we do it once, it’s like, well, didn’t work. Well, think about it. How long has this relationship been in this state?

Chris Tanke (25:20)
you

Thomasina Williams (25:28)
for quite a while. So it may take some time for there to be a difference. It will take time for you to train yourself to better manage yourself so that you’re not reactive and that you are more thoughtful in how you respond. And it will take some time for others to begin to engage differently.

Chris Tanke (25:30)
Hmm.

Thomasina Williams (25:51)
And oftentimes, even though things may have been uncomfortable in a relationship, there’s resistance when you begin to change because you’re upsetting the apple cart, so to speak. Now you have to re or the other person has to reorient to different ways that you are engaging. That means that they’re going to ultimately have to do something differently as well. So it’s opress, observe, pause, reframe.

Chris Tanke (25:59)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Thomasina Williams (26:19)
allow space and grace, and then stick with it. And I have a graphic that I’ve created with a little description of each of the acronyms that ⁓ we’re gonna make available to your guests or your listeners.

Chris Tanke (26:33)
Absolutely right.

as you were describing this, I’m reading this saying this is going to be great to put in people’s hands because some people are audible learners, other people are visual learners. Very, very good information here about how to understand patterns and once you discover them, how to work through them. Very, very good. And again, the idea here is not harmony is the goal.

The goal is building, I guess, capacity to make sure that people are heard and to tear down any walls if people’s feelings and opinions are not being recognized. We want to make sure that essentially what you’re doing is you’re developing habits for good family.

relationships and autonomy of people. And in the end, surprise, surprise, you’ll be closer to the harmony goal that you want anyway if you could develop good habits. Isn’t that?

Thomasina Williams (27:29)
Absolutely, absolutely. So what you’re trying to do here is to develop a way of leading through difficulties, leading through tensions and challenges. Our nervous system is such that whenever there is some kind of conflict, we tend to want to fight, flight, flee, or appease, rather than deal with the discomfort of what is going on. So you’re training

Chris Tanke (27:55)
Mm-hmm.

Thomasina Williams (27:57)
individuals to create a culture, a climate, an environment within the family where everyone is learning how to express themselves in a way that frankly doesn’t end up fracturing the family. Because we can navigate differences of opinion, differences of belief, differences perhaps of socioeconomic status that happens in families.

differences of politics, differences in gender preferences, all kinds of differences, ages, gender, we don’t always do such a great job with that. And that is where families get into trouble oftentimes. But if we can train ourselves to handle ourselves in the midst of the tension that comes from differences and conflicts and challenges, then it will enable the family over time

to be able to work together through those differences, through those challenges, so they can problem solve together, so they can build an engaging future together.

Chris Tanke (29:04)
That’s a very good transition into the nine week leadership development experience that you’ve created really designed for women in their positions in the family entitled lead from within change what becomes possible. Could you describe that for everybody? What they might experience with that? And by the way, ladies, this begins in March, so you might want to listen closely here. Thomasina, what do you have for us?

Thomasina Williams (29:33)
So the idea here is to work with a very small group of women. The cohort will only be eight people on really navigating the challenges within their families using this framework for leadership in real time as things are unfolding in their lives day to day. Why women people often ask me? Because women were saying to me,

There are no spaces and places for them to come together to have genuine candid conversations about what’s really going on behind closed doors and do it in the company of other women who are experiencing similar challenges. So there’s no judgment, there’s no stigma attached to it to support each other and to get some professional resources and support.

to figure out how to identify these patterns in your own family, what your role is in those challenges, and how you can model a different type of leadership so that you are able to then impact the entirety of your family over time that will have ripple effects and enable the family, again, to be able to navigate challenges.

in ways that do not fracture the families. And then this day and age, all too often, people are just walking away and distancing themselves from them families, cutting themselves off. So it’s actually like a trend now, apparently, where therapists are telling young people just to cut their families off. Well, for most of us, when something happens and there’s some kind of upset or tragedy,

the first people we’re going to look to are our family. Your therapist may be nowhere to be seen. And so you want to have that connection because there’s all kind of research with young people, for example, children, that shows that the more connected they are to their families, the more they know about their family history, their family traditions, the better they do in school.

the higher their self-esteem, the fewer discipline problems. They are grounded and connected to something bigger than themselves. And it gives them the ability to see that, wow, my grandparents, my great grandparents overcame all of these hardships. With all that I have available to me today, certainly.

Certainly I can figure out how to navigate the challenges in front of me. So staying connected to family is the way that frankly we survive because God forbid the economy goes to heck in a hand basket, then where are we if our money is gone and we don’t have those family connections. Research has been done at Harvard over decades which shows the importance of maintaining connection.

and connection with our families is so vitally important to sustaining our legacies, including the financial piece over the long term. The biggest area of risk management that tends to get overlooked is frankly the risk of the family fracturing, which also tends to dissipate the assets over time.

Chris Tanke (33:03)
Absolutely right. Amen, sister. And that’s the gospel we preach here of total family wealth. You have ledger wealth, you have logistic wealth, and you have legacy wealth. Legacy wealth is your family. It’s the most precious thing you own. Invest in your family. And I like kind of like the focus, the mission even of Sankova, which you say invest in your family.

⁓ like you invest in your business because frankly, God love you, the family is even more important than your businesses. So that’s the emphasis of ⁓ San Coba Legacy Advisors. And I think that’s really why we’re trying to dig down a few other layers here to understand family relationships, family dynamics, family patterns, so that you can start getting number one aware as Tom and Cena said, and then be

Thomasina Williams (33:48)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Tanke (33:56)
more skilled, more prepared to deal with these things as they come up. So for the health of your family, you know, you’re building something even more important than harmony, actually. Thomasina, we really appreciate your time today and for the two resources that will be available to you in our show notes about relationship patterns and also how they can connect with you if they’re interested in ⁓ having a seat.

⁓ in your lead from within, change what becomes possible seminar or experience designed specifically for women. We certainly hope that you take advantage of that. Check out the show notes for that. Thomasina, any closing remarks?

Thomasina Williams (34:37)
I would simply say people are welcome to visit my website, which is simply developfamilyleaders.com. Developfamilyleaders.com. If you’d like more information about the nine-week Women’s Leadership Experience, there’s a tab at the top of the homepage of the website that says Women.

Chris Tanke (34:42)
Mm-hmm.

Thomasina Williams (35:00)
and that will take you to whatever you need to know. And we’ll also have the OPRAs, observe, pause, reframe, allow space and grace and stick with it. A graphic for that will also be available on the website and the URL in the show notes.

Chris Tanke (35:20)
Yep, very good. So we’re making this as easy as possible for you to proceed because nothing happens unless something moves. So start moving and move toward being skilled in understanding these dynamics of the family and make a difference then in the future of the family, the way you communicate, the way you’re heard, and ultimately the…

That’s a fantastic foundation for wonderful things ahead. Thomasina, thank you so much for your time. I know it’s valuable. We certainly appreciate we see you that way to us. God bless and thank you for building into ⁓ our families here at Navigating Abundance.

Thomasina Williams (35:59)
Thank you for having

me, Chris. And I would just ⁓ parting words to your listening audience. The most important person to lead is yourself.

Chris Tanke (36:08)
Amen, sister. So for Navigating Abundance, this is Chris Tenke signing off, thanking Tomasina and reminding you all, remember, your family is worth it.

Connor Maki (36:19)
Thank you for joining us for today’s episode of Navigating Abundance. If you found this information useful or helpful, leave a like, leave a comment, and make sure to subscribe or follow, depending on the platform that you’re watching on. If you’re interested in learning more about Navigating Abundance and how you can connect with us, visit us at navigatingabundance.com.