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Dennis Jaffe and James Grubman explain in their book Cross Cultures, How Global Families Negotiate Change Across Generations, there are three Global cultures, the Western Individualistic culture, the Collective Harmony culture, and the Honor culture (for a review of the book see here). Here in Asia it is very common to see the older generation have Collective Harmony culture values, while the younger rising generation have had some exposure to the Western Individualistic culture as a result of study or work. What happens when the rising generation return home to work in their family enterprise in Asia? It is not uncommon to see conflicts between the older generation and rising generation of the family. Jaffe and Grubman point out that these conflicts can be reframed as cross cultural conflicts – they are not interpersonal conflicts. The worksheet is based on their book and is intended to make the culture of each generation explicit. The next step is to consider how each generation might move some way in the direction of the other, to meet each other in the middle.
Many Asian families state that maintaining family harmony is a core family value. Harmony is an important value. In family businesses in general, success is about achieving both success in the business as well as maintaining positive family relationships. However it is one thing to say that harmony is a family value, and it is another thing to put harmony into practice. There is a difference between values that are espoused and those that are enacted. To enact the value of harmony, families have to discuss the behaviors that will support harmony, and the skills required to support those behaviors.
Many Asian family enterprises have to find ways to strike a balance between the traditional Asian values of the current generation, with the more Western values of the rising generation. Many Asian family enterprises need to find ways to integrate the rising generation into employee/management roles within the family enterprise. Each generation is likely to have their own unique perspective on the question of how best to achieve this. The current generation can often feel like the rising generation are trying to go “too fast”, while the members of the rising generation can often feel as though the current generation are taking things “too slowly”. This worksheet can be used by an Asian family (or even just the members of the current generation) to discuss the strengths and possible downsides of both generations' perspectives.
The purpose of this work sheet is to help business owning families to carefully explore the topic of whether “outside work experience” should be mandatory for all family members before they can apply to work in the family firm. This work sheet should be completed by all relevant family member stakeholders either as part of a family meeting, or before the family meeting. Once all family members have completed the work sheet then the scores can be compared and the work sheet should be discussed by all at the family meeting. The end result of this discussion can then be incorporated into a written family employment policy.
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