Holistic Management and the Whole Family

By Mark Gardner

 
B roadly speaking our “whole” family consists of myself, Cassie (my wife), Emily (10), Caitlin (8) and William (5), Mr Vincent (the cat), and Daisy (the dog). We live in Dubbo, which is the “Hub of the West” in Central West New South Wales, Australia, and operate our own Agricultural and Management Consulting Business from home (of which Holistic Management is the soul).

Like most families working with Holistic Management, we have gone though some ups and downs as we have sought to manage ourselves and our resources. It hasn’t always been a smooth progression. There are some aspects, which we are proud of (such as our Holistic Goal), and there are areas in which we continue to work on, particularly as we strive to adapt the process to our circumstances (a non-rural resource base and business). We see ourselves very much as learners of the process (but with a bit of experience!) rather than experts.

In this article we would like to talk about the important part of Holistic Management to us…the holistic goal, and how we are trying to bring our young children into the process of Holistic Management.

 
Creating Time

One of the biggest challenges we have faced over the last six years is getting the Holistic Goal settled and meaningful to Cassie and I, and then our children. With a young active family, and busy running our own business, creating time to be able to think through our Holistic Goal (individually and then together) has often been hard. On a number of occasions, Cassie and I have hired a meeting room close by, and planned for the children to be “agisted” (farmed out) in order to get some thinking time and space. We have found that getting our combined thinking organized has been necessary before we could start to make good decisions about the future or to start to involve the children at a significant level. This has taken time, and plenty of thinking and a commitment to want to do it, but it has been worth it.

 
A United Front

Having created the time, we found the Holistic Goal development process enabled Cassie and I to frame our thinking in a similar style (culminating in the written Holistic Goal). This helps us talk with the children from a position of unity.

Developing the Holistic Goal has also helped us to think and to grow into an awareness of the things of importance to ourselves, to each other (values) and the way in which we want our future to be. Being able to work through the steps of Holistic Goal formation allowed us to form joint ideas and hence making decisions together became a lot easier over time (less emphasis on formalized testing with more emphasis on the Holistic Goal). Creating a non-threatening environment to be able to communicate openly has been essential. For us, this took some time, as I suppose my inclination was to race on quickly, talking “Holistic Management speak” without making sure that Cassie understood what we were doing and why.  So, I had to learn to slow down, think of how Cassie might best receive information, speak less and listen more! This was not always easy!

The importance of “being heard” has allowed us to communicate openly and honestly. We have found when we have focused on developing these conditions, we have made some great gains in our holistic goal formation and decision-making. We have found it important not to react to what each other is saying, but to listen, understand, respect and then enquire about what (if any) actions may be required.  When we have practiced this, we found great gains in understanding each others values, fears and aspirations, all of which have found their way into the Holistic Goal.  Without creating good conditions to communicate, we may not have been able to get to some very core understandings of the things of importance to us. Worse still, we may have made some incorrect assumptions.

 
Involving The Children

 Even though our children are young, they can often articulate what is important to them, if we ask them appropriately and then listen to what they say. We feel it is important to create time to do this, however this is not always easy!

Often their needs appear simple, but can yield significant insights. For example, Emily has told us that it is important to her to spend time with her friend, Anna (a value), therefore as a family we try to create opportunities for this to occur (a form of production). The underlying message, which we hope the whole family hears, is that Emily’s views are important and that our family will do its best to allow the important things to her to occur. The same occurs for the other children. This may sound very simple, but we feel there is a very powerful message being sent. Over time the children have started to understand that our family values their opinions and that they are important people within our “whole.” At times, our values don’t allow them to achieve their expectations (such as a Nintendo and TV in the bedroom), but we hope that the way in which we have communicated this to the children has also helped them understand why.

Over time the children have become very open about talking about things of importance to them and are respectful to each other. Recently we have gently started to ask them about the way in which they might like to see their futures--starting the next phase of the process.

 
Passing on Values

 Our family lives in town, so it is important to Cassie and I that our children are aware of the environment around them and their impact on it. We also feel the need to develop ecological awareness in our children, and use our values (contained in our holistic goal) to help guide our discussions.

One of the important family activities is our recycling project. Each weekend we take our glass, plastic and paper to our local recycling depot. We have had many quality and enlightening discussions with the children around this activity such as “Why do we recycle?” Over the years, they have developed great pride in this activity, and we have all learned a lot about the ecosystem while working together. This increased awareness can be seen in the choices and decisions we can now start to make as a family (for example, how we want our garden to look).

We have been able to use the recent severe drought to talk about water, soils, and a whole range of relevant ecological topics and to inform the children, based on the ecological values contained in our holistic goal. As a result, we have noted that the children are a lot more aware of what they see, such as the amount of water in farm dams, the condition of plants in the landscape, and also are more aware of the amount of water which they are using in the house. The family vegetable garden has also become a good learning activity, where William’s interest in bugs and his ability to find and identify them has developed significantly!

We have found that if we can do things with the children that are fun, then we can potentially create a great learning opportunity. Allowing time (planned and informal) for this to occur is also essential.

 
Planning Ahead

 This has become an important component to our practice of Holistic Management. We have used the Holistic Management Ò Financial Planning process now for seven years, and the monthly monitoring process has been essential to us achieving many years of planned profits.

We are able to share with the children our plans for the profit, and to seek their comments.  One example is our recent plans for a house renovation.  The children have been involved in the planning and design (including “hand on” measuring up) and in the discussions on how our “ideal” needs to be modified by cost constraints. They have been involved in the decision making, to their level of interest, and hence have taken strong ownership in the project.

We have now also started to plan in advance our major family activities. For example, one of the best decisions we have made is to commit to our family holiday 12 months ahead. This has enabled us to plan backwards so that our business fits in with this event, and our financial plan allows for enough income to pay for the holiday and have some money when we come back. Prior to this “breakthrough,” we would struggle to get away for a week or so, always were rushed and didn’t get a quality break (inevitably lack of planning also cost us more for the holiday!). Like many great breakthroughs, there was a realisation that the way in which we were living our life was not in balance with what we had written down in our Holistic Goal. We have found that anytime we are feeling stressed, a reflection as to which of our values is out of balance usually creates some good insight as to changes which may be required. It’s this form of monitoring that has yielded us some good insights. Planning these family activities well ahead means we are now able to manage three weeks break, at little additional cost and in a more relaxed manner. This has also allowed the children to become involved in the decision and the planning for the holiday, and this creates added enjoyment.

 Our kitchen table at meal time has become a very effective planning tool, as we think ahead to school holidays and what we all want to do! Caitlin is now assuming the role of planning ahead the activities for school holidays (this plan is stuck on the fridge), which can also necessitate significant family decision-making, particularly when there are potential conflicts, usually around time and events.  When this does occur, we have found that brainstorming is an important way to ensure that everyone’s needs are met, followed by the Marginal Reaction test.  Following a process such as this means that often as not, the children find a way to work things out themselves.

 
Monitoring Progress

Apart from the essential monthly financial monitoring, we are finding asking simple questions can be a great way to “early warning” monitor how we are going as a family. If these informal questions (“How do you think our family is doing?”) yield a response which is not what we anticipate, then action and sometimes replanning may be required. This is particularly useful in relation to the amount of time which Cassie or I are away from the family. If this is becoming a problem, we can usually find this out fairly easily from a family member, and replan accordingly. Often this will involve Cassie or myself not taking on an income producing opportunity, in order to balance work and family.  Sometimes hard decisions have been made by Cassie or I not to travel to attend really important meetings, as we have felt that our lives are out of balance (like way out)  with our Holistic Goal.  Sometimes we have made the even harder decision to take up a work opportunity, knowing that we are not living in balance with our Holistic Goal, but that there is a really important reason for this. When we are making these decisions we always consult each other.  We always try to communicate the importance of this decision to the children and each other, and try to be understanding. In cases like this we know we need to bring our lives back into balance with the Holistic Goal, and we make every effort to do so after the decision.

  Holistic Management in our family has not been a steady linear progression. We have at times had great leaps, both towards and away from our holistic goal, as life deals its challenges to us. We continue to learn about the process and adapt it to our setting. What is important to us is that our united holistic goal gives us a “big picture;” it provides us with a central focus to draw our decision-making towards, whatever the situation. We find our family has a growing sense of unity and purpose, greater opportunities to make good choices and to monitor and celebrate the outcomes. For Cassie and I, it has provided a great framework by which to create a sense of family.

Mark Gardner is a Certified Educator and can be reached at: gardnerm@ozemail.com.au.