Relationships

7 Reasons Why the Systematic Study of Family Matters

Something I’ve held true since the very first day I stepped in university over two decades ago

It gives me great joy that a number of high-flying professionals have chosen to pay up and show up at this year’s Family Foundations mastermind. The interesting group contains two professors (of marketing and microbiology), a couple of finance people (one of them works at the central bank of Ghana) and connecting online from three countries.

I admire their zeal and humility to jaw-jaw about family matters but something in me also makes me quite sad: Why are some of the most important things in life, like family and finances, not adequately taught in school, if at all?! Mind you, this current Family Foundations mastermind cohort has three people with doctorates, two PhDs and an MD!

The major thrust of this mastermind is to cause a paradigm shift on the prime place of family for us personally, for society in general and even for posterity (in other words WHY family matters) but even before delving into that everyone is being exposed to WHY a systematic study of family itself is necessary in the first place.  Here are seven reasons why:

1. To understand SELF better.

“A systematic study of family will enable you to untangle your emotions from your understanding of family. An objective look at the varieties of families will better equip you to understand your own family relationships. This will allow you to bypass your preconceived ideas about marriage and family, come to a better understanding of yourself and your role within your family, and make more informed choices regarding future relationships.” (Riggs & Tweedell, pg. 2)

2. To understand OTHERS better.

“Taking a systematic view of marriage and family life will enable you to better comprehend the world in which you and your family operate.” (Riggs & Tweedell, pg. 3)

3. A way to uncover and derail MISCONCEPTIONS and MISPERCEPTIONS.  

“People enter marriage and family relationships with a wealth of misconceptions and misperceptions… some common myths about mate selection, marriage, and parenting. With an objective understanding of marriage and family life, you should be better equipped to prevent or derail disillusionment in your future relationships.” (Riggs & Twedell, p.3)

4. To positively IMPACT your world.

We are “called to make a difference in the world. What better place to make a difference than within your own family? Most people are not called to a foreign country to perform mission work; they can find mission work right in their own communities. By understanding the varieties of ways of “doing” family, students can help those around them actualize the best marriage and family relationships possible.” (Riggs & Tweedell, p.3)

5. We need to get down to the core of all our beliefs, values and behaviour: WORLDVIEW.

6. Some of the most important things in life, marriage and family, are not adequately TAUGHT IN SCHOOL, if at all!

We’ve got to find these through an attitude of lifelong learning and a pursuit of informal and semi-formal growth opportunities like masterclasses and masterminds.

7. There are ancient THEOLOGIES, modern THEORIES, and practical TOOLS that make family work.

CONCLUSION

In the end, nothing works until you work it! And we have no right to say something doesn’t work unless and until we have worked it the prescribed way. I agree with Mark Twain that schooling and education are not the same. No matter how much schooling you’ve done, perhaps it’s time to get yourself an education on why family matters and how to make it work.

Reference

Riggs, Barbara A. And Cynthia Benn Tweedell. 2010. Marriage and Family: A Christian Perspective, 2nd Edition. Marion, Indiana: Triangle Publishing.

Family Foundations No One Lays Yet Everyone Needs

The alpha and omega of the seven biological fruits of our marriage

One of the most stupid things I’ve ever done is to travel 10 whole years into marriage before ever seeking formal post-marital counselling. After the several pre-marital sessions lasting many months in 2006, Anyele and I went in the power of that for a decade until we felt we needed further formal, external help. Why on earth did we do that?

Come to think of it, every 5,000 km or so we were changing the oil in our car and getting it serviced yet not so with our marriage. Doesn’t every marriage need regular marriage maintenance? Why wait till we’re sick before we see a doctor when we can at least do annual check-ups? In fact, I would say we came from a culture where seeing a counsellor connoted there was a pathology; and not so much a maintenance thing.

Friends, I’ve had several conversions since August 12, 2006 that have better aligned and further fortified what I thought were already ‘excellent foundations.’ Sometimes there’ve even been foundational cracks I’ve had to fix (and God knows I’m not done). For time to time I’ve come across new information that has caused me to repent, have a change of mind, and realign our foundations to keep this family building strong and lasting.

EXAMPLES OF FAMILY FOUNDATIONS TO REVISIT

Feel free to say “shame on you Yaw” but I had never heard of a family genogram until barely five years ago! How could such an important tool and exercise not have been part of our foundations when we set out a decade-and-a-half ago? And if you’re asking “what the heck is that?”,  then trust me, you don’t even know you need one until you eventually discover it. Afterwards you would wonder how in the world your family had been surviving without one. I say ‘surviving’ because you will then notice that what you thought was ‘thriving’ wasn’t quite so.

Then there are basic tools for connecting with spouse and children on a deep emotional level we only received in the last five years. We learnt the 10/10 from the Pellmans and Temperature Reading from the Scazzeros. “Love your wife,” yes I want to. “Respect your husband,” yes she wants to. But how? The Kraemers also gave us tools for this.

And all this is for a good-looking couple who had a pretty solid family heritage, coming from a few generations of good Christian homes, being smart, leaders of our church youth fellowship who had lived virtuously and gotten married as virgins. We even themed our wedding “a celebration of purpose, passion and purity.” Alas! We who ‘had it all’ have realized there are family foundations everyone needs yet almost no one lays.  The very marriage mentors who have been blessing us with these paradigms, praxes and practical tools are passionate about their ministry of marriage mentorship today precisely because they themselves didn’t have these when they were our age!

Family is a BIG deal. It is the basic unit of society, just like the cell is for all biological life and the atom is for all matter. Yet the thing about family foundations is this: just like finances, very little about how to make it work well is taught in school about it. If one isn’t fortunate to have a spiritual community that provides quality family life information and formation, you’re in a hard place. There are many divorces that are preventable, if the foundations could be reconfigured. There are some we’ve been able to help save by God’s grace; and others… well… too bad, too late.

THE MOST IMPORTANT PART

Few will argue against the assertion that the most important part of a building, or anything else that is built for that matter, say a marriage, is its foundation. A ton of things have been said about foundations. Gordon B. Hinckley asserts, “You can’t build a great building on a weak foundation. You must have a solid foundation if you’re going to have a strong superstructure.” Adding his voice, David Allan Coe says, “It is not the beauty of a building you should look at; its the construction of the foundation that will stand the test of time.” The greatest teacher of all time, Jesus Christ, classifies life builders into two categories, wise and foolish, purely based on thee foundations they lay: the foolish build on sand, the wise build on rock.

My beloved mentor Peter Scazzero talks about foundations a lot in the Emotionally Healthy Leadership paradigms he teaches. And no wonder, since like the typical New Yorker he is, Pete is ever so familiar with the skycraping towers of Manhattan. This is how he explains the importance of digging deep foundations if we are to build life’s tall towers of significance:

Manhattan consists almost entirely of bare granite, a very hard and strong type of rock. To carry the weight of a 75 or 100 story skyscraper, foundations known as “piles” are used. These are concrete or steel columns hammered into the ground with a massive crane until they penetrate solid rock.

Some pilings go twenty-five stories under the ground. The heavy weight of the skyscraper is then distributed through each of the deep “piles” in the ground below. Together they are capable of supporting the structure’s enormous weight.

If the pilings are drilled in poorly, cracks eventually appear in the structure. Entire buildings may lean. Then they must be torn down or lifted completely so the piles can be reset – a costly and time-consuming process.

FAMILY FOUNDATIONS MASTERMIND

As you might be aware from a previous blog, “a mastermind group (often shortened to just ‘masterminds’) is a peer-to-peer mentoring group used to help members learn together, solve problems, birth new ideas and gain clarity with input and advice from the other group members.” For eight weekly sessions, from April 4 to May 30, I shall be walking along with a dozen leaders who want to re-examine their family foundations and receive new paradigms, praxes and practical tools to finally fix faulty family foundations. Inputs will include several book chapters, videos, articles, practical exercises, discussions and debates. Two special features and benefits will be FREE membership of an online chest of over 20,000 resources and a FREE DISC Personality assessment with a 37-age customized report!

You can be sure that “mastermind groups are great in holding each other accountable for the goals and outcomes each member comes up with themselves” (see here). Outcomes and outputs of this particular Family Foundations Mastermind are as follows:

1. Paradigm Shift on the Prime Place of Family
2. Ancient Wisdom Applied
3. Current Family Systems Theories Tested
4. Practical Relationship Tools (for emotional connection, communication, forgiveness)
5. Family Genogram
6. Behavioural Assessment
7. Emotional Needs List & Action Points
8. Family Mission Statement
9. Hierarchy of Priorities Configuration
10. Integrated Life Exploration & Commitment

Register here and let’s go back to basics. Let’s finally fix faulty family foundations that everyone needs to but hardly anyone does.

Family Planning Isn’t What You Think

There has been such an overwhelming response (over 80,000 reached!) to a social media post I made regarding a misconception about the essence of family planning that I felt it might be useful to document that write-up on this blog.

Our six older children totally excited about the arrival of the seventh the day we got back from the hospital after delivery.

On Tuesday, March 2nd our seventh child was born. The rather long boy descended down his mother’s birth canal at the Montreal Jewish Hospital in all his 3.895kg glory. The posting of this momentous occasion on social media sparked a flurry of responses, almost 100% affirmative but I won’t be fooled. Not everyone thinks my wife and I are smart, planet-friendly, trendy, progressive, modern and such.

Just a couple of weeks earlier I had been on a Zoom call with a just-married pastor in Ontario who hopes to have a family of three children. Upon hearing that Anyele and I were expecting again, our seventh child for that matter, he unwittingly asked, “why so many?” To which I responded, “why so few?” The blushing of his face and awkward laughter revealed his embarrassment.

I have mentioned before how people have made it very clear to Anyele and I that they would rather raise pets than have children. Generally our human selfishness/self-centredness doesn’t allow us to do the parenting thing (at all or well) because children are an inconvenience, suckers, an unwelcome reflection of our marred selves, among a host of other postmodern reasons. See here.

“WHY SO MANY?”

We have met people who are proud DINKS–Double Income No Kids. In many circles we’ve been in, this has been the ‘in thing’ or at best two is the most ‘decent’, ‘smart’ and even ‘cute’ thing to do. As I heard one preacher humorously quip, “a boy for me and a girl for you, and praise the Lord we’re finally through!”  A year ago, I shared here some of the reasons why Anyele and I have chosen to have “so many.”

Having children or not, many or few at the end of the day is more of a worldview issue than a socio-economic or even climatic one. I share our Christian theist view in this blog. In summary, “There is a higher Being than our selfish selves that beckons; a higher purpose than the painful inconvenience that compels; and a deeper fulfilment of something (and someone) that outlives making merry today and just dying tomorrow.”

THE INTEGRATED LIFE

At our executive education firm, YAW PERBI, we strive for LIFE in all its fullness—#Leadership, #Integrity, #Family, #Entrepreneurship. I personally find it curious that many in the corporate space ignore, even hide, family (and faith) until occasions like Christmas. All of a sudden families come out of the shadows, whipped out and splurged on Christmas cards. You can go on LinkedIn right now and see how it is so ‘professional,’ meaning, almost family-sterile.

I’m super proud of my Wonder Woman Wife, Economist-Entrepreneur Extraordinaire, for the safe delivery of our seventh. We thank God for the privilege of a full quiver of seven lethal arrows for life’s battles, conquests and such. This baby, like the preceding six, will change our lives no doubt—rescheduled meetings, halted plans, budget increases… but what else could life be about?! True success, as my mentor succinctly puts it, is “when those who know you the best, love and respect you the most.”

At Yaw Perbi, we promote people and cheer on companies that seek leadership authenticity by making  the integrated life the way to go. Call it life/work balance or whatever you may, our corporate folks, especially C-level folks, must find a way to bring their whole selves to family and same to work. My favourite MBA teacher on this, Bill George, says more about this more eloquently than I could here.  Cheers to the #integratedlife, where marriage is not an inconvenience, children are not a nuisance and family is not an afterthought, only receiving the crumps of our time, talent, treasure and efforts.

FAMILY PLANNING ISN’T NO/FEW CHILDREN

Why do so many people wrongly think ‘Family Planning’ means having few/no children?  Family Planning is “the ability of individuals and couples to anticipate and attain their desired number of children and the spacing and timing of their births.” Although it was clearly a quote (inverted commas and all), a  lot of people on social media were giving me a pat on the back for this spot-on definition without realizing it isn’t something I cooked up to justify my number of children, but actually a World Health Organization (WHO) definition. Of course they add contraception as the means to achieving this desired end of number, spacing and timing.

Even before we got married 15 years ago, Anyele and I purposed and planned to have seven children. There were no guarantees; God ‘engraced’ us. Don’t judge us for having “too many” (in your opinion); we shan’t judge you for having “too few” (in our opinion) or even none.

Your purpose and plan may be different from ours. The most important thing is to ensure that it is God’s unique plan for your unrepeatable family that you are following and not just “comform[ing] to the patterns of this world.”

We hope your Family Planning excites you a lot and scares you a little—just like ours!

Related Blogs

We Really Don’t Like Children That Much Part 1/3

We Really Don’t Like Children That Much Part 2/3

We Really Don’t Like Children That Much Part 3/3 

Born in the Month Ghana was Birthed, Nii Ajorwor Ampa Perbi is here!

It is always an honour to get to name someone or something, especially a seventh biological child. The historic and prophet names of the other children have been explained in the past here.

Naming the child on the morning of 9th March, 2021

Our seventh, and final, child was born on March 2, 2021 at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, Canada. In accordance with our Akan (Yaw’s) and Ga (Anyele’s) traditions of Ghana, we named him on the eighth day, the same day of his birth, Tuesday, a week later. Like all his siblings before, the 3.895kg champion, whose 54cm height excited the obstetric staff because it’s over the 97th percentile, has been given a name pregnant with historic and prophetic meaning. And his name shall be called NII AJORWOR AMPA PERBI. Here’s what each given name means:

NII

All the older six siblings are called Nana, an Akan title meaning prince(ss) and also signifying God as King. Nii is the Ga equivalent of Nana.

AJORWOR

Over a dozen years ago, with inspiration from the life of the patriarch Abraham we felt called out of Ghana: “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” So we did, leaving a great life in Ghana to start from scratch in Canada. The commission came with a  commiserate blessing though: “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Genesis 12:1-3)

The Ga version of Genesis 12:1-3. You see a variety of renditions of blessing (jormor–anglicized): major (I will bless), aaajor (be a blessing)

It’s been nearly a decade-and-a-half since our being called and sent forth and we feel we’ve really and truly been blessed by the LORD in every sphere of life–physically, spiritually, socially and academically (which was the original door open in Canada).  Ajorwor means “we’ve been blessed” or in context, “God has blessed us!”

And we are blessed not just qualitatively but quantitatively too! We had one child at the time of the promise, now we have seven times the number of children! Every child is a blessing, a reward, a heritage from the LORD and an arrow for waging life’s battles and extending the glory of the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in Heaven. Indeed our quiver is full, and the Psalmist says we are blessed for having a quiver full of arrows!

Ajor nuu means “blessed is the man,” but we say ajor wor, “blessed are we all,” for having a quiver-full of sharp arrows

AMPA

Ampa is the baby’s maternal grandfather. When we felt it would be appropriate to name our last child after this noble man we didn’t know Nii Ajorwor would be born so close to Ghana’s Independence Day, March 6. You will soon understand the significance of this. Initially called Kwame Patterson, great grandpa changed his name to Nii Ampa Sowa. He left to study Industrial Management at Leeds Polytechnic, United Kingdom, in 1958, a year after Ghana’s independence from British colonial rule.

Asked by his cousin Ebenezer Ako-Adjei, one of the ‘Big Six‘ founders of Ghana, to come back to help him run his Ministry (Foreign Affairs), he returned to Ghana and became his Personal Assistant in 1960. In 1963 when Ako-Adjei was arrested in a political frame-up, Anyele’s grandfather was arrested too. He was released from Usher Fort and Nsawam prisons after six months detention. He left the civil service.

In 1965, he joined Parkinson Heward (builders of the Tema industrial municipaity) as a bookkeeper. In February 1966, when there was the coup d’etat by the National Liberation Council that ousted Kwame Nkrumah’s government, Parkinson Heward was asked to leave the country. He vowed never to join politics again… hence Anyele’s dad’s aversion to politics! Nii Ampa Sowa passed away in 1980, while Anyele’s dad was pursuing his graduate studies in Canada, where Anyele was born.

THE BLESSING

Interestingly, Ajorwor (“we are blessed”/”we’ve been blessed” in Ga) combined with Ampa (“true” in Akan), Ajorwor Ampa means “truly blessed!” So we have been blessed indeed; but blessing is a mountain with no peak. There’s so much more where these blessings came from and we trust that Nii Ajorwor not only represents blessings past but is a divine sign and a symbol for many more blessings to come to our Perbi family and through us, to all nations! Welcome, Nii Ajorwor Ampa Perbi! Akwaaba!

A Way to Prevent Heartbreak: Clarify Expectations

While what you don’t know may kill you; what you think you know but really don’t may kill you faster!

I have wanted to talk about this for months–how to prevent unnecessary hurt from unmet expectations–but last week an incident happened with one of my associates that really catalyzed me to share this urgently. So let’s talk about unmet expectations.

Whether it’s between spouses, parent and child, boss and workers or even among co-workers, family folk and church members, this is quite a common occurrence. This is particularly so African, Chinese, Japanese and Korean cultures that employ indirect communication.  If you’re like me, you’ve probably been hurt before by unmet expectations. In fact, sometimes we don’t even realize we had an expectation until it was not met!

Mark Twain once said, “What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”  We tend to have expectations that are unconscious, unrealistic,  unspoken and unagreed upon. Let me share how you can flip these four things around and protect your heart against heartbreaks from unmet expectations. I owe this life-saving lesson from my New Yorkan mentors, Pete and Geri Scazzero.s

THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION

How do you know your expectations are valid or not? As hard-to-take as this may seem, when the expectation is unconscious  it is invalid.  In fact, if even we don’t even know we have them until we are disappointed how on earth is the other person supposed to know and meet it? When it is unrealistic it is invalid as well. Even if it is reasonable and we are conscious of it but it has not been articulated, it is still invalid. The common lame excuse we tend to give is, “Oh, but they should know?!”

In the event that our expectations meet all the above three criteria–conscious, realistic, spoken–but the other party has not agreed to them, they are still invalid. While this may seem very Western, I have learnt as an African-Canadian that it is never wise to assume agreement!

Of course, important caveats include marriage (where the vows already spoken have created certain clear expectations like fidelity), parent-child relationships (expectation of chores) and employer-employee dynamics where expectations have been clearly laid out in contracts and policy and supposedly read and accented to. Even in these relationships with broad-stroke expectations, situations occur that demand clarifying expectations further.

WHAT TO DO TO FORESTALL HEARTBREAKS

To prevent heartbreaks from unmet expectations, ensure your expectations are:

(1) Conscious: I am aware of my expectation.

(2) Realistic: I have evidence to support that the expectation is reasonable in the sense that the other is able and willing.

(3) Spoken: I have expressed the expectation clearly.

(4) Agreed Upon: The other person has agreed to the expectation by saying “yes.”

I would highly recommend you take the Scazzero’s Emotionally Healthy Relationships course for a full meal and good skill-building in this area they call Stop Mind Reading and Clarifying Expectations.

WHAT TO DO WHEN HURT HAPPENS

In the event that hurt still happens from unmet expectations, valid or not, REFRAMING the painful experience is everything. As John Maxwell renders it in the Law of Pain, “good management of bad experiences can lead to growth.” Reframe the painful experience as follows (modified from a Maxwell process):

a) Define the problem –> The painful situation I need to process right now is…

b) Understand your emotion –> My feelings about this are…

c) Articulate the lesson –> My lessons in is this are…

d) Identify a desired change –> The changes I want to effect are…

e) Brainstorm numerous pathways –> The ways out are…

f) Receive others’ input –> What I’m learning from others is…

g) Implement a course of action –> My course of action is 1. Embrace the reality of pain 2. Learn my lesson(s) 3. Share my lessons 4. Change a. ______ b. ______ c. ______  d. _____.

CONCLUSION

You know what they say happens when you assume: you make an ass of u and me. An expectation is only valid when it is mutually agreed upon. Let’s do less heart damage by providing and demanding clear expectations of others. Let’s ensure in all our relationships that our expectations are conscious, realistic, articulated and agreed upon. And when things fall through the cracks and we feel the sting of pain from unmet expectations, let’s reframe the experience well so we can still grow and flourish.

TO GOAL OR GROW? That is the question!

This is so counterintuitive that I don’t beat myself too much for almost completely missing it earlier in my life. I’m glad I have clinched that now: to grow an enterprise, grow people; to hit your goals focus on growing yourself and on the growth process.

The sure way: grow yourself to your goal.

GROW ME

Like most people I know, I love the word potential. Potential is the difference between who/where you are now and who/where you could be. Success, then, would be getting to who/where you could be.  Being a go(al)-getter, one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in life has been to keep the target or goal so much in mind and trying to figure out various strategies and timelines to hit it but neglecting the most important thing and most important one: growth and me. John Maxwell puts it succinctly: “To reach your potential you must grow. And to grow, you must be highly intentional about it.”

No matter the systems and structures, tools and technologies, courses and cash one gathers to hit a goal, unless there is investment in the growth of the person(s) involved, the goal is unlikely to happen. To achieve a goal, invest in growth of those the fulfillment of the goal depends on. To grow an enterprise, grow people.

Try something else in the new year: keep the goal in mind but focus on you (or whoever it depends on) and focus on a growth process. Let’s see what happens. I take my mentor John’s counsel seriously: “If you focus on goals, you may hit the goals, but that doesn’t guarantee growth. If you focus on growth, you will grow and always hit growth.” This is how to win, 100% of the time!

Here’s a paragraph from John’s 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, which at the start of the new year I take a selected few through, that makes the point:

“If you want to discover your purpose, you need to grow in self-awareness. To become a better human being, you need to grow in character. To advance in your career, you need to grow in your skills. To be a better spouse or parent, you need to grow in relationships. To reach your financial goals, you need to grow in your knowledge about how money works. To enrich your soul, you need to grow spiritually.”

In similar fashion, as James Allen wrote in his classic As a Man Thinketh, “People are anxious to improve their circumstances but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.”  Get it? To get your goal you’ve got to grow.

To change stuff, change you; to grow stuff, grow you.

GO WITH ME

Now, assuming you’ve agreed with me that you’ve got to grow to succeed, then the next logical question (in all probability) is how do I grow?.  Well, you need to know the principles (laws) governing growth and have a plan and process to grow.  Key to this plan and process is, again, people.

They say “we become the combined average of the five people we hang around the most.” Take a quick inventory right now. Depending on who your average five turn out to be, you must be pretty excited or pretty disappointed right now.

Apart from becoming a growing person yourself (towards your goals), you also need growth people, to stimulate, guide and guard your growth. This may be in the form of an accountability friend, a supportive spouse, an executive coach, or a small group like a mastermind.

I like to say that where two or three come together ‘magic’ happens. It is true. No matter how brilliant the ideas I think I have are, somehow when I meet with a group of people to discuss it the final outcome is much much better than my best ideas. It goes without saying that all of us are better than any one of us, any day! That is what Napoleon Hill discovered (mentioned in his 1925 book) and called a” mastermind”–when two people come together they create a third, invisible mind which is greater than the sum of the other two.

So for ideation, encouragement and accountability, everyone needs someone to come alongside them in their growth journey towards goal-getting.

CONCLUSION

To goal or to grow? That is the question. This is so counterintuitive that I don’t beat myself too much for almost completely missing it earlier in my life. I’m glad I have clinched that now: to hit your goals focus on growing yourself and on the growth process. Even if you don’t hit your goal, you will hit your growth.

Be goal-bound (as in, headed towards your goal) not situation-bound (as in, stuck where you are) by being growth-bound (heading towards growth and sticking to growth). Set your goal alright but then focus on the growth it will take. To hit goals, focus on the person(s) involved and on the growth process. To get your goal you’ve got to grow. This is how to win 100% of the time!

Post Script

If you want to see if there’s still room for you in the 2020 Growth Mastermind click here.

GET COACHED | How does it work?

“Your journey to leadership is likely to take many unexpected turns. Life is full of challenging situations, including ethical dilemmas, midcourse career changes or burnout, seemingly intractable interpersonal challenges, marriage and family issues, failures, and loneliness. At times, you may feel you are losing your way or have gotten off course from your True North. Getting back on track alone is very difficult, perhaps even impossible” (Bill George). That’s why you need a coach.

A group of Medical Superintendents in Ghana viewing a live YAW PERBI presentation on Emotional Intelligence via Zoom

If you’ve followed me on social media over the last few days you should’ve noticed a couple of posts about my excitement to train a group of Medical Superintendents in Ghana on Emotional Intelligence (EQ). Of course everybody needs (EQ) but one reason doctors in particular do is that they tend to think because they are smart and got into med school they would be successful in life and leadership. To our rude shock (and I say ‘our’ because I am a doctor myself), after a certain threshold, intelligence (IQ) doesn’t matter anymore, and what gives the winning edge to succeed is all EQ.

NO ONE CAN HELP THEMSELVES WITHOUT BEING HELPED

After an hour of training on what EQ is, five reasons why it’s key and how to acquire it, I left them with Boyatzis’s theory of self-directed learning. I first encountered this during my read of Primal Leadership, a book he co-authored with the chap who most popularized EQ from 1995 till date, Daniel Goleman. Boyatzis’s map (see below) begins with a hopeful “Who do I want to be?”, a picture of your ideal self. This existential question is at the very apex of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (if you remember); it is a question of self-actualization. But the next question, which in my opinion really should be the first, is ‘Who am I?’, your real self.

Integrating those two questions reveals one’s strengths (where your ideal and real self overlap) and your gaps (where your ideal and real self differ). Your learning agenda or growth plan, therefore, basically involves building on your strengths while reducing your gaps. And so you begin: experimenting with new thoughts (head), feelings (heart) and behaviours (hands). Practicing your new behaviours actually results in building new neural pathways to success/mastery.

A comprehensive ‘self-directed’ learning roadmap

But here is the kicker: Central to all of these points, steps, and pathways is “DEVELOPING TRUSTING RELATIONSHIPS that help, support and encourage each step in the process.” Again, that’s where a professional coach comes in. Even in this so-called ‘self-directed’ learning, no man is an island and needs the vital trusted relationships to make their growth and goals happen.

COACHING MOMENT

Do you have someone that will tell you the truth and to whom you can tell the truth? Do you have the authentic relationships and customized resources to clarify your beliefs and values and understand vital personal and professional issues and receive honest feedback when you need it most? 

A coach’s responsibility is to provide content, insight, tools, wisdom, framework, ideas, and feedback.  YOUR responsibility is to move from awareness to action and accountability.  Our coaching provides many structures for you to meet your individual and organizational goals.

For John Maxwell certified coaches like myself, whether it’s one-on-one executive coaching or one-on-few, we like to say that the objectives of coaching include, but are not limited to:

• Discovery of personal identity, emotional needs, purpose (vision & mission) and values
• Crafting of personal, professional and corporate Growth Plan
• Adding an objective and supportive third party to your leadership team
• Increasing accountability of your personal and professional goals
• Improving specific skills related to your role.  Such as managerial skills, communication, conflict resolution, time management, productivity, and effectiveness
• Sharing best practices from other organizations that have done similar work
• Reviewing strategic business decisions related to operations, customer service, marketing, financials, and more
• Being a sounding board
• Preventing problems, thereby avoiding expensive, time consuming or embarrassing actions
• Supporting your growth past your limiting beliefs
• Conflict resolution
• Creating a team atmosphere
• Relationship development for success and significance.

COACHING OPTIONS (FOR C-LEVEL EXECUTIVES, OWNERS & GENERAL MANAGERS)

Coaching Categories: Depending on your goals and budget, at YAW PERBI we offer Green, Blue and Gold level coaching. Currently only Gold services are available, and they are limited.

Time & Place: All coaching programs require a minimum time investment of 6-12 months.  Coaching is a marathon, rather than a sprint! Depending on whether Green, Blue or Gold level, the coaching package includes 2, 3 or 4 sessions a month lasting approximately 60-90 minutes. Sessions can be at your office, my place of business, or a mutually agreed upon location.  In these days of COVID-19, online coaching is our mainstay via Zoom. Phone coaching is also an option but I prefer to see the individual to observe body language and such.

Special arrangements:  Sometimes included in a gold package is two full days of shadowing, facilitation of a two meetings of your choice (up to 2 hours each), and unlimited phone calls and emails in between sessions.  In addition, you or any of your employees will benefit from a 25% discount for any company training/workshops.

Other coaching services: Group Coaching, Sales Coaching, Couples Coaching, Business Partner Coaching, Youth Coaching, Relationship Coaching, Genogram Coaching and more (they include these but not limited to them).

Payment arrangements: These are to be made before services are provided, and as agreed upon via this website, mobile money, PayPal, cheques or bank transfers.

Miscellaneous: We will always be punctual. If you need to reschedule, 24 hours advance notice is required or one-half of the coaching session is lost.  If for some reason I need to reschedule and do not do so with a 24-hour notice, you will be credited with an additional one-half coaching session, at no additional charge. Our coaching relationship is completely confidential.  We will never share your identity or any information about you with any other person or organization without your expressed consent.   In the unlikely event that there are concerns that need to be referred to another professional, I may be able to make that suggestion to you.

Completing our coaching relationship is a mutual decision.  While my retention percentage is very high, there may come a time when you determine that it is time to complete our coaching relationship.  If and when that time comes, I expect that the coachee will give me at least four weeks’ notice.  That will give us time to summarize your growth/learning and strategize your next steps.

Our services are unconditionally guaranteed.  If at any time you feel that you are not getting the support, honesty, coaching, or training that you expect, then you need to tell me.

LET’S GO!

If you are serious about growth, success and significance you need a coach.  The proof of your commitment is your investment of quality time, best effort and substantial money. Even as a coach, I also have a paid coach. Everybody needs somebody to coach them. So! Make arrangements here and now for a 30-minute exploratory call to see if we would be a good match.

GET COACHED | What’s that?

There is no significant high performer I know who doesn’t have a coach, from entertainment and sports to business. Some have even more than one. How about you?

Coaching is one of at least nine types of mentoring relationships you need

It was just a one-hour call with a coach. Let’s call him Joe. It changed the trajectory of my life. It wasn’t at a corner office in downtown Montreal or in one of the new plush buildings decorating the Accra skyline. It was at home, just at home; over Zoom. But utilizing the major tool coaches employ–questions, questions and more questions–the lightbulb suddenly came on and within 24 hours I had the oomph to re-start passive income generating projects I had kept procrastinating for a decade!  How much that call with Joe cost me in dollars cannot be compared with the kind of lifetime value I gained and lifelong income stream I am cued to earn. I love the CLARITY coaches help bring to our thinking.

SO WHAT IS COACHING?

One of the most (ab)used words in our time is ‘mentor’ or ‘mentoring’ (or ‘mentorship’). I’ve heard and read people actually say coaching and mentoring are two different things. But no, mentoring is a term for the broader framework of empowering relationships every successful person needs (see diagram above) and coaching is a form of mentoring.

According to one of my leadership professors (during my Master of Arts in Global Leadership), mentoring is  “a relational process in which a mentor, who knows or has experienced something, transfers that something (resources of wisdom, information, experience, confidence, insight, relationships, status etc.) to a mentoree, at an appropriate time and manner, so that it facilitates development or empowerment” (Clinton & Stanley 1992, 40). Mentoring is relationship, relationship, relationship. A relational experience, relational process, relational exchange.

Coaching, therefore (I repeat), is a form of mentoring, as is each of the other eight types of mentoring shown in the Clinton Continuum diagram above.

WHAT MAKES COACHING DIFFERENT?

First of all, you will notice that coaching is classified among the first third of relationships under ‘INTENSIVE’, unlike counselor, teacher and sponsor (grouped in the middle third) which are OCCASIONAL experiences. For example, as a coach, I recommend at least twice a month meetings with my coachees; sometimes even weekly (depending on their situation, needs and goals) for a minimum of six months. The ideal is a contact every 10 days especially so that no balls are dropped inadvertently.

While the scope of this write-up is not to describe every one of the nine mentoring relationships but to highlight coaching in particular, let me briefly say that a discipler is someone who enables another in the basics of following a religion (especially Christianity), a spiritual guide provides accountability, direction and insight for questions and decisions affecting spirituality and maturity. A coach provides motivation, clarity, challenge, accountability, skills and application needed to meet a goal. Clinton would argue that “the coach’s central thrust is to provide motivation and impart skills and application to meet a task or challenge” (73). Coaching, he would say, “is a process of imparting encouragement and skills to succeed in a task through a relationship” (76).

THE NITTY-GRITTIES 

Coaching is an on-going conversation where I (as your coach) provide encouragement, guidance and honest feedback, as YOU pursue YOUR personal and professional goals.  I fully expect you to grow yourself and your family/business/organization and succeed in life, by attaining your goals!

There is no significant high performer I know who doesn’t have a coach, from entertainment and sports to business. Without a coach, it is hard for anyone to experience high performance on their own, let alone to achieve what has come to be known as meta performance. In today’s competitive environment, some of the most successful business leaders have experienced tremendous benefits from coaching.  Results have included increased revenue and productivity, career advancement, higher employee retention, and the development of more effective business strategies.  YOU will define the agenda.  YOUR results will vary depending on how long we work together and what actions YOU take.

As a John C. Maxwell trained and certified coach, my clients are expected to, and have experienced, measurable return on investment, increased productivity, and up to 200% revenue growth.

IT WORKS! LET ME HELP YOU. 

If I didn’t believe this stuff, I wouldn’t be promoting it. The proof of our belief in anything is our investment of time and money in it. I personally have my own coach who I pay hundred of dollars to for three sessions monthly. At YAW PERBI, our value proposition is authentically empowering C-level executives for exponential growth in 90 days, success within a year and significance for a lifetime (and beyond). Try me. Try us.

We are human, thus limited, and cannot help everybody. Currently I personally have only 10 places each year for authentic, high quality and deep relationship one-on-one coaching so I have had to make the hard decision to focus mainly on C-level executives. The wisdom in that is, as my mentor John Maxwell says about what he calls “the Law of the Lid,” when they get better (raise their lids), everyone else else under them gets better. Knowing how key coaching is, however, no one will ever be turned away. I would be more than happy to refer you to others within my very rich coaching network. Everyone deserves a competent and caring coach.

Apart from one-on-ones, there are times I do one-on-few coaching for a group of executives. My favourite is helping executives work through company DNA (vision, mission & values)! I share about that in a later blog here.

If you’re ready to grow, succeed and be significant, take my hand and let me help you. Let me be your coach.

Bibliography

Clinton, J. Robert and Paul D Stanley. 1992. Connecting: the mentoring relationships you need to succeed in life. Colorado Springs: NavPress.

Disrespecting Einstein | A note to HR bosses

Nobel Prize Laureate Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) Photo credit: Perimeter Institute

Exactly a week ago, I finished two days of consulting for a flourishing company in Accra that was making two new hires. It wasn’t the first time I was coaching them through the hiring process and chairing the interview panel but this time there was an HR consultant who was excellent in putting everything together, literally setting the table for us all. Meticulous chap who knows his stuff! Because of a five-hour time difference between Montreal (where I’m currently based) and Accra, the 9.30am interview start on Zoom meant 4.30am for me. Well, whatever!

Everyone interviewed was a young, hope-filled university graduate, some as freshly minted as last year. I could tell the hope in their hearts and could see the fire in their eyes to ‘make it,’ here first and in the rest of life, of course! And in fact, they weren’t asking for too much. As usual, not everyone made it. Out of eight interviewees (and this was after whittling down several applications and getting the short-listed ones to fill out pre-interview questionnaires) we had room for just two.

POST MORTEM

Now here’s the kicker: the HR consultant’s drafted letter to this group who couldn’t be hired went like this:

Dear Candidate, many thanks for your patience and continuous interest in the role of __________ at __________. After thorough consideration, we are sorry to inform you that you were not successful. We take this opportunity to wish you well in all your future endeavours.

No. I couldn’t let that pass–precisely because of that phrase  have made bold above for emphasis. Words matter. So I asked him, politely, if we could put “you were not successful” in a different way, in a more positive manner? Eg. “Another candidate was preferred?” And that is what we did.

Even the CEO was touched by this. She responded, “Thanks so much for the feed back Dr Perbi. True. We are working with real people’s emotions and lives.” She then went on to recount something I had done in a previous search for a C-level executive for the same company. She wrote, “ I remember the special messages you sent to each one of the candidates who did not make it, accompanied by a summary of their performance [so they could improve, work on themselves] and a prayer for them during the previous selection process. I was touched and l believe most of them appreciated the gesture.” Indeed they had felt so valued and encouraged, some wrote back to say thank you! It almost didn’t matter that they had not been picked for the role. With that buoyancy, I bet they went on to be and do great things elsewhere.

DISRESPECTING EINSTEN

From time immemorial leaders have misjudged the capabilities and potentials of others; sometimes in an outrightly comical fashion (only on hindsight, of course!) When in 1898 Albert Einstein applied for admittance to the Munich Technical Institute he was rejected because (read this slowly) he would “never amount to much.” Consequently, instead of going to school he went to find work at the Swiss Patent Office where he was employed as an inspector and with his extra time, refined his theory of relativity. As they say, the rest is history.

MY POINT?

Ask yourself: how would I act differently if I knew for sure this was an Einstein sitting in front of me? People are not just human ‘resources’, like cogs in a wheel. They are human beings. They have emotions, identity and purpose. Each bears the imago Dei (the image of God) and in the phraseology of Büber, must be treated as a ‘Thou’; not an ‘It.’ If for nothing at all, in respect for their Creator and in honour of their boldness to apply, to step into the ring, to do something with their lives. You certainly don’t want to meet them somewhere else in life and be ashamed of what you thought of them, how you spoke to them or handled them. They might even be in a position to hire or fire you someday. You may very well be disrespecting Einstein.

Here’s how to love, for real.

Love is an attitude (head), affect (heart), and action (hands). Here’s a way to get a handle of it, literally!

This Community Temperature Reading tool will revolutionize your relationships!

“LOVE” might very well get the vote for the most used and abused word, ever! It’s a good thing that languages like Spanish and Greek help a little by having different words to mean different kinds of love, from a ‘strong like’ to ‘brotherly/sisterly love’ to ‘unconditional love’ to sheer ‘eros.’

If truth be told though, the hardest part about love isn’t so much understanding it; it is showing it. I have a mentor who likes to say that the biggest gap in the world is the gap between knowing and doing. But sometimes we just don’t know how.

The Community Temperature Reading (CTR) by my mentors Pete and Geri Scazzero (an adaption of Virginia Satir’s work) has helped me practically love my spouse, children, friends and team members much better and I suspect might be of use to you too.

1. APPRECIATIONS | “I appreciate…”

Call it thanksgiving or praise, even God loves to be appreciated! I suspected having created us in His image and likeness makes us love being appreciated as well. Learn to say, “I appreciate…” eg. “I appreciate washing the dishes last night when I was too tired to.” Like me, some people, cultures and families are very stingy with appreciations. I tend to verbally appreciate only, almost exclusively, extremely high performance but I’m learning to be much more generous in saying, “I appreciate…”

You may have come across Dr. John Gottman, “the guy that can predict divorce with over 90% accuracy.” According to him, for every one negative feeling or interaction between partners, there must be five positive feelings or interactions. How is your appreciation:criticism ratio? The last I checked, I didn’t like my ratio with my children. I’m working on that.

2. PUZZLES | “I am puzzled…”

My most frequent exercise is “jumping to conclusions,” especially in situations in which I have little information yet strong opinions and a big mouth. And it doesn’t help at all that my ‘high D’ personality makes me unafraid to confront people and situations! I often come across as judgemental, even when I have the best of intentions.

I’ve learnt that “puzzle is a loving word.” Now instead of being super upset and angrily asking one of my staff, “Why didn’t you reply my email?” (with all sorts of assumptions lurking) I’m learning to rather say something like, “I’m puzzled as to why you didn’t reply my email.”

Peter and Geri Scazzero share in their Emotionally Healthy Relationships course, “instead of thinking, No one washed the dishes last night. I live with a bunch of slobs! you can say, “I’m puzzled as to why you left your dirty dishes in the sink last night.”” Try it. You can appreciate me later.

3. COMPLAINTS WITH POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS | “I notice… and I prefer…”

If you adopted this one, I would feel really loved as my personality cannot stand whining but loves solutions. No doubt, as long as we are imperfect humans in a broken world we will all have concerns and complaints. Many of us tend to suffer in silence though on one hand or unproductively complain about everything without taking responsibility for anything, not even suggestions for improvement.

The panacea to this, how to love well when there are things you don’t dig, is to use the words: “I notice… and I prefer…” eg. “I notice our clinical meetings start late, and I prefer we start at the agreed upon time.” This gives voice, a respectful voice, but also gives the other ears to hear, especially coming with a clearly stated alternative. Even if the ‘possible solution’ preferred is merely the opposite of the complaint, like in the example above, verbalizing it as an alternate proposal will be taken better. Give it a try.

4. NEW INFO | “My new information is…”

True, “love does not keep a record of wrongs;” but true love keeps news up to date. I wise man once told me, “It isn’t distance that keeps us apart; it is silence.” If you know me well as a public speaker and prolific writer you might find it hard to believe this but I tend not to be as communicative at home as I am in public. The CTR tool has given me a reason to consciously say, “My new information is…” It could be about an event, decision, appointment, achievement, opportunity, activity, whatever! As the Scazzeros put it, “relationships can only grow when people know what is happening in each other’s lives, both the trivial as well as the important.”

5. HOPES AND WISHES | “I hope…”

I found out rather late in my marriage how much Anyele feels loved when we verbalize our hopes, dreams and plans for the future. No wonder!, for “hopes and wishes offer windows into our unique souls, revealing significant parts of who we are” (Pete & Geri Scazzero). eg. “I hope we can get to visit the Caribbean next year.”

“LOVE ME THIS WAY”

The people in our lives are crying out, “this is how I want to feel loved, would you please love me this this way?” If we all regularly practised any of these five skills the people in our lives would feel loved; if we did more than one often they would feel much loved; if we made a habit of all five they surely would feel very much loved. Don’t just say you love somebody; don’t just feel the feeling, do it these five ways! If you didn’t know how, now you do!

Post Script | Great Commandment vrs. Great Commission

For those who are Christ followers, it may be worth noting that the Great Commandment (to love God with your all and love your neighbour as yourself) comes before the Great Commission (to make disciples) in sequence and in rank (Jesus said the greatest command is love). Besides, the Great Commission includes teaching the Great Commandment if we are to teach folks to do everything Christ commanded. The first of the fruit of the Spirit is love. Remember God Himself is love. “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” There’s no way getting round love as a Christ follower.

One curious thing about the Great Commission is how many of us have read it to mean that making disciples of Jesus is by teaching them stuff that Jesus commanded. Meanwhile, a careful and slow re-reading of the text shows the essence is to train or teach people how to obey the stuff Jesus commands. Jesus said “teach them to obey everything I have commanded you” not just “teach them everything I have commanded you.” No wonder there are so many Christians who know ‘everything’ but do nearly nothing the Scriptures say! This understanding of the Great Commission has made a world of difference to me and those I walk/work with. The Community Temperature Reading (CTR) tool above, teaches you how to obey the command to love. Try it!