The Welsh Wire: Wade Wyant of Red Wagon Advisors

Navigating the complex dynamics of decision making can be one of the biggest challenges to family business success.

Wade Wyant, Executive Advisor/Scaling Up Coach at Red Wagon Advisors of Ada, suggested ways to address those challenges when he spoke with Sheri Welsh for The Welsh Wire podcast, sponsored by the Family Business Alliance.

“You see that all the time in family dynamics, where instead of just saying no, or having that really open and transparent conversation, you go the other direction, you actually move off in neutral and you go negative,” he says.

“By doing destructive things like setting up roadblocks and making it more difficult, in the end it builds up animosity and anger and mistrust and a lot of things you don’t want. Especially for the family you only have so much time and if one of the family members is really excited about a visionary-type idea, no matter what it is, you don’t want to waste time setting up roadblocks now. Get it out on the table and talk about it.”

It’s important to understand the role that emotion plays in decision-making, according to Wyant.

“The reality is if you’re human, you’re an irrational thinker. There’s just no way around [the fact] that we’re all irrational at some level. And so the more we can have that dialogue, and the more we can talk about that, not in every case, but in most cases my experiences in working with family businesses is that dialog has a lot of value. It avoids those silent moments where we’re not having a dialogue and we’re trying to make our point through silence or roadblocks or playing for all or nothing–those destructive things.”

Learn more about navigating the dynamics of family business decision making when Wade Wyant talks with Sheri Welsh on this week’s The Welsh Wire podcast.

Listen to Sheri’s full interview with Wade Wyant.

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