Building Collaborative Family Teams
Core Curricula

“Why does he act that way?” “What was she thinking?” “I don’t get how they operate?” “Why don’t they understand me?”

If you work on a team, these are common, everyday questions. In a family business, you may be asking yourself these questions continually about your work team and your family. Members of a team and a family often think and act very differently. At times, we can just laugh at these differences, but at other times they become the seeds of conflict and tension.

This half-day workshop is designed to help participants understand personality and work style differences among members of their family business “team.” We use the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to see how individuals relate to others, process information, make decisions, and organize themselves. Each of the participants fills out this short personality inventory as part of the workshop. The participants assess their own styles and then the group discusses how differences in style may either undermine the work of the team or make it more effective.

The program includes:

	An overview of personality preferences and conflicts in teams;
	An introduction to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator;
	An exercise using the MBTI with feedback for each participant; and,
	A discussion of practical methods for putting differences to work on your family business team.