家庭經營之道

????如果你的工作日安排包括接連不斷的會議，那么你最不想做的事情，就是在周末安排再安排一個會議，對吧？

????但是布魯斯?費勒說，如果這是你和家人召開的會議，結果卻可能讓你感到驚訝。他是新書《幸福家庭的秘訣》（The Secrets of Happy Families）的作者，這本書提倡采用商業領域以研究為基礎的最佳方法，用于管理不同人士（他們恰巧和你有同樣的姓氏）構成的另一個復雜組織。

????費勒在電話采訪中稱：“我認為，過去一代人的家庭出現了兩個巨大的變化：首先，女性已經進入職場，這是個爭論不休的熱門話題，”巧合的是，他在家鄉佐治亞州薩凡納說這番話的時候，正好待在他童年的臥室里?！暗橇硪粋€變化也很重要，卻幾乎從來沒有人討論過：男性進入了家庭領域。無論從哪方面來看，他們都比父輩更多地參與到了養育子女的活動中?！?/p>

????他說，這些現代的父母精通商業事務，“受夠了家庭輔導行業提出讓人厭倦的相同意見”。相反，“他們在盡量發揮自己作為職場父母的作用，而他們對結果更感興趣”。談到對人的管理，他們會說，“明白告訴我該怎么做?！?/p>

????這是過去幾十年來各個組織一直研究的問題——他們的預算遠遠高于家庭輔導顧問的費用。費勒表示，具有諷刺意味的是，其中最好的理念會讓職場中大多數人感到驚訝。

1. 召開員工會議

????如果廣開言路，你的孩子會為家庭生活提出新的想法嗎？他們會告訴你怎樣做最好、怎樣做不好嗎？費勒指出：“一切都不再是自上而下。企業不再是自上而下的組織，政府不再是自上而下的機構。必須讓最好的想法脫穎而出。必須聽取父母和子女的想法，然后進行討論?！贝蠹业哪繕耸鞘裁?？“能夠隨時做出改變?！?/p>

????召開簡短的日常會議是討論這些問題的最好時機。的確，許多企業員工患上了會議疲勞癥，但是“在職場中，你可能每天開10次會議，而在家庭中，絕對不會開會。其實，20分鐘的會議可以帶來巨大的變化”。

????路易莎?羅杰斯是路易莎羅杰斯通信公司（Louisa Rogers Communications）的老板，她確立了每周三上午7點至8點和丈夫召開每周會議的傳統，他們會利用這個指定的時間來討論那些通常會導致抱怨和嘮叨的婚姻問題，包括：財務、家務活、日程、假期、待辦事項等等。她說：“如果出現任何破壞感情的問題，我們都會‘放在一邊’——就像商務會議中‘暫?！癁g覽圖標頁面一樣——我們知道需要先單獨交流感情問題，然后再來處理業務問題。接下來，我們會在下周的商務會議上重新討論原來的問題。我們知道，舉行每周商務會議會釋放我們生活中的很多壓力，我們學會了如何區分戰略問題和情感問題?！?/p>

????If your workday schedule includes meeting after meeting, the last thing you want to schedule on your weekend is another get-together with an agenda, right?

????If it's a meeting with your family, you might be surprised by the results, says Bruce Feiler, author of the new book The Secrets of Happy Families, which advocates using research-based best practices from the business world for running another complicated organization of diverse people (who just happen to share your last name).

????"I think that the two big changes in the family in the last generation are, first, that women have gone into the workplace, and that has been discussed endlessly," says Feiler in a telephone interview from -- appropriately enough -- his childhood bedroom, where he was staying while speaking in his hometown of Savannah, Ga. "But the other change is just as significant and is almost never discussed: Men have been flooding into the home space. They're much more involved in parenting by every measure than their fathers were."

????Such modern parents, well-versed in business, "are fed up with the same tired advice from the family improvement industry," he says. Instead, "they are trying to negotiate their own roles as working parents, and they're much more interested in results." When it comes to managing people, they say, "Tell me what works."

????That's a question organizations have been studying -- with much bigger budgets than family counselors have -- for decades. Ironically, some of the best ideas, Feiler suggests, are the ones that inspire the most eye-rolling at work.

1. Start a staff meeting

????Can your children suggest new ideas for family life in a context where they'll be heard? Can they tell you what's working and what isn't? "Nothing is top-down anymore. Business is not top-down anymore, government is not top-down anymore," notes Feiler. "You have to let the best ideas win. You have to take ideas from parents, from children, and then discuss it." The goal? "To be able to change in real time."

????A short, regular meeting is a perfect occasion for such debates. Yes, many corporate warriors suffer from meeting fatigue, but "in the workplace, you might have 10 meetings in a day, whereas in a family you have absolutely no meetings. One 20-minute meeting can make a massive difference."

????Louisa Rogers, owner of Louisa Rogers Communications, instituted a weekly meeting on Wednesday mornings from 7-8 a.m. with her husband so they'd have a designated time for discussing those marital issues that often lead to complaints and nagging: finances, house stuff, calendar, vacations, to-do items, etc. "If any issue got emotionally sticky, we'd put it aside" -- like the "parking lot" flip chart page during a business meeting -- "knowing we'd need to have a separate conversation first about the emotions before we could deal with the 'business' part. Then we would revisit the original issue at the following week's business meeting. Knowing we'd have this weekly business meeting took a lot of stress out of our lives, and we learned how to separate tactical issues from emotional ones."