family-economics

The book starts with a series of reflections. Chapter 1 explores the meaning of power. Chapter 2 creates the basic vocabulary of systems thinking that will be easily recognized by engineering and operations management students. Chapter 3-4 are a series of reflections on power and systemic situations or environments. Chapter 3 deals primarily with organizations. Chapter 4 deals primarily with relationships. Chapter 5 creates a solid model of analysis, but it is not uniformly applied throughout the remainder of the book. Chapter 6 (ethics & pragmatism) and 7 (integity) describes how individually determined values are integrated into our greater social system. Chapter 8 goes back to the individual and simple systems, like making coffee, or driving to work. Chapter 9 jumps to political systems.

Power is philosophical in nature and is personal as well as first person. The author has an engineering background, which shows throughout. Ideas and methodologies are borrowed from many disciplines including physics, communications, management, eastern and western philosophy, consulting and counseling. Sometimes these are blended seamlessly into a tapestry of concepts and reflections. I like the section on integrity where the word is described in the engineering, then the human sense. Later, the two meanings blend poetically into one. Sometimes, however, the various disciplines get in the way of each other and are presented a little sharpedged. The reader is left to adjust their mindset, sometimes abruptly. Chapter 5, The Rational Model, is disconnected from the chapters around it. Chapter 8 is also ill-placed.

This is really two books, one about the individual, the second about society. Many reflections on the individual focus on self realization as a way to see the extent of personal power. The sections on leadership are good and are clearly intented to be a stepping stone to discussion. Chapter 7 contained a section describing how different cultures see various values, such as self worth, in different ways. This could have been an entire book by itself. Chapter 9, on Political Power, is surprisingly insightful. But, it cries out for some examples including those from other cultures and alternative context. Politics is the sometimes the dirty, non-integrated side of business. So, the sections on sovereignty, integration, maintenance, and meritocracy apply equally to the business environment.

The book would have benefitted from division into parts or sections, each with their own introduction. Use of quotations, drawn from many disciplines and cultures that illuminated the intent of the chapter or reflection would have also added cohesion for the reader. I wish there were more hard hitting business examples to illustrate points and fewer civil engineering and home life examples. The value of Power is to understand the philosophy behind the word. For that reason, it is too thought provoking for use in the MBA classroom, but it is the kind of book one hopes budding, prospective business executives take the time to read.

Communication is often poor in a family business. Ms. Michaud seems to have a good handle on the manifestations of that problem. Her war stories smack of having been in the middle of the fray . . . both as an executive in a family business and as a consultant to family businesses.

In the book, she briefly describes the kinds of communications that all businesses need . . . and adds the concepts of regular family meetings about the business. She describes a process for starting and running those meetings.

To help family members communicate better, she provides a series of exercises to help spot the issues. Among the exercises is a lengthy section on psychological profiling. Here is where the book broke down, for her ideas are very oversimplified and dangerous in the ways that she suggests using them.

In addition, I have never seen a book about business communication with so few practical suggestions in it on that subject. For instance, there's not a single hint of Neuro-Linguistic Programming research, emotional intelligence leadership or mainline research on how to build rapport (she only has some oversimplified suggestions for her four archetypes). More subtle research on communications is also missing. It's as though she attended a brief seminar on the subject, and then wrote a book about what she heard.

The book is an extremely slim one both content and lengthwise, and does not seem worth the $17.95 cover price.

Unless you know nothing about how to convene a family meeting to discuss business issues, I suggest that you skip this book.

As I finished the book, I was reminded that the best way to hear if you are getting your point across is to ask the person you have been speaking with what you have been saying. Then, correct any misunderstandings . . . and keep repeating until you sense that understanding has occurred. Then, follow up to see if the actions taken reflect what you were trying to communicate. If the actions don't match you intention, ask the other person to explain why they did what seems inappropriate. Continue as before to resolve misunderstandings and hidden assumptions. Plan to repeat your message at last 30 times before it will begin to sink in.

I have been following Michaud's advice and using her communication strategies for a couple weeks now and I already see drastic changes in the business. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to take their family business to the next level!

This book spells out the benfits of mediation, and reasons for it. However it does not teach one how to be a successful mediator.

For somebody who is completely new to the concept of mediation, this may be a good book to start.

To those who have read this book and want to get to know more about the subject, I recommend them to read "Getting Past No", another book by Ury.

The ability to resolve conflict gives us the ability to choose peace in all aspects of our life, at home, at work, at school or anywhere else. By discovering the ten roles of the peacemaker, everyone can learn to mediate destructive conflicts. A highly recommended read.

There is commonsense advice in here on money and relationships but I was so irritated at the author's tone, which struck me as somewhat patronizing, that I didn't benefit from any of it.

Robert A. Caldwell, CPA

Muldoon's book is divided into two parts. The first part of the book is the closest he gets to a tutorial on mediation. In it, he describes four useful strategies for managing or resolving conflict: containment, confrontation, compassion and collaboration. Each chapter on these strategies usually starts by describing one of Muldoon's fascinating mediation experiences and describes the possible patterns that can help resolve the conflict. However I would have liked the author to go into more detail on the mediation process by fleshing out the strategies with more specific tactics.

The second part of the book is more difficult to describe and it is where I feel the book becomes more personal, less well written and probably says more to readers with mediation experience. It is an attempt to philosophize about conflict: is it necessary? should it always be resolved? what can be learnt from it? It is clear that Muldoon has read widely but not deeply on the subject: there are many throwaway pointers to buddhism, chaos theory, and self-help authors like Thomas Merton but very few to, psychoanalysis or mainstream philosophy, for example. Muldoon seems to look for a way to either transcend conflict by going beyond cooperation (there is a chapter on confluence which borrows a lot from Csikzentmihalyi's seminal ideas on flow) or by recognizing that conflict sets up meaningful challenges for
us as individuals and as members of groups. In Muldoon's own words: "Grappling with these irresolvable challenges brings us to the heart of conflict, where we encounter life's paradoxical wisdom [...] Conflict is seen at last to be life's harsh but unerring guide in the soul's quest for meaning."

I respect the author's mediation experiences, and feel that the book is at its best when Muldoon describes them. The second part of the book reads like bits and pieces of unacknowledged soul searching latched onto fashionable and sometimes, unconvincing, burrowings that have not come together well and need to be
thought out in more depth. In a nutshell: a) good war stories, b) provocative but incomplete strategies for conflict management, and c) attempts but fails to reach the heart of the matter.

James claims that the cause is the rapid growth since 1979 in the numbers of people living on low incomes. Between 1979 and 1981 the proportion of boys being raised in a low-income family rose from 19% to 30%, and it has stayed at 30% ever since. These boys grew up in families suffering severe, growing, visible and highly stressful relative deprivation. A growing number of them has subsequently committed crimes of violence.

James cites relevant evidence from large cross-national surveys that show that the more unequal a society is, the more violent it is. "Homicide rates are lower in countries with unemployment and training policies that keep unemployment low. The higher the proportion of Gross National Product that is devoted to social service programmes ensuring the well-being of the work force, the less violent the society. This applies even within nations. In comparisons of different States within America, levels of State aid to families with children vary considerably; the higher the levels of benefit, the lower the levels of violence in the State." (pp. 7-8)

He cites the American criminologist Elliott Currie, "It isn't accidental that among developed countries, the United States is afflicted simultaneously with the worst rates of violent crime, the widest spread of income inequality, and the most severe public policies towards the disadvantaged." (p. 64.) In conclusion, James holds the Government directly responsible for the increase in juvenile violence: "government economic and social policies, therefore, have been the primary cause of the increased rate in the rise of recorded violence since 1987." (p. 111)