Episode Transcript
NATALIE: Hi, everyone. We’re here today at the Purposeful Planning Podcast. I’m Natalie McVeigh. I’m on the Education Development Committee for the Purposeful Planning Institute, in the Systems and Relationships Pillar, and that’s what brings us in today. One of my favorite systems experts in the field is going to be talking to us about a systems lens, through a systems journey—and really, studying systems doesn’t end. And there’s a lot I could say about Kathy. I can tell you one of my favorite presentations she did—no, not the very first one—was at PPI, where she had music playing so loudly and so fun. And I was like, if it’s not fun and it’s not researched together, I don’t want anything to do with it. But Kathy truly embodies interdisciplinary learning. She started as an anthropologist, and she’s been doing Bowen Systems Theory and a ton of things till today. Kathy, how would you describe yourself and your Purposeful Journey?
KATHY: What a great question, Natalie. I would say the Purposeful Journey is that I’m an energetic observer. I’m an energetic observer of myself in the systems I am living and working in, and I’m an energetic observer of the families I work with—and that started early on. Just observing my position as an oldest, with three younger sisters, born of a mother and father who were the youngest in their family, I was always captivated by how people related and how the past lived in the future. So my curiosity has really led me to different points in my life where I studied and studied—both at university, where I studied anthropology. This observation of others and self has really been a gift to me, and I hope, to my clients.
NATALIE: Absolutely—that sounds wonderful. When you were observing, what was the first thing that struck you in those dynamics?
KATHY: And this is a theme I can talk about. I could see I’m very good at picking up problems in myself and in others, and I learned early on that if I could zoom out from a problem and see it in context—over time, in relationships—I could come up with better questions and better answers. If I could get a systems perspective with a problem, you tend to narrow focus, zoom in, and have an answer that’s quite prescriptive. I always zoom out and look at the context, and that’s given me options that I wouldn’t have had if I had had a narrow focus. And that’s what got me to systems thinking.
NATALIE: Wonderful, Kathy. Can you help me see a pretty simple example of what that narrow focus and that larger context would show you when working with, like, a family business or a family office?
KATHY: Certainly. I’m working with two people right now who are extremely aggravated with each other, and they need to work together to solve a problem that involves a great deal of money. One has responsibility for a trust, and one has responsibility for a business. They have a 12-year birth difference—they were born 12 years apart. They really were born into different families. They have never had the experience of cooperating, and this early life experience of non-cooperation—having different parents, same biological parents—makes it very hard for them to cooperate on very interesting, complex problems. Not as in, “This person is this way, she’s a bossy oldest, and this is the younger one having a harder time figuring out the complications of this legal problem.” If you think about the non-cooperation experience, you have a completely different lens on how to deal with this. And it’s proved extremely valuable to pull your focus to a broader view—look at events over time, look at the evolutionary process coming up. Putting that problem in a larger context has many more options than just conflict resolution about the presenting problem.
NATALIE: Absolutely. I think there’s that non-cooperation, that they really don’t know what’s going on with each other. There’s also this dynamic between experience, too—that probably plays a lot in this.
KATHY: Oh, tell me what you mean. I’m not sure exactly what you mean.
NATALIE: Well, it’s not quite a level playing field, right? I don’t know their ages, but for a while, one might be an adult and one might be a child, and that tracks.
KATHY: That tracks, and there is a certain kind of bravado that comes with being the oldest. And there’s a certain kind of pretend we’ve got it all together. If one can look at this and ask provocative questions, I think you can—by seeing a bigger picture. My goal always is putting it in context over time. I’ve developed a couple of strategies to look at the past and the preferred future that I think gets at taking a problem that’s quite tight and small and expanding it. So, yeah, there’s a number of processes where I’m just wanting people to hear one another—not to dialogue, just to hear. And so often, I’m working with Theresa Edmondson on this: each person talks about events that changed the trajectory of their life, five to ten events, speaking to their families. No questions are allowed. Everyone goes around and does this. We do this three times with two-week intervals, no discussion, no questions. Now, this isn’t statistically proven yet, but at the end of this process, Natalie, I’ve seen people come together without problem-solving around that problem—just by doing their best thinking in the presence of the people they have the most trouble thinking with. It is like… I’m still trying to figure it out.
NATALIE: Absolutely. Kathy, when you were describing that Purposeful Journey, you talked about the self and the other—that measure of differentiation, right—which we’re used to sometimes doing in the workplace, although we can still fail at that. But in families, we have a really tough time with that. And what it sounds like is you’re helping these families reintroduce themselves to each other and acknowledge that difference as a phenomenon before actually saying, “How do we fix your viewpoint?” We first have to understand that you’re different.
KATHY: That’s very insightful. Yes, exactly. I’m going to use that—that’s pretty good. The ability to say what you think without being subject to dialogue, questions, or arguments seems to impact the cortex and allows people to think more broadly about something. So, as you can hear, I am interested in trying to figure out ways for myself to be a better thinker in the midst of emotional, upsetting problems and concerns—in my own family and when I’m coaching other people. It’s a lifelong effort. It’s kept me really engaged in this work because there’s so much to learn and so many opportunities to practice it.
NATALIE: Absolutely. What was the most meaningful “Aha!” you saw in a client system when you were newer to this journey—something that really said, I’m on the right track?
KATHY: It really wasn’t with a client—it was… I’m going to tell a personal story. I married a lawyer, and he left the practice of law to work in a family business. There was a big meeting when they were going to be bought out. It was a fractious, energetic—always-at-each-other, but energetic—family business that had struggled up and down. They got an offer for a buyout, a very sizable offer. I want to place this: it was in a large conference room filled with wood veneer, with people from Europe in very tailored, beautiful suits and ties. The sale was going to go through, and they turned to the siblings—the next generation—and asked us to sign to collateralize our homes. I was living in a different city, had just gone to graduate school, and I knew—I’d been studying family systems—that I could not live with having my family home on the line. I loved my husband. I loved his family very much, but I had reached a point where I knew I could not do it. So I said it—I said, “I don’t want any of the funds; it can all go to other people.” My husband can manage this. I can’t live with that kind of stress. And it was knowing, in that moment, that I was probably going against everything this family believed in—but I could not do it. It was an experience of knowing the system, having a place in it, loving all the people, but knowing that I could not participate in that way. And that taught me both the value of helping people see the system and coming to a place where they know, in their gut, what they could and couldn’t do. It was very hard and had real repercussions. But coming to a place where you can see the system, your place in it, and whether you want to continue or not, gave me real hope that people could see themselves in a broader context—and could live with, well, living with the force of the family. It was a moment of real change. My goal has been to help families see the system and make decisions that work for the people as well as the firm. At the same time, I was working in non-family businesses, large organizations, with their unions and management. So I had two practices: family systems and these large systems—like Bell Helicopter, the machinists at Ford Motor Company, air traffic controllers, and their unions. I saw the same processes there, but with greater intensity in families. So I had two balancing points to understand the systems I was living in, and it was a real challenge to keep my own thinking clear. That’s what I really hope to do: provide an interesting overview of the systems we live in and help people decide what’s their contribution—or not.
NATALIE: Yeah, what you said was brilliant. One of the things I encourage younger people coming into the field—and by “younger,” I mean younger to the field; they’re not always young in life—is this idea: those beautiful tools you want to take clients through, if you can’t understand it, if you don’t have your own heuristic or somatic experience of it, it’s not going to work. And so your journey and the story you shared show that’s when systems theory lit up for you, even though you knew it cognitively. I also think the thing you highlighted that’s really important is: there’s family systems theory, which we spend a lot of time talking about, and there are lots of theorists there—Bowen being one. But there’s also organizational systems theory. I came in the opposite way: organizations first, families later. I also did a lot of union work. Balancing those two things together, knowing both, and paying attention to both creates the complexity we’re looking at. And yeah, you’re right. It allows you, in some ways—and these aren’t your words; this is how I’m describing it—the way you describe your work is almost like this laser. Even though there’s this focused intensity, that laser creates light, and then the whole room gets brighter. And that’s wonderful—you can help clients see that and support them to decide what to do next, whether the system’s working or not working.
KATHY: It’s the challenge of defining what help means. I’ve always been excited to try it at meetings with different organizations: have people describe, “What does help mean for you?” I’ve been thinking about that for a long time. Is it taking my “wisdom,” in quotes, and describing it to someone else? Or is it this notion of asking the very best questions to help people get to the very best answers? This is something I’ve been thinking about for a long time: what is help? I think it’s fundamental to the field we’re in. And that’s one of the things that intrigues me. I’m very lucky that I have a curious mind, so lots of things intrigue me.
NATALIE: Yeah. I heard years ago—I forget who said it, but Steve Legler said it to me—to use the word support. And I think what you’re describing, because it doesn’t matter how we equivocate about it, is this idea of: what’s our role? I have this coaching background, so I always say it’s a mirror—you show someone the mirror, what’s true. Or the way that you described it better: I ascribe to you as this light. It’s not about us knowing, because we’re not the ones in it. And so there’s someone who might have made a different choice in your scenario, Kathy. You made your choice, where the house wasn’t okay for you, but naturally someone else might do it differently. Shannon, who’s on the call with us, might do it differently. And I think that’s the challenge of this work: first seeing it, describing it, helping other people in the system see it—taste it, feel it, touch it—and then letting go to allow them to make the choice of how they resolve it, because it’s their life.
KATHY: It’s a hard process. And I think many people come in thinking, I’ve got this studied wisdom that I can impart, but you described it just beautifully—that process, just beautifully.
NATALIE: So tell me about—sometimes I teach students about logical fallacies, and I say, “You don’t remember every single one of them because there are so many.” But when you start learning them, you know what it feels like coming out of your mouth. So your key tool, which you’ve highlighted a few times for us, is as a question: What does it feel like coming out of your mouth to know that the question you’re asking might unlock something? It isn’t just a question to push someone. You know those questions where you can feel the small of your back on someone’s hand, where you’re leading them down a path? I don’t think those are the questions you’re describing. So, what does a good question feel like?
KATHY: Oh my gosh. A good question is one you really don’t know the answer to. And I can smell when someone’s asking me a question they already know the answer to. Somebody might say to me, “Well, what would you do in this circumstance?” And I’ll say, You know, I’m probably more baffled by it than you are, but I’m going to be interested in how you’re going to play this out. I am always in this kind, non-directive space. Talking about simple questions, like, “Would you set up a trust?”—I mean, it depends. I’m very aware of emotional processes in myself. I know when I’m not thinking clearly, I know when I’m all revved up. That’s a really important quality. I know when I’ve been drawn into the system and I’m not thinking, and that’s when I’m very prone to give very smart answers that don’t get listened to. So I am aware of emotional processes when people are thinking from the bottom of their brain, not the top. I work really hard to ask questions that center on things like, “Well, how would your mother have handled this?” Or, “If your sister and your mother were designing this program, what would they do?” I’m always asking questions about relationships back in the system. The specific answer doesn’t have to be what I’m aiming for. I’m trying to trigger a creative process where their answers are different. There have been lots of examples of this—I’m trying to think of one right now—and I can’t, but sometimes I’ll ask a question like that, and someone will say, “Oh my gosh, I just got this new idea that came in from left field.” It’s to stimulate the creative capacity beyond what’s obvious. What’s obvious are things like cutting off, moving away from someone, or triangling in someone. I want people to think broader about the system. For example: If you could tell this problem to your mother and father, who would be the most helpful? I’m interested in getting their thinking up a generation—broader. That’s the purpose—not so much the answer—because they will come back the next time and say, You know that question you asked? I got in the car and figured out what I needed to do. That’s a bit weird to explain, but it’s those flashes of insight that come from provoking part of the brain.
NATALIE: Absolutely. Yeah, I hear you saying that you’re helping them continue to keep that broader focus by reminding them of those other roles in the system. That reminds me of, probably, what will have to be our last question—unfortunately, due to time. Maybe we’ll have a part two. You talked about going up a generation. How would you say that you use Genograms with clients?
KATHY: Oh, always. And I use them, Natalie, with labor unions, with non-related family businesses, with law firms—because what you bring to your work is that family experience. I don’t start out by saying, “Let’s do a big Genogram.” I say, “You are a product of a system; I’d like to know about it. Give me where you are in the birth order, your parents, and over time, I build it out.” Then I can refer to it. But I don’t make a big deal out of it. I just say, “I want to know more about you and the way you think,” and that is often guided by your role in your family. So I don’t use the words “family diagram” or “Genogram”—I just draw it. And sooner or later, Natalie, the most interesting thing they say is, “Well, can I have a copy of that?” I say, “Sure.” And then I get it back, and they’ve talked to their mother, their father, their spouse. It’s a way to stimulate thinking and curiosity, which is my goal. I use it all the time. For example, I lived in New Mexico and had an elder from the Cochiti Pueblo talking to me about his life. I said, Come on in, Bernard, let me draw this out for you. It showed how his family—the leadership of this Pueblo—was organized and why they were having problems. He had been talking to me about the leadership challenges he was facing. I do it as a matter of getting to know somebody, not as a therapeutic modality. I’m curious about it: Where are you in the birth order?
NATALIE: Technically the youngest, but there’s a huge age gap. My sister is 15 years older, and I have a brother who is special needs. So technically the youngest, but I think some traits show up differently based on those two experiences.
NATALIE: You think?
KATHY: Yeah. A lot of people, when they don’t know, ascribe older-sibling traits—I think for that reason. I was eight when my sister moved out. My brother was diagnosed around the same time, so then, ostensibly, I became like the eldest child in some ways.
KATHY: Well, I see that. I can go down…
NATALIE: Well, I think that’s what I wanted this conversation to show. Some people don’t know about Genograms, and others—who do—make a big deal out of it. They draw a picture and give it to a family without asking. For me, every client is different, but a lot of times I use it for myself first, so I see it. Then, at some point, especially with families, I have them draw it. I don’t want to give them the tool outright, but they’re interested in it. I think a lot of things we talk about—sometimes casually, or as almost a trading card we have in our belt—we pull out at the wrong time. That’s why this is very powerful work. It’s the center of your work, and you’re steeped in it. I just wanted to know how you think about it so people listening can start embodying that. That’s when the coach will… One of the interesting things they said is, “Don’t do coaching; be a coach.” And I was like, “Okay, whatever.” I’m like, “Okay, that makes sense.” So, any last thoughts to leave with our audience?
KATHY: I don’t—accept—it was delightful talking to you anytime, kiddo.
NATALIE: Same. Thanks so much, Kathy Wiseman—I don’t think I said your last name at the beginning. And are there any ways to contact you that would be helpful for people who listen to this and want to hear more?
KATHY: Well, I am at the Bowen Center for the Study of the Family in Washington, although I live in New Mexico. I’m doing some really interesting work with financial advisors and using the triangle there for advisors who want to provide more.
NATALIE: Yes, we’ll get that there. Shannon said we can add it there.
