Geriatric Management Consulting #4

Image courtesy of Michael Pflelghaar www.pfleghaar.com

Recently there was an article on the E-Myth website (www.e-myth.com): The Challenges of a Family Business written by their staff. It describes the unique challenges family businesses face and why these often fail. It brought to mind a response I sometimes get when I ask family members a question they don’t want to answer: That’s none of your business! I usually respond---but it is yours and it is important. Do you know the answer?

Caregiving is a family business. For me family includes all the formal and informal networks that characterize modern community life.

The article cites the University of Southern Maine’s Institute for Family-Owned Business. “Three underlying causes of failure…:1) unresolved conflict, 2) failed leadership, and 3) lack of shared goals on a personal, family and business level…also differences over management roles, sibling conflict, financial issues, and lack of long-term company vision…”

It is crucial to remember that eventually every person in the family system will need care whether it is acute, chronic, and/or endstage. Facing up to and resolving these challenges will improve everyone’s quality of life. As government sponsored social services evaporate it is the family/friend network that will provide the safety net.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that net was woven big and strong enough of the best materials possible, checked regularly for holes and mended in all the necessary places?

Wouldn’t you feel more secure given the inevitability of illness, aging, dying?

Geriatric Management Consulting #3

I will be forever grateful to the colleague who told me about this book, The E Myth Revisited, Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber. His insights and suggestions are so relevant to the caregiving enterprise that I can easily imagine a book entitled The C Myth, Why Most Caregiving Situations Don’t Work and What to Do About It.

“The problem with most failing businesses (read: caregiving situations) I’ve encountered is not that their owners don’t know enough about finance, marketing, management, and operations (read: medical matters)---they don’t, but those things are easy enough to learn---but that they spend their time and energy defending what they don’t know. The greatest businesspeople (read: caregivers) I’ve met are determined to get it right no matter what the cost.

And by getting it right, I’m not just talking about the business.

I mean that there is something uplifting, some vision, some higher end in sight that “getting it right” would serve.

An ethical certainty, a moral principle, a universal truth….this book is not about endings, but about beginnings, about the never-ending game, the delightful and exhilarating process, the continuous evolution of our senses, of our consciousness---of our humanness---which only comes from being present in the moment, from being attentive to what’s going on.

I believe that our business (read: caregiving) can provide us with a mirror to see ourselves as we are, to see what we truly know and what we don’t know, to see ourselves honestly, directly and immediately. (pages xiii-xv)

See why I love this book?

Getting Back to Business

My goal lo! these many years has been to configure work that balances money and meaning. Geriatric care consulting is rich in meaning---a combination of social worker, chaplain, geriatric psychologist, and grief counselor. Service opportunities galore!

But how to make a living as an independent?

Consultants typically bill by the hour. This does not work for my practice. After all these years as a caregiver/consultant I know that many of my client meetings (in person or on the phone) might be as short as 10 minutes. Often this is all that the caller can manage given the topic. Sometimes there is just a question or a concern that can be handled quickly. Sometimes it’s about needing a friendly voice. I don’t want the hassle of billing by the quarter hour and I don’t want people to feel inhibited because the meter is running.

My solution is more project-oriented---have clients put me on retainer for a period of time. It might be the duration of an illness treatment cycle (chemotherapy), looking in on a parent once a month or endstage care. Would include phone calls, e-mails, internet research, one or more in-person meetings each month.

So far several families have worked with me this way. They are satisfied and I love it.

Maybe I’ve done it---money and meaning in the same career!.”