The 3 Big Questions for a Frantic Family: A Leadership Fable... About Restoring Sanity To The Most Important Organization In Your Life

I was able to read this book in one evening. It’s a TERRIFIC format. I was skeptical about the “fable” format, but it was surprisingly delightful.For the content of the book, PHENOMENAL. It is a great read for any parent who is feeling like life is unsustainable and flailing.

My husband and I are both working professionals in highly demanding jobs. We met and were married in our early 30's and from there had 2 children - boys. They are now 7&5. I am an avid reader of business books, but less so of 'parenting' books. I was checking my LinkedIn account and there was a link to an article on 'great books you have to read'. I perused the list and the title of this book jumped out at me. Given our hectic lifestyle, I don't have time for a complete life makeover, but I certainly have time to answer 3 questions - if they are useful.And these are useful! Due to my background, the way the book was written and the sample answers it gives, made complete sense. As I got through each chapter, more and more of the thoughts and ideas seemed so simple, yet something I never would have applied to my family - work… yes / family…no. And yet for most of us our family is the most important aspect of our lives.This book takes you through how the questions were developed - in the story the person who comes up with them is a mom (very relatable) - and the people who answer them are parents. This makes them useful examples of how you might answer them rather than some PhD theory of how families "should" work.Even better - there are no judgments leveled in this book as to how a family 'should be'. It only gives you:• Easy tools to define your family• Talks specifically about an extremely important concept "context" (big one)• A way to begin focusing your efforts as a familyI highly recommend it as an easy read (only took 4 days to get through - which is about 4 hours on a regular schedule), but an extremely useful read for chaotic, harried families.

I read this book several years ago and still use its insights. What I like about this book is that it recognizes family as an organizational unit, and as such, can benefit from what we know makes organizations function well. Just like when leading a company, or an army, or a government, when leading a family, good old-fashioned prioritization is your friend.The way to identify your prioritization (thereby restoring your family’s sanity) is to use these three questions:1. What makes your family unique?2. What is your family's top priority - rallying cry - right now?3. How will you use the answers? And how will you keep the answers alive?It is a lens for decision-making. If you’re clear on your answer to these three questions, then decision-making from the small (should we sign our child up for a second soccer team?) to large (should we relocate?) becomes clear.The book reads like a story - it doesn't feel like the infinitely practical book that it is.

Recently, Katie and I spent some time reading through Patrick Lencioni's book The 3 Big Questions for a Frantic Family and I can't say enough good things about it. Like almost all of Lencioni's books, it is written as a fable with the principles woven into the story. It is a fast read, easily done a couple of evenings.The point of the book is: families run from one thing to the next and they aren't sure why. Very few families are focused and intentional about how they spend their time, how they spend their money, what they pass on to their kids. The one character in the book said, "If most companies ran themselves the way families run themselves, they'd be out of business."Katie and I took the 3 questions and worked through them for our family.By the end of talking through it, we've been able to articulate a mission statement for our family, the core values of who the Reich family is, what we will embody, give our time and money to, what we will pass on to our kids. It also helps you to articulate what you will spend your time on as a family in the next 3-6 months. Answering this question, "If you as a family accomplish only one thing in the next 3-6 months, what would it be? What 5 things do you need to do to accomplish that?"If you are married, whether you have kids or not, you are probably too busy and unfocused in how you spend your time. This book is well worth the time to work through as a couple.

Excellent!

A couple of weeks ago I finished reading The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family: A Leadership Fable About Restoring Sanity to the Most Important Organization in Your Life by Patrick Lencioni. I've enjoyed some of his other fable styled leadership books, and this was no different. The key concept from the book was that as leaders we spend time being clear on purpose, values and vision for our organisation and yet we rarely stop to think what we're doing with our family.The book encourages you to ask 3 questions: 1. What makes your family unique 2. What is your family's top priority right now? 3. How do you talk about and use the answers to these questions?Rather than posting a review straightaway over an enjoyable and easy to read book I left it a couple of weeks to see how easy it was for Hannah and I to implement. In the end we took two sessions to write out the answers to the above questions, and some of the micro questions. Lencioni's writing was helpful and highly adaptable for our family context and we're hoping to see real progress with our top priority. I'll write again on this in a few weeks time to let you know how it's going.

This book has been a great starting point for helping us get projects and other things done around the house. We have made it through our first rallying cry meeting all of our goals. We will be passing on the book to family for them to try this as well. I also find that we are on the same page more often about things around the house.

We've been able to articulate what we value as a family, give ourselves a goal to focus on for the next few months and a tool to help us for life.

Read it quickly, and it has points to cover and with some work I believe this will make a difference for my family's sanity. It's up to us now. 8)