What do you want?

What are you willing to accept as a truly workable compromise – and what is unacceptable?

Are your fears or worries leading you to ascribe motives/feelings to others, perhaps unfairly?

Are you assessing your contributions accurately, to this point? Are you assessing your readiness to handle what you want accurately?

Your spouse can be a valuable asset in helping you to sort out your side. Your spouse may help you to stay positive about moving into a difficult situation.

Uncertainty is the most devastating stress that people face. If you hold it in - it will erode you – physically, emotionally and/or spiritually.

This leads people to just get “fed up” one day, and blurt something out in a desperate attempt to ease the pressure.

These off-the-cuff conversations are usually emotionally laden, often confrontational, and they generally lack the groundwork to be truly productive.

These are complex issues.

All of the key players have more on their minds than this, and they often have other issues that may have nothing to do with Bobby, and/or that are related to things about Bobby, that he really isn’t aware of.

With an issue this fraught with potentially explosive emotions and opinions, off-the-cuff is seldom the strategy of choice.

Springing an ambush usually leads to defensive behavior on the parts of the people being surprised.

It seldom engenders feelings of trust and good will.

You’ve respected yourself well enough to get yourself ready (your thinking, your experience and your ideas of how to get from here to the goal).

You’ll increase the odds for success if you give the other people you’re drawing into the conversation the same respect; give them a chance to get themselves ready for the conversation, too.

As an aside, if your best strategy were to deal with this on an emotional level, no matter what the positions of the others, I’d question your readiness to lead.

A leader is a person who can picture what should be, draw others into that vision, and then move forward from what we’re doing now to how we want to be.

Establishing a dialogue for creating a win/win outcome.

There are tons of books and programs teaching, preaching and screeching about how to communicate.

I’m not suggesting that you don’t try to build your communication skills. However, as the situation has been presented in the story, the solution is about more than Bobby.

Bobby can learn to communicate ‘till the cows come home. If his dad and uncle are anything like my dad, they’d say, “Cut that psychology crap, kid. Here’s how it is.”

Success will come from everyone being involved in the same process – a complex negotiation in which people have different and possibly conflicting needs and agendas.

When the issue is brought out into the open, Bobby may be surprised to find that everyone is pretty much on the same page.

Then again, they may not be. If they aren’t, then you are in the middle of a highly crucial, delicate negotiation about the future of the company.

You and they have to become aware of that. If there are significant disconnects, then the best way to think of it is as a complex negotiation.

Moving Forward. Bobby needs to test the waters.

Chart a course around the shoals and reefs. He needs to frame what he is trying to achieve as being about his view of what is best for everyone concerned.

He needs to seek an “everyone wins” outcome, from the beginning. His dad and uncle may need to be helped to join in.

Once that common platform has been established, a mature, business-focused negotiation can begin.