Philip is the host of the ideen.kollektiv video course and the podcast “Club der Väter.” He is well known on social media, from appearances on ZDF, and in many other podcasts. With his expertise as a systemic coach and consultant for families, especially fathers, he sets out to explore what the father role should look like in modern families.
First, please introduce yourself for those who don’t know you yet.
Hello everyone, my name is Philipp Bandholz and I am a coach for fathers. I am an author, speaker, coach, and trainer. I have been working with fathers for six years, have been a father myself for eight years, and founded the Club der Väter a little over two years ago. I am dedicated to the mission of helping fathers lead a happy, harmonious, and stable family life they have always dreamed of.
What is your connection to ideen.kollektiv?
I have known one of the two co-founders, Sebastian Hagenbruch, for about ten years. We used to make music together, and when I was training to become a systemic coach, he started developing Systembretter at the same time. It was a coincidence, but it brought us back together. I then created an introductory course for ideen.kollektiv for people interested in the Systembrett to explain how to work with it. Since then, I have been using the Systembretter and other tools from ideen.kollektiv myself and occasionally provide feedback on these products to help improve them. Overall, I am a big fan of the work ideen.kollektiv does.
You have had a remarkable journey as a father coach. What originally motivated you to take this path?
Most radical decisions come from great pressure or great pain. For me, it was the latter. What set my journey in motion was the divorce of my first marriage. This experience was very painful for me, and I vowed it would never happen again. Today I know that this motivation isn’t necessarily healthy, but it is very powerful. So, over the years, I threw myself into the topic and learned everything I could about man-woman dynamics and fatherhood. I am now happily married, have another daughter with my second wife, and look forward to having more children in the coming years.
Balancing professional and family obligations is surely an important topic. What strategies do you recommend to parents to find and maintain this balance?
The most important point to mention first is mindfulness. And I don’t mean some spiritual mumbo jumbo or staring at a candle; I mean listening to your gut feeling and having access to your body and emotions to understand when you are working too much, spending too little time with your children, or neglecting an important aspect of your life. It requires constant attention to understand which part of the family or life is currently being neglected. And there is almost always one. I sometimes describe family from a father’s perspective as a huge soap bubble floating through a room. My job is to make sure this bubble doesn’t touch any walls. So I always have to see from which side I push or blow a little to bring my system back into balance. For example, if I spend a lot of time with one daughter because she needs it, I might neglect my wife a little. If I then focus on my wife, I notice my job is getting a bit shortchanged. Then I concentrate on work again because an important project is coming up, and then I realize the other daughter needs me, and so on. I need attention and real presence to have these insights—ideally before anyone else in my family notices or before conflicts or real problems arise. I call this the early warning system. Another important point is the motto: quality over quantity. It’s less important to spend a lot of time with my family than to be fully present and there when I do spend time with them. It’s better to spend one hour intensely and with full attention, without phone or distractions, with your wife than to sit next to her for three hours while constantly occupied with other things. This motto applies especially to men who are very busy. And even for men who are normally or less busy, it’s important to take breaks, take time for themselves, and recharge energy to then be fully present and focused on the family.
Your personal story shows you have gone through difficult times yourself. How has this experience shaped your view on family and partnership issues?
Nothing has shaped my view on these questions more than my own separation, because I had many questions: How could this happen? What did I do wrong? And so on. All these questions were answered. The crucial insight for me was that it is essential for a relationship to understand the dynamics between the male and female parts of the relationship. This also applies to same-sex couples. Going deeply into this here would be too much. For that, you can listen to the Club der Väter podcast or follow the YouTube channel. But understanding that women generally think differently than men and understanding how my wife thinks and ticks and how I think has led me, for example, to not having had a fight in five years. A small note: we discuss and have conflicts, but fighting is emotional, unproductive, and energy-draining. I haven’t had such a fight in five years because I understand that my wife is mostly concerned with the feelings she has about certain situations, while I tend to look at things more rationally, logically, and on a factual level. This insight—fully engaging with the other and understanding the other person completely—has changed my life forever.
Can you share a concrete case from your coaching practice where the Systembrett played a decisive role?
The Systembrett is very good at making hidden dynamics in families or companies visible and thus conscious. I could give hundreds of examples, but I’ll take an ideal-typical one: Klaus had major problems relaxing. He always felt he wasn’t doing enough, no matter how much he did, and his family suffered greatly because of it. He could hardly engage with or enjoy time with his two sons because he always had many things on his mind related to work or household chores. This became a huge burden for him, and he said he was close to burnout. We looked at the issue with the Systembrett and, after an intensive preliminary conversation, set up his family and his two parents: his wife, his two sons, himself, his mother, and his father. It became clear that his father was very close to him, and through questioning techniques, we analyzed why the figures stood as they did. His sons and wife stood far away from him and were not oriented toward him. The result was his realization that he was still unconsciously trying to meet his father’s expectations, who was never satisfied with him. He was even criticized when he brought home a top grade or a grade just below top in school. His father always focused only on what he could have done better. Based on this, we began successful coaching and shaped the father’s solution process so that today he can relax, leave tasks unfinished sometimes, and actively enjoy situations with his children. His relationship with his father has also improved significantly because he managed to bring more relaxation into it.
You are also, broadly speaking, an expert in interpersonal communication. What do you think is important to improve communication within a group, such as a department, school class, social institution, or family? What is the common denominator?
I could name many points here, but I’ll pick one very important one. And the answer is basically already in the question: the common denominator. It is very important for a group to find a common denominator, and this should be a vision. If all group members or system members understand why the group does what it does, where it wants to develop, what the direction is, and there is agreement on this, then that is the basis of all communication. The problem is that this big goal, the overarching vision of a group, is quickly lost sight of, and people get caught up in the small stuff. For example, my clients often argue with their wives about the messy kitchen, although the real issue is a general trust problem or the feeling of not being seen. The discussion about the kitchen cannot be positively resolved even with the best communication tools because we need to understand the core of the problem.
George Bernard Shaw once said: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” Can you give us some examples from your practice that bring this quote to life and show how such misunderstandings arise and how to overcome them?
I would add to George Bernard Shaw’s quote and say: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it is finished.” Because communication happens around the clock. The partner who turns their back on me, the partner who looks at their phone while she talks to him—that is communication, and it happens all the time, not just when we talk. It is important to understand that such behaviors lead to injuries that mostly remain unspoken and then come up in the next conflict situation as feelings, like anger. The best thing is if we manage to feel and perceive these things—injuries, pain, sometimes fear, these negative feelings that arise in such moments—and become aware of them, then work with them so that in the next conflict situation we can stay calm and resolve the conflict in a factual and calm way without it turning into a fight, which is emotional and usually unproductive.
Thank you for your time and valuable input! Lastly, we would like to know: what are the plans and visions for your coaching, and how do you want to support fathers and families in the future?
My work is specialized in fathers. That means we at the Club der Väter help fathers bring their relationships with their wives and children to an optimal level. First, it’s about helping more fathers, reaching more fathers, because we see the great results our participants achieve. So we definitely want to make our work accessible to more fathers. For example, my book will be coming out in the next few months; the cover is still being worked on. We are also developing a coaching program for mothers, which is a good complement so that we can work well with couples too. And then we’ll see how it all develops. A lot is happening right now. I’m moving into an office on my street and starting to build a team—one step at a time. Also, my own family is still growing; we are currently planning to have another child.
Never Fight Again!
A video course for men: learn for free how to lay the foundation for harmony in your relationship...
Here is the free video course “Never Fight Again”: https://kurs.philipbandholtz.de/
