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When a Nudge is Better than a Shove

When a Nudge is Better than a Shove

Forcing People to Do Things Often Backfires

Working with people who are very involved with their family members in the management and/or ownership of a business brings with it a lot of variety, as you might suspect.

However, there are many things that repeat from one family to another with great regularity.

One of those “regular” occurrences is family members reacting negatively when they feel like they’re being “pushed” to do things that they’d rather not do.

 

You’re Not the Boss of Me

When the relationships in a family business involve members of different generations, it’s common for the elder family members to be the “bosses” of those who are part of the rising generation.

In such instances, “telling” your direct reports what they should be doing is usually acceptable, but even then, a more subtle approach would often get better buy-in and results.

But when family members are siblings or cousins, i.e. members of the same generation, the “you’re not the boss of me” attitude is quite prevalent, even in cases where there exists an org chart somewhere that actually denotes that you ARE, in fact, the boss of me.

And that brings us to the idea that a nudge, or actually a series of nudges, is typically more effective than a shove.

The Matriarch Who Felt Shoved Out

I was recently talking to my coach about a client who recently resurfaced in my life after a chance encounter.

I shared with Melissa that “Nancy” wanted to work with me again and I mentioned that I’d see what I could accomplish with her, by nudging her to take a fresh perspective on her situation, now that she’s no longer involved in the business she once led.

My coach suggested that for this client, perhaps a shove would be more effective, and that got me thinking about this a bit more.

My “go to” move is nudging, and that can work well a lot of the time – until it doesn’t.

Newton’s Third Law All Over Again?

Maybe a nudge, and then another nudge, and another, is the way to go, as long as that works, but then sometimes you need to switch it up and try a shove.

In Nancy’s case, since she felt like she was shoved out of the business, only a shove will work to dislodge her from where she is now.

This is making me think of Newton’s third law of physics, and the “Equal and Opposite” reaction.

I guess we’ll see how it plays out in this case, but I think I’m likely to remain a “nudge first” kind of coach.

Too Many “Yes Men”

In Revealing a Family System to Itself a couple of weeks back, I finished the piece talking about how it’s easier for someone from outside the family to reveal things to family leaders, and here we are again.

People in top positions in a business, family or not, are often surrounded by folks who tell them what they want to hear, because of the self-preservation instinct.

Could it be that sometimes family members gently nudge and go no further, and then it becomes even more important for an outside coach to do the shoving?

Maybe that’s just part of the courage such outsiders need to have to earn the money that we charge.

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook

The nudge or shove discussion is reminding me of a great book I read a few years back, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, by Gary Vaynerchuk.

It’s about using social media for business development, and if I recall correctly, what “Gary Vee” was trying to get across was the importance of “giving” in small steps, repeatedly, before “asking”, which was the right hook.

My analogy here is that it makes sense to nudge, nudge, nudge, first, and then, if and when it’s necessary, you can always resort to a shove.

Before you earn the right to shove someone, you need to build up their trust in you first, and the best way to do that is with nudges.

Connection Is the Key

When you become a resource for people as they work to improve their lives, their businesses, and their families, it really helps when you first take the time to make a deep personal connection with them.

The expression “they don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care” is valid in most cases.

That’s true if you’re nudging, and especially if you plan on shoving.

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Peer organizations, both old and new, move the industry ahead in service of families

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Family Communication: A Work-in-Progress Marathon

It’s Never a “One and Done” Deal

The most important “new” ideas always take some time to sink in, so when family members start to think about an eventual transition of their business or wealth to the next generation, it’s normal for it to take a while to get everyone on board.

When we combine this idea with another important maxim of mine, i.e. “Family governance is the ultimate team sport”, it’s no wonder the metaphor of a marathon comes up when we discuss these topics.

I work hard to make sure that the content I create gets spread far and wide, because I think it ultimately makes a difference, if only to “one family at a time”.

I also do whatever possible to appear in whichever format I can, whether it be podcasts, webinars, or other speaking engagements, to augment the regular writing that I put out.

And sometimes things come back to me in interesting and useful ways, and we’ll now look at a recent such occurrence.

LinkedIn Keeps Us All Linked (In)

I’ll once again profess my love for LinkedIn as a platform for connecting people from around the globe who have common interests.

My social media team regularly posts my freshly-created content as well as a lot of “recycled” material, and because most of my stuff is “evergreen” it always strikes some readers as new.

In response to one recent such post, a woman from Asia shared some great feedback with me (Thanks MP!).

She noted that she had seen me on a webinar last summer for an firm based in Asia, and that had inspired her.

She then added that her father “is also slightly more open to the idea of governance after watching your interview a few months ago” in reference to something I did with a colleague from Africa.

She concluded her note with “It’s a work in progress” along with a smiley face emoji.  Wow. Allow me to try to break this all down.

Which Generation Takes the Lead?

The first worthwhile point I’ll share is that contrary to popular belief, it’s not always the leading generation that initiates important family discussions about the future, it’s often the rising generation, as it is in this case.

In fact, I much prefer to work with families when the younger folks are urging their senior generations to begin these key communications.

When the parents need to figure out how to share and engage with their offspring, the challenge is a bit different, and it can be more difficult to get everyone into it.

But when it’s a “bottom-up” scenario, where the younger ones are already quite interested, getting their parents to open up and start sharing also has its headwinds.

But either way, this doesn’t typically go very quickly.  And that’s OK too, in fact, that’s the best way to go about this.

Hurry to Start, So You Can Go Slow

As I prepared to write this blog, my social team happened to share a post that’s a simple quote of mine, and I think the timing was serendipitous.  

Here it is:

 

                         “There’s no rush, except … hurry up 

                 and get started so that you can then slow down 

                           and take your time to get it right”

 

The road is long and part of life’s long journey, especially since those from each generation of the family are on different parts of the arcs of their lives.

You need a long overlap of time where you work together, gradually shifting roles and responsibilities from the leading generation downwards.

Patience, Flexibility, Progress

Let’s get back to the idea of a “work-in-progress”.

What we’re talking about here definitely qualifies as “work”, hence another maxim of mine, “things don’t just happen all by themselves”.

The other keyword in that phrase is “progress” and that’s what you need to focus on.  “Look for progress, NOT perfection”, as I also like to reiterate.

This of course also means that there’s a premium on patience, because there will be many occasions where things don’t feel like they’re going as quickly as they should, for one generation or the other. That’s to be expected.

Things won’t go in a straight line either, so you need to be flexible and sometimes you’ll need to take one step back in order to take two forward.

Start the marathon, and enjoy it together.

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Revealing a Family System to Itself

Can You See What I See?

As someone who works with enterprising families as an outsider, there are naturally disadvantages to not being part of the inner circle, and a lot of work always goes into trying to play catch-up.

However, for every disadvantage there are always (yes, always, if you look hard enough) advantages too.

Some families hesitate to bring in outsiders for fear that they will not be able to offer much that will be of value.  

I beg to differ, and this week we’re going to look at one of the most important abilities that a skilled outsider can bring to a family.

Following Up on a Promise – Quickly

Last week in Hope – Not a Strategy, but a Strength I referenced a facilitation training program that I’d taken part in a few years ago, called ORSC (Organisational and Relationship Systems Coaching).

I really rushed through a key point because it wasn’t germane to that post, but noted a desire to deal with this sometime soon in another post.

Alas, here we are, it’s been burning at the back of my mind ever since and I need to get this done now, because in reality I cannot believe I haven’t yet shared this key learning.

Perhaps because it was ingrained so deeply I had forgotten to write about it, but here we are, let’s go.

A Family as a Relationship System

During the ORSC training, most people in my cohort worked mainly with organisations and groups of work colleagues, and these people were almost always NOT related by blood or marriage.

Whenever we did introductions and I noted my work with business families, eyebrows were raised, and I can’t help but think that some of my colleagues were happy to not have to switch places with me.

A family is indeed a relationship system, and it’s often much more complex than any system that’s simply employment-related.

A key learning from the training was just how much of a resource we could be as an outsider to any system, if we could help reveal the system to itself.

Because it took a while for me to absorb the full meaning of that statement when I was right in the middle of it, I’m going to assume that a bit of explanation and amplification would be welcome.

My Go-To Example: My Aquarium

When talking about systems theory with people I almost always talk about my aquarium as a ready example. 

The fish I love to watch swimming about do not know that they’re swimming in water, because they’re in it. Similarly, we breathe air but rarely think about it, until we dive into a pool and suddenly realize we crave the very air we took for granted.

Back to the aquarium, I, as an outsider, and, importantly as a curious observer, can see a lot of what’s going on, including many things that the fish don’t see.

Do We See First, Then Reveal?

You might think that a trained observer may be searching for clues about what’s going on within the system, and then reveal them for the benefit of those in the system, so that they can learn new things about their inter-relatedness.

While that does happen and is useful, much of what a skilled facilitator will do is work with members of a system in ways where the system members are discovering things about themselves and their relationships “live”, and the facilitator is learning these things at the same time.

It’s the outsider’s ability to act as an observer, one who’s not enmeshed in the system, that gives them the independence necessary to properly play this role.

When any group, especially a family, decides to have an important meeting that they plan to “self-facilitate” (i.e. a member of the system runs the meeting) I typically grimace and try to explain that their results will likely be sub-optimal.

Yes, I do realize that it can seem that I’m simply trying to sell my services when I do this, so I try to do this judiciously.

Great Value from New Perspectives

A trained outsider can offer new perspectives to those who are part of the system, and, I might add, will likely have an easier time revealing what they see to those on the inside.

You do recall what sometimes happened to “the messenger” in bygone days?

When it can be done via an activity where everyone has important revelations together, it’s even more powerful.

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Hope – Not a Strategy, But a Strength

It’s Never Sufficient, But Always Welcome

Writing a weekly blog comes with its challenges, but thanks to the many groups of people with whom I interact, I never seem to be at a loss for topics.

Some of my favourite occurrences are those where something comes up in one discussion, and that triggers something else from a few days earlier, only to be supplemented with something else later.

This kind of serendipity seems to be following me around lately, so I’m just going to run with it.

And so it was with the idea of “hope” and how its fits in in so many places.

Facilitation and Positive Psychology

It’s been over three years now since I completed the five courses that form part of the ORSC (Organisational and Relationship System Coaching) program, but thankfully our cohort does sometimes stay in touch (thanks MK).

As we commiserated recently over the difficulties some have had due to the pandemic, one colleague brought up a methodology they’d found and were enjoying that’s centered around hope.

That got me flashing back to one of the courses we’d done together where an instructor shared her “Two MAJOR Points” for facilitators who use the ORSC method.

The two keys for her were as follows:

  •                    Revealing the System to Itself
  •                    Staying Positive

I trust that readers will easily understand why I choose to equate “staying positive” with “hope”.

Indeed, anyone who facilitates discussions or activities with a group of people would do well to remain positive and hopeful, because failing that, your leadership can spiral downhill quickly.

(Note to self: cover “revealing the system to itself” in another post, soon)

 

My VIA Character Strengths “A-Ha” Moment

As we spoke about hope, at first I recalled the old expression that “Hope is NOT a Strategy”, which I first heard long ago, when I was focused on buying stocks low and selling them high.

It was pointed out to me that in order to cut your losses, you needed to have a plan to exit a position that happened to go south, because simply buying and holding, and “hoping” did not work very well as noted in the above maxim, so you needed to have some other strategy to deal with such situations.

But then I glanced down at my desk where I came across the printout of my most recent VIA Character Strengths survey, which I had done as part of the recent RendeZoom conference. See “What Color Is Your Cape?”

Wouldn’t you know it, right up in the No.4 spot of my personalized report was “Hope”.

So while hope is not a strategy, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a strength. And when you add it to the positivity that facilitators need to bring, this was starting to feel real to me.

 

Flashing Back Again

After the call with my ORSC colleagues, I thought back to the RendeZoom conference, which included a lot of occasions to work in small breakout groups within many of the sessions.

In one of those that had followed our keynote on positive psychology and the importance of focusing on strengths, I had shared with a few attendees that one of my strengths was hope, and I gave a recent, specific example of where it had helped me.

I related a recent mediation that I had led for a sibling group, which we finally completed with success.

I shared that one more than one occasion, one or two of the siblings were not feeling very confident that a resolution could be reached.

Despite the negative views, I forged on, sometimes reminding them that I remained “hopeful, if not confident” that we could come to something that they could all agree to. And we did.

 

“You’re Probably Right”

I’d be remiss if I didn’t use this opportunity to share one of my favourite expressions that I’ve loved since I first heard it decades ago.

 

                                        “Whether you think you CAN, 

                                              Or you think you CAN’T, 

                                                You’re probably right”

 

When working with families, especially those who are wading through some tough issues, providing hope and positivity will almost always be welcome, and even necessary.

There’s likely already enough negativity to work through, so as a resource being brought into a system from the outside, the least we can do is bring the hope for a positive resolution for the family.

I think I can, and I’m probably right.

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What Colour Is Your Cape?

Yet Another Inspiring Conference

My favourite conference of the year just wrapped up, and once again I was not disappointed. 

Of course it would have been much better if we could have met in person, but we really did get as much as we possibly could have out of the virtual format, thanks in large part to the wonderful spirit of collaboration and sharing that everyone brought in spades.

The Purposeful Planning Institute, a.k.a. my “tribe”, has been holding its annual Rendez-Vous for over a decade, although the ’20 and ’21 editions were converted to “RendeZoom” instead.

I first attended in ’14 and vowed to never miss it, and I feel more strongly about that today than ever.

Now, let’s get to the cape story.

Opening Keynote Sticks to the End

I always get so much out of the very interactive breakout sessions, because there are always things to learn from colleagues who share about the ways they work with families.

There are also plenary keynotes of course, and for me they’re all part of a great package, but rarely the highlight of conferences that I attend.

Well “rarely” is not the same as never, and the kickoff presentation from Dr. James Pawelski was the exception.

The Red Cape / Green Cape metaphor that he shared stuck with me through to the end of the conference, and I brought it up over and over in the many breakout sessions that followed.

There Are Too Many Red Ones Out There

The theme of this year’s RendeZoom was “Courageous Resilience”, and Pawelski is the Director of Education in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

I probably don’t need to explain the relevance that Positive Psychology has on resilience, nor why resilience was chosen as a theme for a conference for those who work to help families flourish, seeing as we continue to be constrained in how we live our lives.

Pawelski’s metaphor was all about the prevailing attitude we each bring to our work. The red cape is the one preferred by those who concentrate on stopping bad things from happening. The green cape is worn by those who prefer to work on making sure that good things happen.

When you think about the people that legacy families hire to help them transition all their wealth to the rising generation, far too many of them wear red capes.

I wear a green one.

How About a Two-Sided Cape?

Pawelski went on to note that he preferred a two-sided, or “reversible” cape, with red on one side, and green on the other. Clever.

I really liked that idea and then I tried it on and it didn’t feel like it suited me. 

You see, because so many of the other people who deal with the families I like to deal with are already wearing the red cape, I don’t feel like the reversible one is the one for me, since it would almost feel like I’m trying too hard to fit in.

I might even be tempted to wear it with the red side out so I could be accepted by them, only to secretly go home and strut about my neighbourhood showing my true colour, green.

Adult-to-Adult Relationships Are the Key

When you get right down to what’s required to transition a family’s wealth from one generation to the next, much of it comes down to fostering proper adult-to-adult relationships between the generations.

Too many of the red-cape-wearing experts concentrate on creating ways to stop the rising generation from “screwing up” the wealth, and many parents worry that their wealth with “screw up” their kids.

 As someone pointed out to me during the conference, the term “adult children” is an oxy-moron; they’re either adults or they’re children.

When you treat them as capable and put on your green cape and work with them to make good things happen, you’ll usually get much better results.

Filling Up My Pitcher

During our 3 days together, I shared with many colleagues that I love Rendez-Vous because it allows me to refill my pitcher.

For 51 weeks a year, I pour out whatever I share to too many people who still don’t get it.

And then I spend a few days with my PPI Tribe and fill it back to overflowing again.

Thanks again to everyone who worked on pulling it off, see you back in Denver in July 2022.

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Sibling Partnerships: Good, Bad, or Ugly

Examples of Each Type Abound

Anyone who has spent any time in the family enterprise world has surely encountered a variety of different versions of sibling partnerships.

Sometimes sibling groups come together and end up working so well together that people are rightfully impressed by the way they can combine into what appears to be a “1 + 1 + 1 = 10” arrangement. That’s good, and maybe even great.

Other times, things might start off on the right foot, but after some time, and typically after the previous generation has fully exited, they may be lucky to find themselves staying even, i.e., where 1 + 1 + 1 = 3.  If you were expecting at least a 5, then 3 feels pretty bad.

And of course when you read about disaster family business stories on the front page of the newspaper (remember those things?) well then it’s often more of a case of (1 + 1 + 1) X 0 = 0, or maybe even a negative number, or downright ugly.

Avoid Ugly, Strive for Good

I don’t want to spend too much time on the ugly version, except maybe to say that before things get ugly, they usually go through some “bad” on the way.

I’d rather share some ideas on what you want to look for when things begin to turn bad, and encourage folks to cut their losses well before they get to ugly.

Let’s talk about some examples of good, and look at what families are doing right, and concentrate on the positive.

I was recently privileged to serve on a committee charged with determining the winners of a competition that some family businesses have entered to choose an annual award winner to be announced this fall.

The three finalists all shared certain characteristics that made me think of this topic, and I think there are definitely some lessons worth sharing.

 

From Autocratic to Democratic Leadership

Family business literature typically talks about G1 being a one-person show, that hopefully moves on to a sibling partnership in G2, on the way to becoming a G3 “cousin consortium”.

The three FamBiz we judged were all past G2 and yet they were each currently involved in transitioning to a group of their offspring for the first time, since each of the past generational transitions were of the “father-to-one-son” variety.

Perhaps one of the secrets to FamBiz longevity is to avoid passing the company down to more than one child or branch (?)

The biggest change that occurs when going from one leader to a few is that autocratic decisions no longer typically work as well, and are usually not deemed acceptable by the other sibling partners.

Learning how to “make decisions together” is something I talk about a lot when discussing the importance of family governance.

 

Family Governance? Not Again!

“Oh boy, here he goes again”, I can almost hear some of you thinking. 

But once again discussing the three finalist business families we looked at, they had all been working on their family governance for at least a few years now, and each of them had done so with the help of at least one outside expert brought in specifically for that task.

If you are hoping for a “good” sibling partnership, one key is to begin working on your family governance, so that it has a chance to evolve while both generations are still involved.

While each generation learns how to deal with the transitions involved in moving from one to the next, the siblings in the rising generation also learn how to work together effectively, or at least that’s what’s hoped for.

 

Avoiding Bad Before It Gets Ugly

The key to avoiding ugly is to be able to recognize a situation that has a likelihood of turning bad. 

Sometimes families recognize that certain siblings will not likely mix well in a business context, and so they transition to one of their offspring and find other ways to treat the others. That’s one way to avoid “bad”.

But once a sibling partnership exists, as soon as things start to get sticky, there’s still a chance to avoid “ugly”, but it almost always involves getting some outside help to allow the important conversations to happen in a productive way.

See Getting Legal Advice for your FamBiz vs. Lawyering Up for more on ways to react before things get too far out of hand.

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The “Family HUG” We’re All Looking For

Most Enterprising Families Want the Same Things

I love it when a positive blog topic lands in my lap out of the blue, especially when it falls on the heels of recent “negative” posts, like last week’s, Avoiding Adversarial Relationships in Your Enterprising Family.

When I say “out of the blue”, I mean that I was simply jotting down some notes during a discussion, and then had an “A-Ha!” moment where something hit me, and I knew I was onto something for an upcoming weekly missive.

The context was a course given as part of the FFI GEN program (Family Firm Institute – Global Education Network) for which I serve as one of the instructors. 

I was invited to join the faculty in 2019 and readily accepted, becoming part of the GEN 502 team, for the “Family Governance” course.

We All Learn from All of Us

Some of the things I love about FFI are the fact that it truly is global, with members in dozens of countries, from 6 continents, and the fact that there are so many experienced practitioners who are members, and we all learn from each other in every course.

Since GEN 502 is one of the more advanced courses, the students all have at least some real world experience, and so whatever they share with the group (whether in the online discussion board that the instructor monitors over the quarter, or in the capstone webinar) is for the benefit of everyone.

It was during one participant’s concluding thoughts during our webinar that I heard an innocent comment, but that I captured in a novel way.

Harmony, Unity, and Growth

She stated what every family wants, i.e.  “They all want family harmony, family unity, and growth of the business”. (Thanks, LM).

I jotted down, as a list, the following:

 

Harmony

Unity

Growth

 

Ta-dah!  I could not argue with her premise, and, as she happened to put it, she gave me a “family hug” to write about.

Usually when a great blog idea comes to me during a discussion I’m involved in, I share it on the spot with the person who sparked it, thanking them for the idea, but this time the context did not lend itself to that, so I kept it to myself.

So in some ways I’ve been dying to share this even more.

OK, That’s What They Want. How Do They GET It?

Anyone who has spent time with people who lead business families will agree that just about every family has these same three wishes.

Let’s dispense with the “growth” part first, as it’s a bit different, since it typically revolves more around the business or the wealth, as opposed to harmony and unity which are more about the family.

Actually, the growth is ultimately about the family as well, because the family will also grow, even exponentially over coming generations, and deep down there’s a fear that if the business’ growth doesn’t keep pace, that will impact the family negatively at some point.

But even though growth is important, it can always be worked on by all the management and employees, while harmony and unity are a family concern.

So how do you ensure harmony and unity?

Family Governance to the Rescue

Given the fact that a course on family governance was the genesis of this post, you won’t be surprised that my answer also lies in how a family governs itself.

Family governance, in turn, is all about communicating and learning how to make decisions together. 

These things don’t always come naturally to families, and so they need to work on them, sooner rather than later, in order to work out the kinks.

The ways that families come together and meet to discuss important topics need to be co-created and developed over time, by the family.

It isn’t exactly natural though, so many families get expert help, from people who have already played similar roles for other families.

Nothing Important Happens by Itself!

Of course no two families are the same, and so you can’t just use a cookie cutter and copy another family’s governance either.

Such trusted outsiders do exist, and the good ones will play whatever role the situation requires, from project manager to quarterback, from implementer to consigliere, and from facilitator to mediator.

But it will take time and effort, from many members of the family too, because nothing important happens by itself.

Hopefully, you’ll also end up with plenty of hugs too!

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Avoiding Adversarial Relationships in your Enterprising Family

Green and Yellow Are OK; Red? Lookout!

Having recently been involved as an advisor and mediator with some families where the relationships could hardly be described as harmonious, this week I want to talk about how important it is to try to keep such situations under control, and not allow them to boil over.

I’ve written about aspects of this before, so there will be a few links to previous posts along the way.

In 2017, with Yellow Light Family – Proceed with Caution we looked at the “family dynamics axis” of a model that places families in a particular zone based on traffic lights, with which most people can readily identify.

Green light families are great to work with; when the light turns yellow, there are a few more challenges that many advisors with some experience can often help families overcome, but when the light turns red, all bets are off and many advisors prefer to head for the hills.

 

Kissing Your Proverbial Sister for Real

A couple of years later, in Kissing your Sister – Playing for a Tie in FamBiz, I shared this quote from a slide I’d seen during a presentation on Family Governance:

                         A General Family Business Precept:

 

                       In a Family, if you play to Win, you Lose;

                       In a Family, if you play to Lose, you Lose;

                       In a Family, if you play to Tie, you Win

 

                        Richard Goldwater, MD; Boston, MA

 

I found that so perfectly appropriate for most family enterprise situations that I just had to share it.

 

A few weeks ago, I wrote Getting Legal Advice for your FamBiz vs. Lawyering Up.  In that post, I shared learnings from some recent work I was in the middle of, where I saw my role and my goal as keeping the siblings from instituting any legal proceedings against each other.

 

FWIW, up until now, I’ve been successful.  But things still feel more “adversarial” than I’d like.

 

 

Letting Things Cool Down

For some reason the word “adversarial” came to mind recently as I pondered how to approach this blog.

As I sometimes do, let’s see what comes up when I Google the word:

          “involving people opposing or disagreeing with each other”

Hmmm, I was really only considering the “opposing” part, and not the simpler “disagreeing” aspect.

When people work together, disagreements often come up, it’s only natural, and we need to learn to be able to work through them.

One expression around this that I love has to do with learning to “disagree without being disagreeable”, and that’s something I’m often called on to do when working with family members.

 

When Opposing Viewpoints Create Opponents

Situations that cause more opposing viewpoints often revolve around a Zero-Sum game, where everything one person gains is at the expense of someone else.

The greenlight families noted above typically involve businesses where things are already going well and they are expected to keep going and even improve.  

When you’re making a bigger proverbial pie, the fight over who gets which slice takes a back seat.

Whenever a family limits its view to what’s already there, and there’s no plan on increasing what’s available for all to share, the chances of adversaries taking up sides increases.

Can you find ways to make it about more than what everyone can already see?  Sometimes you need to expand what you are looking to accomplish and consider some intangibles instead.

 

Many Kinds of Wealth and Capital

This brings us to some of my other favourite topics, examining what wealth and capital really are.

Too many families, and their professional advisors, seem to believe that financial wealth is by far the most important consideration for every family.

While the financial wealth is certainly not something to ignore, families who also work on their social capital and human capital actually have a better chance of success with all forms of capital.

Earlier in my career, I was managing financial wealth on a daily basis, with one eye on my computer screen and the other on CNBC. (No, I don’t miss those days.)

One market guru, whose name I’ve forgotten, used to talk about the two kinds of capital: financial and emotional. He was reminding his fans not to overspend their emotional capital, because it is a limited resource.

Families fighting over money end up wasting lots of time and energy dealing with negative situations, to the point of exhaustion or breakdowns. It’s just not healthy.

 

Were They Always Adversaries?

If family members are currently adversaries, I like to ask if they were always this way, or if there was a time in their lives when they were more cooperative and working towards common goals.

What changed?  Can they go back?  

Burying the hatchet can be good for the soul. I encourage it.

 

 

 

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