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Why Set Up a Family Office

Plenty of Reasons to Make Such a Move

What used to be an obscure corner of the world of wealthy families has begun to go more mainstream over the past decade or so.

Whereas the term “family office” has existed for a long time, it used to elicit raised eyebrows of confusion, which nowadays have given way to nodding heads instead.

In many cases the confusion remains, but more people have heard the term and hence think that they know what someone is referring to when they hear it used.

Let’s dive in and look more deeply at this, from the perspective of the family who should be at the center of any family office, rather than the view of the professionals who work for such enterprises.

“If You’ve Seen One Family Office….”

Confusion about the family office space is compounded by the fact that no two family offices are alike, nor should they be.

They exist to serve a family, and every family is different and therefore has different needs, plus these needs evolve and change over time, meaning that they’re in a regular state of flux (or at least they should be).

This topic could take up an entire book (and it has) and I’m trying to hit a sliver of it in a blog post, so let’s get to the question in the title, “Why would a family even consider setting up a family office?”

On Inflection Points, Evolution, and Leadership

I’ve written on this subject before, notably in Putting the Family in the Family Office, for my site, as well as for other websites, for example, Don’t Forget the Family at the Family Office.

For a family to suddenly decide it needs a family office, there’s usually a catalyst, and the most frequent one is a liquidity event. 

For readers unfamiliar with that term, think about a family that owns a business worth $100 million one day, but then sells it and suddenly has $100 million of “liquid assets” instead.

Such a family suddenly has a new set of priorities and needs, and a family office can be the ideal way to address those.

Other families create a family office when they reach various inflection points as they evolve, often when there’s new leadership in the family, thanks to a generational transition.

But let’s never forget that the family’s needs should be driving everything (although this is often the exception rather than the rule).

After the Why – When, Where, Who and How

The Why and the When are typically connected, as the event kicks things into motion, bringing up other questions.

I laugh when I see articles about the best places in the world to set up a family office, focused on jurisdictions that are advantageous for tax and investment reasons.

Regular readers know my penchant for focusing on the family’s human capital over its financial capital.

The Where may become a factor as things evolve, but is rarely a huge concern at inception, unless there are billions of dollars involved.

The main questions I suggest families focus on are all about Who and How.

Don’t Forget the Family!

I’m a firm believer in having some family members involved at some level, because the family office will be responsible for a huge amount of the family’s net worth, and like any family business, the owners can and should play an important role.

If no family member is qualified to play the top investment role or handle other important executive functions, it becomes paramount for someone from the family to at least become quite conversant and comfortable with these subjects.

There’s certainly at least an oversight role that needs to remain in the hands of competent family members.

One Person at a Time: Grow with the Flow

One of the most important parts of the How is the question of timing.

I almost always advocate for a “go slow” approach, because you really want to get the culture right.

Hiring a person and making sure they’re the right fit takes time, and when you set up a family office, you’re truly playing the long game.

You need to find competent people to fill the roles that you can’t handle within the family.

When you add more people, you want to make sure they all fit well together too, and that’s not something to rush through either.

And since they’ll all be serving your family, you’ll want more than one family member involved in the selection process too, maybe several.

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Transition of Wealth

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Serving Exceptional Families – Proceed Slowly

Not Every Family Needs “Full Service”

The past couple of weeks we’ve been looking at “connecting” with members of client families and then matching the solutions we have to these families.

All this made me consider one of the biggest questions that people often have for me when they learn about the kind of work I do.

The questions come in a variety of forms, but generally boil down to this: “Who ARE these families that actually do all of this governance stuff?”, along with “where do you find them?”.

If you stopped 100 random people on the street, you likely wouldn’t meet any people from such families, and very few would even have a personal connection to one.

However, if you shared the names of families who continually work on their governance, those names would be recognizable to most.

Are We “Exceptional”; Do We Even Want to Be?

Not every family is destined to be exceptional, and many don’t envision themselves as such either. 

For some families, just imagining themselves in this way is actually unnatural and even abhorrent.

Too often, though, professionals who serve families who’ve achieved a certain level of wealth creation begin to make assumptions about what these families should be doing to preserve that wealth.

Well crafted strategies to minimize taxes and keep financial wealth protected have become the go-to starting point for such families, because a whole industry of professionals exists to take care of these issues.

I’m always wary of situations where the tail ends up wagging the proverbial dog, and for me the “dog” is the family.

I prefer to help the family figure out what makes it exceptional and then plan for ways to grow and preserve that.

Once the family has set those priorities, by all means then let’s get the professionals involved to figure out the best strategies to employ to help accomplish that.

Many Varieties and Versions, and Ways to Make Progress

Some families will have an operating business that they wish to preserve, and finding ways to ensure that it continues to evolve and thrive with the economy, while still being owned by the family, might be their focus.

Others may have had a liquidity event, and are now searching for new opportunities, either through direct investing or philanthropy, or both, and incorporating the rising generation of their family into those projects will take center stage.

Still others may be searching for ways to recreate the entrepreneurial spirit and create a “family bank” that will allow their offspring and all of their human capital to thrive in their own ways.

There are so many possibilities, and the path chosen will vary from one family to the next.

No Two the Same = All ARE Exceptional

And because no two families are the same, they ‘re each potentially exceptional in their own right.

Too often, as advisors, we want to show how smart we are and we rush to get the family moving on our pet project for them, and that where we may be doing them a disservice, hurrying them into action.

A family is a system of many moving parts, and it takes time to engage all of those people properly, to the point where they even understand and believe that there may be a “family project” that will arise from the financial resources that have been created, by previous generation(s) of their family.

Vision, Mission, and Values Work

Some colleagues reading this will nod their heads and agree that helping the family identify its values and then figure out a vision and mission are great first steps, and in many ways I agree with them.

I’m advocating for more basic connection work in advance of those specific projects, which then become more clear with time. 

Discovery work with such families can take months before recognizing where we should actually begin to co-create a family project together.

Yes, the values need to be surfaced at some point, typically early on. But then the mission and vision need to be carefully considered in the context of where the family is now, and what its capacity is to undertake its first steps together in new ways.

An Iterative Process, More Journey than Destination

We’re talking about a family journey over the coming decades together, so there should be no rush to complete the plan in days or weeks.

It should be an iterative process; more about a journey than a destination.

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Striving for the “All AND Nothing” Inheritance

Striving for the “All AND Nothing” Inheritance

So Much Better Than “All OR Nothing”

I’ve written around 500 blogs over the past decade, and sometimes I convince myself that I’ve shared all the gems I’ve ever heard, somewhere along the way.

And sometimes I find out I’ve missed some.

This past week, I was invited to be a guest on a podcast, and the host asked me for three to five things that all parents strive for as they imagine the inheritance they will leave.

I quickly recalled a nice blog post that dealt with three of them, The “Family HUG” We’re All Looking For, and then began to wonder which two others I could suggest as a good complement to those.

“Oh, I know”, I thought to myself, “let me find that blog about David York’s ‘All or Nothing’ concept!”.

As you may’ve guessed, I realized that I’ve yet to write that one, even though this nugget goes back a couple of years for me.

So, belatedly, here we go.

A Familiar Resource Once Again

Maybe it’s because I’ve shared York’s wisdom before, notably here: Great Expectations in Enterprising Families and Family Wealth Dynamite: One Stick or Two?, among others.

The “One or Stick Two” part of the dynamite one was probably what fooled me into thinking I’d already shared this week’s take-home message here.

Nevertheless, when you know of a thought leader like York, who shares good stuff regularly (and not just the same stuff over and over again), you know that you have someone worth paying continued attention to.

Just make sure you credit them for their ideas, and don’t try to claim them as your own; because this is a relatively small world, .

So, after all this build-up, I must be building up to something worthwhile, right?

They Can Handle It All

The first half of York’s two-part inheritance scenario is familiar to many.

Parents who have accumulated significant wealth will often worry about the capacity of their heirs to “handle” everything that they might possibly inherit.

As I wrote here, in Who Messes Up What, Or What Ruins Whom, they don’t want their offspring to screw up the wealth, and they also don’t want the wealth to screw up their family members.

Many professionals who advise such families have heard these concerns ad nauseam, to the point where an entire industry has sprung up to provide hundreds of structural “solutions” to this dilemma.

However, according to York (and other enlightened advisors), these parents should be working towards making sure that they have raised their offspring to be able to handle all of their wealth.

Wouldn’t it be nice to know that after you’re gone, the wealth you leave your heirs will be well taken care of, because you raised them to be capable stewards?

Sounds Great. Okay, What’s Part 2?

And, if you do prepare your offspring to be able to handle the wealth that you plan to leave them, there’s actually an important side effect.

Chances are good that those who’ve been raised this way would actually also do just fine if ever you decided to leave them nothing.

That’s the second part of this, in case you hadn’t already guessed it.

Everyone thinks wealth is all about the money, but it’s really all about the people. Wealth comes and goes, sometimes remarkably quickly, in families.

The difference is rarely about the size of the pile, it’s more about the people entrusted to look after it.

Preparing Them for Either Scenario Is the Same

What if you did leave them nothing?

Let’s be clear, this is not a suggestion that you not leave anything to your heirs, that’s not it at all.

People do that for various reasons, and some famous ultra-wealthy people have publicly stated their plans to leave modest sums to their progeny. That’s a whole other discussion, perhaps for another post.

My point is that raising your offspring to be self-sufficient and independent is something everyone should strive for, regardless of how much financial wealth is at stake.

If they’re prepared to receive nothing, they’ll also likely be prepared to handle everything.

Which One Should You Aim For?

This is a bit of a “chicken and egg” question, which makes it intriguing.

If you have significant wealth, being concerned that it’ll be too much to handle is normal, so parents sometimes resort to warning their children that they’ll get nothing.

Preparing them for nothing AND for everything will probably work out better.

Either that or preparing them for everything AND nothing.

Go for AND, not OR.

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No Room for Judgement When Working with Families

Coaching and Podcasting Combine for Lessons

Ideas for these blog topics come from anywhere and everywhere for me, and often they just seem to combine thoughts from one part of my life with something from a very different sphere.

And so once again I’ll write about how some seemingly random discussions have come together for me in a way that allows me to share ideas that can be useful to families and those who advise them.

Regular readers will likely be familiar with the fact that I’ve done coach training and certification, that I’m a huge fan of the Purposeful Planning Institute (PPI), and that I have also been on a number of podcasts, on both sides of the mic.

All of these will come together this week in this piece.

Listening Without Judgement Is Where It Begins

Whenever people ask me about the coaching training that I did years ago with CTI, I almost always end up sharing the importance of listening without judgement, because that’s one of the two main takeaways from that whole training. 

(The other is “being with”, for the record.)

Of course knowing that you need to listen without judgement and being able to actually do it does require a LOT of practice, but that’s a whole other post. 

(Perhaps Skills vs. Knowledge in Family Enterprises?)

Being able to listen to someone speak, while suspending your own personal judgement about what you are hearing, is not as easy as it might sound, and for some people it’s almost impossible.

But if you want to be a resource for people who work with their family members, or who own assets together with their siblings, you won’t get far without that ability.

It’s Much More Than Just Listening

At first I really only thought about the listening aspect, but I had a recent A-Ha moment that put this subject back on my radar.

During one of the recent weekly Tuesday Thought Leader webinars hosted by PPI, the guests were Sandi Bragar and Cammie Doder, who co-host a podcast called Money Tales, where they interview guests about the role that money has played in their lives.

Having been one of their guests, I joined this webinar with added interest.

During the webinar, Sandi noted that it was important not to judge people as you interview them, and I naturally thought to myself “yeah, listening without judgement strikes again”, but then it hit me.

They’re interviewing people, so they aren’t only listening, they’re also asking!

Asking Without Judgement

So many of our conversations contain questions and answers, therefore much of the listening we do comes in response to our questions.

As you work with people with the goal of helping them through situations, you need to ask about a lot of subjects. 

If you want to truly understand someone, which is pretty useful when you are trying to make their lives better in some way, it’s kind of important for you to get their true thoughts.

It should not surprise you that I think that what you ask them, and perhaps even more importantly how you ask them, can be pretty important.

Of course as mentioned last week in Yes, AND… Don’t Neglect the Follow-Through there is no magical “secret list of questions”

And even if there were, you need to know how to ask them (without judgement).

Being Curious for All It’s Worth

The good news is that once you realize how key it is to park your judgement at the door, it actually gets easier with practice.

Engaging and flexing your curiosity muscles can also be a big help, and if you truly want to be a trusted resource to a family, you really should be curious about what makes them tick.

Of course simply being curious doesn’t necessarily force you to ask less judgemental questions, it could actually take you even further in the wrong direction if you get too “inquisitive”.

I’m flashing back to when my kids were young and I can hear my son objecting to my dirty look with “What? I was only asking her a question” after an exchange with his sister.

Judgemental Family Members Are the Norm

It’s actually quite normal for the members of a family to judge each other; many have been doing it for decades.

We can’t expect them to change much after getting so much practice.

And that’s an even better reason why we, as the outsider, need to offer them something different.

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Kintsugi for your Business Family

If it Ain’t Broke, Break It?

One place I turn for information and inspiration in my professional world is LinkedIn.  I find so much useful content and plenty of blog ideas there every week.

I’ve also “met” some great new colleagues there over the years, many of whom I’ve yet to actually meet in person, but most of whom I have met over Zoom.

Recently I saw a video by a local family business leader who, along with his daughter, shared some ways they were adapting to the reality of this pandemic-stricken world.

One of the take-away messages they shared was around the ancient Japanese art of Kintsugi, resulting in an A-Ha moment for me, and the impetus for this post.

 

There It Is, Again

The Kintsugi angle was already on my radar, but due to sloppy note-taking on my part, I don’t recall where I was first exposed to it.

When I saw that video, I quickly made a note this time, to properly contextualize my blog about it. I also took it as a sign that this post was now due to be created.

Regular readers may recall that I’ve been inspired by something from Japan before, having shared Ikigai: A “Four-Circle Model” of Human Capital in 2019.

So what is Kintsugi?

You’ve likely seen some version of it before without realizing that it’s a style of art, from Japan, where a pot, dish, or bowl is broken into pieces and then reassembled.

The art is in the way it’s put back together, with glue-like substances, enhanced with gold or some other “fancy” elements.

The result is a reassembled piece, which is now more beautiful and special than the original.

 

And the Family Business Angle Is…?

Of course there’s also a resilience angle here, which is quite topical thanks to the lingering pandemic.

Almost everyone has faced, or continues to face, some sort of breakdown, and it’s important to normalize that.

Additionally, we need to realize that after a challenge, it is possible to emerge stronger and more beautiful than before.

There are also some other business family angles I’ve thought of that could fit into the Kintsugi metaphor.

Some may seem to be a stretch, and that’s OK too; I’ll just use a bit more of that “golden glue” on those to make them work.

 

Family Members Aren’t All Equal

We all know that family members are not equal, as each person has their own strengths and desires, making each one’s contributions unique.

There are often some who experience challenges in life, which may be completely involuntary or for which they are mostly to blame.

Regardless, they remain members of the family, even if they might be slightly “broken”.

One of the strengths of some business families is that they have an uncanny ability to help those “broken” family members, and even put them back together and make them stronger, finding ways to make them contributing members of the group.

 

Family Narrative with All the Warts

Another place where I think Kintsugi might apply is in the family narrative.

Story-telling seems to be all the rage now, and creating and sharing the “family narrative” has become a valuable exercise for many families.

It’s crucial to share the failures and recoveries, not just the successes, when sharing the story of the family’s path to their current status.

For more on this, please have a listen to this podcast I recently hosted. The Family Business Myth and the Hero’s Journey

 

The FamBiz Wind-Down or Wind-Up

I’ve got one more possible business family Kintsugi metaphor to share, and it involves situations where the family business that created the wealth is no longer part of the picture.

When a family business is sold, and there’s a “liquidity event”, the family can sometimes struggle to define reasons for them to stay together to continue to manage their wealth and assets.

I’m picturing the business as the pot or vase that was broken, and the family’s work to create ways and reasons to stay together as the gluing things back together in a stronger and more beautiful way.

 

Kintsugi as a Team Sport?

I used the word “create” above, and perhaps I should have used “co-create” instead.

Business family continuity is truly a team sport, and it must involve a number of people if there is any chance of it “sticking” on an intergenerational basis.

The more people involved in piecing it together, the better it will work, and look. It truly is an art.

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Lessons from SG-FECC 2021 – The Kids Are Alright

University of Vermont Case Competition

Every January for the last several years, the college town of Burlington Vermont has become the center of attention for people from around the globe.

Okay, so maybe it isn’t (yet) a worldwide phenomenon, but, for students learning about Family Enterprise, this is the one place that hosts the annual Schlesinger Global Family Enterprise Case Competition (SG-FECC).

The University of Vermont (UVM) has been doing this for a few years (this was the 8th edition) and they have it down to a science.

This year it was held virtually, for reasons that don’t require much explanation, and that could have caused all sorts of challenges (and likely did) but you never would’ve noticed.

 

An Impressive Bunch of Young Leaders

The second part of my title references a movie featuring one of my favourite rock bands of my childhood, The Who, so perhaps I’m dating myself here.

But I really wanted to properly frame the “A-Ha moment” that I had this year, similar to the one I’ve had every time I’ve participated as a judge. If I’m not mistaken, this was my 6th time.

You may think that I’m talking about the competitors, who come from schools all over the world, every year.  And you’d be right, the students who compete in the Case Competition have impressed me every year.

 

It’s really nice to see the social aspect of the competition when it’s done in person, noticing that some of these undergraduate and graduate students are seeing snow for the first time in their lives.

 

A Huge Volunteer Undertaking by UVM Students

But it’s much bigger than just the competitors, it’s the entire organizing committee, which is composed of a few dozen students, who take care of everything from A to Z.

Yes, they are led by a few paid “adults” who work for UVM in various capacities, all of whom fall under the watchful eye of the brainchild and fearless leader of this project since Day 1, Pramodita Sharma.

But what impresses me every year is just how mature, competent, professional and diligent these young people are, and what they’re able to pull off, with only minimal supervision.

What they do have is structure and people who have done the job in previous years.

Come to think of it, this is a lot like many family businesses, and that’s where we’ll turn now.

 

Motivated and Aligned Young People

The young people of today, who many label as Generation Z, are so impressive to me, in so many ways.

I know that many business families can be hesitant to incorporate these youngsters into important roles, but from my vantage point, many of them are way more ready than the young 20-somethings of decades past.

They also benefit from having grown up with the latest technology, and with school systems that do a much better job of giving them practice at working together on projects from a young age.

Many also seem to be much better than their elders at harnessing the collective wisdom of the groups to which they belong.

They typically have plenty of motivation, so if you already have some structure and some vision, they can often handle way more than you might expect. 

 

Great Examples Abound

The recent Presidential Inauguration gave us another great display, as Amanda Gorman, a 22-year-old Poet Laureate knocked my socks off with her poem.

My own kids are 19 and 21, and I see so much promise in them and their friends too.  I see it in my clients’ rising generations and at SG-FECC every year too.

With the recent passing of Hank Aaron, I happened to hear his Baseball Hall of Fame speech, in which he said “A man’s ability is limited only by his lack of opportunity”. 

Amen.

 

Many Winners, Especially Wilfrid-Laurier and ESADE

There were many winners at SG-FECC this year, especially those from Wilfrid-Laurier University (Canada), who won the undergraduate competition, and ESADE (Spain) who took top spot in the graduate category.

I look forward to being back in Burlington for the next “in person” version, whenever that is possible.

Meantime, like so many other areas of life these past few months, we’re all adapting and realizing how much we can all still accomplish even in these sub-optimal conditions.

And with these promising young people taking on bigger roles all the time, the future is bright.

 

 

 

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Family Governance, More than a Modus Operandi

Communicating and Making Decisions Together

One of the topics I return to most frequently in this space is family governance. 

There are a few reasons for that, including the fact that it’s a really important part of why some families have been successful at transitioning their wealth through generations, as well as the fact that it remains pretty much a misunderstood area for families who simply aren’t there yet.

As I look back at how I’ve treated this subject in the past, I was happy to come across this blog from 2017, Old MacDonald Had Family Governance (E-I-E-I-O).

Those vowels from the children’s song happened to line up nicely with some adjectives I’d been thinking about when considering family governance.

 

Things a Family Needs to DO Together

So much talk about family governance surrounds the things that the family needs to do together. In a sense, they’re about creating a “modus operandi” for the family.

I need to give a tip of the hat to Walid Chiniara for this idea, as his recent book, Dynastic Planning is where the seed for this blog post was planted a few weeks ago.

Of course there is much that any family needs to learn to do together that becomes the foundation of their governance.

From communicating and decision-making to creating forums and learning to solve problems together, there’s always more that needs to be done.

 

Method, protocol 

When I went to Shutterstock to search for an image to accompany this post and I entered “modus operandi”, I got a couple of hits with those exact words, but also some other suggestions that made me think.

The two that stood out to me were “method” and “protocol”, which might be some ways to keep in mind as your family (or your client family) works to establish the ways that they are going to do things together, as they prepare for the family’s wealth to eventually transition to the next generation.

But of course the title of this post promised that there’s much more to family governance than a modus operandi, and so this is where I want to turn to now.

And this is where Chiniara’s inspiration from that book truly kicks in.

 

The Way a Family Needs to BE Together

I feel like I’ve been over this territory a lot, but it’s so important that it bears repeating nonetheless.

This “territory” is the distinction between “doing” and “being”.

It’s as basic as the difference between asking a child “what do you want to be when you grow up” as opposed to “what to do you want to do”.

And yes, I do realize that the two are very much intertwined, so for many people it may be a distinction without much difference.

But in the family governance realm, the way a family learns to be together is something that’s always worth working on.

 

Informal Family Governance

So much of what ends up driving a family’s governance is actually very informal, especially when a family is still figuring all this stuff out.

Before the “protocols” and the “methods” actually get formalized, most families more or less fly by the seat of their pants for a while, and that’s perfectly fine in the early stages.

And whereas the formal part becomes a “modus operandi”, the informal part is much more of a “modus vivendi”.  (Thanks Walid)

Vivendi translates to “of living”, and it’s all about how the family members learn how to live together and be together, when working on their governance.

Of course when you Google “modus vivendi” the top hits will direct you to an underwear brand that uses that name; I guess it is a pretty clever name for that intimate layer of clothing.

 

Practice, Practice, Practice

To reprise the punchline from the joke about “how do you get to Carnegie Hall?” the answer here is also “Practice, practice, practice”.

Family members who will be expected to work together to make decisions for the good of the family in the future need to practice working together and making decisions together before they get thrust into situations of real importance.

The longer the runway, the better.  Let the elders step aside and watch how their offspring actually act and behave as they plan and execute on events and ideas together.

The modus vivendi they co-create will become the foundation required to support the eventual wealth transition you’re striving for.

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Sandwich Generation Challenges in Legacy Families

Yet Another Label for Generations

This week we’re looking at the challenges faced by one particular generation in many families. 

While we’ve previously discussed topics related to the “rising generation” in a family (a.k.a. NextGen) and on the leading or senior generation (a.k.a. NowGen), we’re going for something a bit different this time.

Most people are familiar with the term “Sandwich Generation”, based on the everyday challenges people in this position face no matter which socio-economic strata they inhabit.

I want to examine some of the special aspects of being in such a situation in an enterprising (a.k.a. affluent) family.

 

The Meat in the Sandwich

The term “sandwich generation” comes from being caught in between two other generations, much like the meat in a sandwich.

With increasing life expectancy, combined with couples having children later, more and more people in their 40’s and 50’s find themselves in this unenviable position.

Their offspring still rely on them and they’re rightly concerned with that following generation properly launching into independent adulthood.

Meanwhile, their parents have reached a stage in their lives where they also require care and attention.

This segment of the lives of the sandwich folks also happens to overlap with the most important years in their careers, and thus their work responsibilities, only adding to the challenges.

 

Patience Has Its Limits

A few months back, in On Patience and Impatience in Family Transitions, I wrote the following:

“The two (or three) generations need to take their time and incrementally move decisions and actions from the NowGen to the NextGen.  

 

That might sound like a very simple thing to do, but in reality it’s quite difficult.

This came home to me recently when my social media team put a podcast interview I’d done a while ago back into circulation.

On a 2018 episode of The True Wealth Project Podcast, which I recently re-listened to, I was personally stumped by a question about my own personal legacy planning vis-à-vis my children.

 

One Generation at a Time

The host asking me about my own family brought home the realization that I myself was one of these sandwich dwellers, and I knew that I was not alone.

In fact, when I wrote “The two (or three) generations” in that previous post, it should have been clear already.

Perhaps when I had written that, where the context was a family who were actively working on clarifying their legacy so that it would be successfully passed down, I was assuming that the generation in the middle would see themselves as part of the process and therefore not an afterthought.

But as I reflect on this, I can’t help but think that people in this position really need complete clarity of what is coming to them before they can think about how they’re going to eventually leave it to their offspring.

 

When Will Things Be Clear?

As I write these words and process them at the same time, it’s dawning on me that I’ve been confounding two separate issues: timing and clarity.

Last week, when I wrote How to ACE your FamBiz Succession Planning the “C” in ACE stood for “Clarity”, so I was unintentionally foreshadowing this point a week in advance.

But things don’t necessarily have to have already happened for them to be clear.

Perhaps the fact that I married into a family with little clarity has affected my view on this topic.

Don’t Wait for the Triggering Event to Ask Questions

Some families just never talk about things that are in fact inevitable, such as the eventual death of one of the family elders. 

They don’t want to talk about such subjects because they don’t want to be disrespectful or seem like they are rooting for something to occur in the near term.

Meantime, any planning for the future gets put on the back burner, because of the lack of clarity mentioned above.

Somewhere in a legal document lie the answers to many of the questions that are on the minds of many family members.

But nobody wants to ask the questions.

 

Coach, Coach Thyself

Every family is different, and some members are more comfortable in rocking the boat and bringing up uncomfortable subjects.

The expression “physician, heal thyself” comes to mind now, for me.

I’m not a doctor, but I am a coach, and maybe I need to think of myself as a coaching client and see if there are any ideas I might want to be pursuing myself, as I search for some clarity. 

Or maybe not.

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What Are We FOR as a Family

What Are We FOR as a Family

Let’s Point in the Right Direction

It can often be way too easy to concentrate on things we don’t want, and some personality types are really good at finding fault and complaining.

While strictly speaking the negative and positive are simply two different sides of the same coin, I find that accentuating the positive can make a huge difference. 

This is true with individuals, but especially with groups of people.

Families who are trying to find ways to continue to work together over the long haul, i.e. into the next generation (and beyond) would do well to heed this advice.

 

Reframing to the Positive Angle 

Of course it’s fine to talk about what we don’t want, for a time, because sometimes that’s actually much more clear.

Eventually, as you work with someone who is looking to grow, improve, or change in some way, you need to focus on what they do want, and what they need to do to get that.

And as I mentioned, with a group, this takes on an even more important role.

Negativity can be contagious, and if a group of people are supposed to be working towards a common goal, one nay-sayer can quickly enroll others and creating positive momentum will become more of a challenge.

 

Start with One Person

The good news here is that it really can all start with one person.  

A family’s values or vision begins by asking each person to share their own values and vision, and then working with the group to try to shape some consensus on common vision and values that they can all agree on and get behind.

When things bog down, either in such exercises or other scenarios involving a family working towards some common goal, the way through is typically achieved when someone feels strongly enough to verbalize some strong feelings.

The leadership that such a family must exhibit almost always channels some positive view of what they see FOR the family, as opposed to what they don’t want.

 

Look for Exponential Magic

That leader can be the spark that the family needs to make progress. But, one person can only get so far all alone.

As I detailed in The Exponential Magic of Family Collaboration, if that person can find another family member to see the light, they can really begin to make progress. 

And once they enroll a third, they can start to roll forward with some momentum.

Not that any of this necessarily moves quickly, but there is usually a certain natural progression involved.

 

Important Support Along the Way Too

Because this can be a frustrating and lonely time for that family leader, sometimes called the “Family Champion” (but typically only in retrospect), it can be important for that person to have some outside support.

As I wrote about a few months ago in Coaching for Current & Future Family Leaders, coaching is really made for situations like these.

Furthermore, coaching is also made for times like these, and by that I mean during a pandemic where so many things are up for discussion and the future is as uncertain as it’s been in a long time.

Coaching Only One Family Member Works Too

One of the things I’ve recently noticed, since doing my coaching certification last year, is that a coach can help a family make a lot of progress, without ever meeting them.

Okay, so as I re-read that sentence, I realized that it can actually be taken in a couple of different ways, so let me unpack it a bit.

What I set out to say was that by working with only one person from a family, a coach can increase the effectiveness of that family leader to effectuate change and make progress with the rest of the family system.

The second way one could take that previous sentence is to note that a coach can work with a client without ever meeting them in person. 

Indeed, I have several clients I’ve never been in the same room with.

 

What Am I FOR, What Are We FOR

Circling back to the topic of the week, the coach will concentrate on supporting the clients as they work towards getting their family aligned towards things that they can all be FOR.

That family leader will already usually have some ideas of what they are FOR, individually, and with their coach they can then work on ways of strengthening the family relationships so as to get the family ready to embark on the journey as well.

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