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The Continuing Evolution of Our Professional Space
There’s nothing like a conference with peers, who come at our work with enterprising families from a variety of different professions, to stimulate reflection about the journey we’re all on.
When that conference (FFI Boston ’22) is the first big get-together in 3 years, it’s even more impactful.
And, when that conference has as its theme the future, it makes members of that community even more reflective and inspired.
Please join me as I continue to process all of what I took in, along with all the debriefing I’ve done with colleagues since then.
See Now What? After the Great Meeting
From Multi-Disciplinary to Interdisciplinary
Let’s begin with the insightful framing of an FFI Award that was shared by this year’s recipient. Jack Wofford received the annual FFI Interdisciplinary Award for 2022 at the FFI Fellows breakfast on Friday morning.
Wofford is an attorney who has a long history of acting as a mediator in all sorts of multi-party disputes, including many involving enterprising families.
During his acceptance speech, he made a point of stating that the name of the award is “interdisciplinary” which he contrasted with another, oft-used similar expression, “multi-disciplinary”.
Hmmm, I thought to myself, I’d never thought about this distinction before.
A Multi-Disciplinary Field, Requiring Interdisciplinary Effort
There is no denying that the people who serve family firms come from a multitude of different disciplines, this has been known and acknowledged for decades.
What is more recent is the understanding that in order to do this work well, and not just in our original silos, requires some effort to be able to work with people from disciplines different from one’s own.
Many professionals do not even really recognize this, and even among those who acknowledge it, my guess is that there are only a small minority who really do a good job of learning how to do it well.
Perhaps that’s one of the reasons that it merits its own award.
From Field to Ecosystem
The title of this post hit on two parts of the evolution of the professional space in which I and many readers endeavour, the part about the disciplines, as well as the issue of how we label the area in which we all work.
Let’s switch gears and take on the second question.
The A-Ha Moment for this came during an off-site dinner that I attended with what we called “Team Canada”, which was a wonderful opportunity for many of us Canucks to spend some time getting to know one another a bit better.
Without naming names, I was seated next to a friend and colleague who I happen to know was born about two and a half decades after I was. Across from him was a woman I know, who I also understood to be much younger than my late-50’s.
As it turns out, they had already compared notes and were born in the same year. I was suddenly quite jealous, but maybe not for the simple reasons you might guess.
Entering and Ecosystem, Not Just a Field
I had my calling to do this work relatively late, and so I’ve been trying to make up for lost time for a decade now.
I’m jealous of these two professionals not just because they are so much younger, but also because they both seem to have found work that really suits them and that they enjoy.
And, the field has continued to evolve, to the point where it is now so much more than a plain old field, it has become an ecosystem in its own right.
The opportunities for those entering this space are so much better defined and available now than they were even a decade ago.
The Family Enterprise Parallel Version
I always like to draw some sort of parallel to the situations involving business families in these posts, so let’s do that before we run out of room.
Any FamBiz going from the founder’s generation (G1) to the next, offers some complexity and opportunity, and things to work on.
But when you see a family where there are active members in G3, G4, and G5 (and so on) that’s when things really get interesting.
Just as the young professionals I spoke about have plenty of opportunities, I’m also jealous of the rising generation members of such families, because they have a much broader path of opportunities ahead of them too.
