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Going Far Together, But Not Sure Where
Writing about the challenges that families face when charting the course to transition their wealth or business to the next generation can take on many forms.
Lots of professionals who focus on certain aspects of this work become very specialized in useful techniques for such families, and will share why their ways of structuring things can be beneficial.
Others become proficient in select financial products that can be useful for families to employ, and they will highlight those advantages.
While I recognize the importance of such advisors and their advice, I write about issues that are much subtler, involving the human beings in the family and their relationships with each other.
This is usually much less straightforward, and hence much harder to generalize about. And I’m good with that.
A LinkedIn Post Inspires a Blog Post
To be able to offer interesting contributions to this field, it helps to work in it and also be a voracious reader of the work that others contribute.
I regularly check out LinkedIn to stay abreast of what others are doing, saying, and sharing. This week I saw a post that inspired me to comment, which I do on a semi-regular basis.
Sometimes my responses just flow, and new stuff comes out of me.
Every once in a while, I say to myself, “this is too good to just leave here; I need to turn this into a blog!”.
And so here we are.
Working with Families on their Governance
The LinkedIn post in question referenced a recent series of articles in the FFI Practitioner by friends and colleagues Dennis Jaffe and Amy Hart Clyne.
My comment thanked them for sharing, because they highlighted aspects of this work that few technical advisors appreciate, i.e. the ultra long term nature of this work, and the necessity of staying with our family clients through the long evolution of this work.
Here’s part of my comment: “…those of us who have been with families during this work know that this is the ultimate marathon, but without a pre-set route that you are running”.
My first sub-head above, “Going Far Together, But Not Sure Where”, hinted at this, and was inspired by a 2016 blog of mine, Going Far? Go Together, which remains a favourite of mine.
The marathon aspect isn’t new, but the realisation that there’s no route, or even an end destination, was a bit of an A-Ha for me.
See also: There Is No Destination
The Three-Legged Race Aspect
I had mentioned a certain “flow” that sometimes arises when I’m commenting, so I didn’t stop there.
I continued with “AND, on top of that, it’s also a 23-legged race, where you need to help guide a whole family group too!”
All of a sudden, I had conjured up an image of a whole family, with their legs tied together in a super-sized three-legged race.
And here I am, coaching them to run a marathon, but with no map and not even a finish line.
No wonder this work is so challenging.
And no wonder so few people do this work, and even have difficulty explaining what the work is.
Family Governance: The Ultimate Team Sport
As I thought about this, I recalled that Id once written that family governance is “the ultimate team sport”, but had difficulty finding where I had included it.
Using the search function on my website, I finally located it in Where’s the Puck? Family Wealth Hockey Analogies.
That “family team” consists of veterans and rookies, and people with different strengths and skills.
The star players of yesteryear hang around past their prime, and younger players rise to play more important roles.
And having just one or two stars is never enough, you need lots of “role players” too.
Coaches Who Get the Most Out of Their Team
Just like successful sports teams, good coaching has a lot to do with the success of the team.
Good coaches are able to get the most out of the players that they have, and a big part of that is making sure they know how to play well together.
Professional coaches are outsiders, and the idea of “player-coaches” doesn’t work so well in this “sport”, although once a team has learned how to work together, they may be able to run stretches of the marathon without outside guidance.
But eventually, having someone help them find the right route will likely make sense again too; and the race never ends!
