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Each Generation Has Its Own Timeline
Working with multiple generations of a family is always challenging for plenty of reasons.
One of that’s almost always present is the that each person in the family is on their own timeline, based on their age and life stage.
While it may seem counterintuitive, the younger ones, who presumably have a longer life ahead of them, are typically less patient, while those closer to the exit are rarely in a hurry to change things.
This week we’re going to look under the hood at some of these issues from the point of view of a practitioner working with a family, attempting to reconcile some of these natural differences.
An FFI Breakout Session as Inspiration
Regular readers are used to learning that many of my inspirations for these blogs come from conferences I love to attend where peers share their work for the good of the whole ecosystem.
A few weeks ago in Boston at the FFI Conference, I was privileged to introduce a couple of dear friends who were leading such a session, and the hardest part of being their host was that I was also charged with ending it on time, and yet nobody in attendance wanted to leave!
While I took lots of notes, one of them continued to jump off the page at me, and it was the quote, “Yes, but Grand-Dad isn’t there yet”.
My presenter friend was relating a story about a granddaughter who was frustrated with the pace of change in her family, which she shared with their family coach and facilitator.
He was stuck in a role familiar to me and many in the room that day, as the one working between the generations, trying to bring them together.
Close to Home with My Own Clients
It isn’t always Grand-Dad.
This anecdote rang true for me with a current parent I’m working with, where their rising gen is showing some impatience with the pace of change that the family leader is willing to accept.
Hard earned wealth typically comes with certain character traits that make those responsible for it reluctant to release the control they’ve always had.
Such loosening of control over decisions rarely happens quickly, and impatience from the younger family members is unfortunately the norm in most cases.
There is no quick fix, and this is just another illustration of the necessity of looking at these questions in terms of a long process rather than a single event.
It’ll take some time before Grand-Dad gets there, and that’s perfectly normal and understandable,
The Human Capital Angle
The beginnings of this post were in my mind the other day during a peer call that brought it back into focus.
A colleague was sharing her frustration with a client who was a business founder, and she noted that he displayed low empathy.
Others on the call noted that this is unfortunately rather common for hard-driven founders.
As someone who believes strongly in the importance of human capital, this bothered me.
When I think about a family’s human capital, it means that every member of the family is afforded the ability to become their best self.
Any family that has amassed significant wealth is in a position to use some of that wealth for the benefit of each family member.
Wealth as a Magnifier
Like so many other complexities that affect families and their relationships with each other, wealth if often a huge magnifier.
A family of lesser means may have similar issues, but the presence of significant wealth can blow things out of proportion quickly.
It’s unfortunate when I see families who have the potential to use their wealth positively for the family’s human capital, but where the low empathy of family leaders creates resistance, and actually decreases it.
A Guide to Accompany the Family on this Journey
Let’s wrap up by looking at the role that a coach or facilitator can play when guiding a family on such a journey.
When people from each generation can sit together and have civilized and productive conversations about sensitive topics like this, progress can be made.
It isn’t easy for families to have such discussions on their own, so the courageous ones bring in an outside, independent specialist to hold the space for them.
It can (and does!) make all the difference in the world.
We can get Grand-Dad there, with some time and patience.
