Many Families Include Someone Who Blocks the View

This week happens to involve a confluence of events that are pretty rare, and we’re going to see how I can turn this all into something useful and entertaining.

As I write this, I’m on vacation, which isn’t common, and I’ve managed to leave 98% of my work back home. Keeping my weekly blog streak intact is the 2% I decided keep going.

The vacation mental freedom may be part of the reason I’ve actually looked ahead and taken note of the date this post will go out to subscribers and be shared on LinkedIn.

If you read last week’s A Different Look at Process Versus Content you know that I work ahead by one week, so while I’m writing this in Costa Rica, it’ll go out when I’m back in the office.

That publication date also happens to coincide with an exceedingly rare event, the total solar eclipse of 2024.

Extra Clicks from an Eclipse?

Almost all of my posts are designed to be “evergreen”, i.e. you can read them at any time and they’re still relevant, whether a week, a month, or 5 years have passed.

This one is exceptional to a certain degree, because I’m tying in a specific event on the calendar.

If you’re wondering if I’m hoping for some extra clicks, you may be correct, but it’s more about challenging myself to find a way to work the idea of an eclipse into the subject of family wealth transitions.

Thankfully, the eclipse is all about our solar system, while much of my work involves family systems.

This may feel like a bit of a stretch, but I’m up for it, having written a book (Interdependent Wealth, 2019) whose subtitle is How Family Systems Theory Illuminates Intergenerational Wealth Transitions.

Some Systems Are More Predictable than Others

Systems theory is all about looking at how a number of interdependent parts work together in key ways.

When you look at one part in isolation, it’s sometimes difficult to figure out what’s going on, but when you examine it in the context of the system to which it belongs, all of a sudden things begin to make more sense.

Our understanding of the solar system has certainly evolved in the past few centuries, and now there are only a few flat earthers left.

It’s pretty cool to think that there’s a solar eclipse today, and that we can already put the next one on our calendars, despite the fact that it’s decades away.

Our understanding of family systems has not been perfected to the same degree, and probably never will be.

Looking for Repeating Patterns

I’ve touched on family systems in some previous posts, such as A Systemic Business Family and Revealing a Family System to Itself.

As I work with families who are trying to successfully transition their wealth, I always like to ask about previous generations of the family and how things went during those transitions.

When you look at things from a systems lens, trying to find repeating patterns is part of the game.

A solar eclipse can be predicted with exactitude, while family patterns are comparatively blurry.

I’m always amazed when I speak with parents who insist their offspring all work together, despite the fact that they were unable to work with their own siblings.

Seeing More Clearly After the Eclipse

Many enterprising families are dominated by a single, strong leader, especially in the first generation(s), and they can unfortunately block out the proverbial sun for everyone else.

Here’s a definition Mr.Google unearthed for me:

Eclipse: to make another person or thing seem much less important, good, or famous.

Getting back to contrasting with the solar eclipse, the paths of the moon and the sun are entirely predictable, so you know when the eclipse will weaken and then end, to the minute.

In a family, well, not so much.

Begin your Transitions Before You Need to

Transitions of all sorts go better when done slowly and incrementally. See Start Cleaning Up your M.E.S.S.

Getting families to understand the importance of planning, discussing, and implementing gradual changes is a big part of what I do.

The message is not always well received by those who feel like they don’t want to give up any roles or power.

The tenure of the solar eclipse will end, as will the family leader’s.

It’s always unfortunate when outliving someone is the only way through.

Sometimes it’s the only true solution, but I’m always doing whatever I can to avoid such situations.

Does My Title Leave You Disgruntled?

This week we’re looking at an important subject that relates to how we go about looking for and evaluating potential resources to work with.

OK, it’s actually all about people, and how we get to know them and decide if we want to work with them.

Long time readers know about my penchant for creating acronyms or mnemonics to remember things, and this one, “kilter” is a bit of a stretch, I’ll admit.

The fact that we typically talk about its opposite, i.e. “off kilter” or “out of kilter” reminded me of another common word whose opposite doesn’t really sound right or even exist.

If this has you disgruntled, I invite you to consider its positive version, and imagine that it won’t leave you “gruntled”.

The Genesis of KiLTeR

Back to the subject at hand, considering people we may want to work with, and how to think about them.

For years I’ve been known to speak about people while noting whether or not I “know” them, “like” them, and “trust” them.

Whenever anyone brings up the name of someone and asks for my opinion, my go-to reflex is to share that they tick these three boxes, if that is in fact true.

“Oh yes, I know her, like her and trust her”, which typically leads to a nice exchange, and which presumably gives comfort to the other person.

That covers the K, L, and T, and more recently I’ve added the R, for respect.

Let’s break down all four now.

Knowing Someone Who Can Help

Naturally we need to start with whether or not you know someone, which seems straightforward.

Of course there are different levels of knowing someone, running from simple name recognition to whether or not you’ve spent the night at someone’s home and know their family members.

As someone who puts lots of content out there, many people “know” me, which is all by design, but most readers don’t get too far beyond knowing my work and into knowing the real me.

Liking Them Enough to Want to Bring Them In

Whether or not you like someone can also be tricky, as there are lots of people for whom my opinion has changed over time, and in both directions.

But if I don’t currently like someone, chances are that I don’t want to spend much time with them or even discussing them, much less recommending to someone that they may wish to work with them.

Trusting Them to Serve Your Client Well

Now we’re getting into the more important areas, and sharing whether or not you trust someone.

Again, this is not as simple as it might appear.

I trust my mother implicitly, but that doesn’t mean that I’d recommend you work with her to solve a computer issue.

I’m trying to make the point that when weighing the question of trust, it’s pretty important to understand the task at hand and the particular circumstances that need to be dealt with.

There are lots of people I know and like, but the number of them that I also trust, especially when you’re looking at particularly tricky situations, is a much smaller subset.

So when asking about trust, make sure you clarify “trust them for what?”

Respecting Their Work No Matter What

So we’ve now arrived at the latest addition to my list to complete KiLTeR, respect.

In many ways it’s the perfect capstone, but in others it may not actually be a good fit.

Presumably, if I know, like, and trust someone, I’ll probably respect them too. But it feels like there’s another level there, and maybe it’s something that needs to be built up towards over time.

Part of me feels like respect grows with time and repetition, but maybe that applies to trust too(?)

And that doesn’t even cover people you respect even though you might not know them or like them, which is also possible.

The High Bar of All Four

In the end though, if someone ticks all four of those boxes, that’s a pretty high bar

Getting to know someone is more fun when you also instantly like them, and then the more you get to know them, hopefully the trust and respect will grow as well.

Circling back to my title, about seeking resources, my hope is that my “kilter” mnemonic will be helpful in creating a sort of check list you can use.

Co-Creating How You Will Be Together

Last week in Setting Expectations for Regular Meetings with Family, we ended up running out of racetrack just as I was getting to a key idea I wanted to share.

So because I enjoy having complete editorial licence over all my writing, I decided to kick this forward a week and address it here now, which will actually allow me to properly share it here in more detail than I would have as part of last week’s missive.

So much of what I write about here is borrowed, recycled, repurposed or re-shared from the work of other respected colleagues who work in this space, and I am eternally grateful for everyone else who openly shares their work with others in various ways.

It is therefore actually pretty rare for me to be able to write about something that I came up with completely on my own, which I will be doing here now.

“Let’s Have a Meeting # 0”

The origin of this idea goes back several years when I was working with a family client where I’d been brought in to coach the rising generation (G4) as they were preparing for various roles in the family enterprise.

After a year or so of helping them understand how to relate with and rely on each other, they were getting into the swing of things and had already worked together on organizing a couple of weekend family retreats.

Eventually, when it became clear to them and their parents that they were now ready to create a true “family council”, I congratulated them on getting to this point, and then suggested a first step.

“Let’s start with a Meeting # 0” I said. (Meeting Number Zero)

After digesting their somewhat quizzical looks for a moment, I continued.

“Let’s have a meeting with everyone who’s going to be involved in the family council, but we won’t jump right in and have our first family council meeting, we’ll make sure to lay a good foundation, and spend the time necessary to co-create what we want those meetings to look like and feel like”.

A Meeting About the Meetings

It would have been tempting to throw together an agenda for “Meeting # 1” and jump right in, but I recognized that because they were paying me for my guidance, it behooved me to do the hard work of slowing them down a bit.

I’ve since come to realize the importance of this, as I have deployed this idea on a number of occasions, pretty much whenever I’m involved with a group who are embarking on what is to become a series of regular meetings together.

A this point the idea of who will be involved has typically been agreed to, and the general reasoning behind the need for the meetings is also pretty clear.

What remains to be done is to set the stage for two key questions:

• What are we going to DO?

• How are we going to BE?

What Are We Going to Do Together?

This is the simpler of the two questions, as it falls under the heading of things we typically think about when we are talking about getting together.

The agenda of topics to be discussed is important, although before you actually begin, it’s hard to get into anything more than generalities.

In fact, if you already knew all these details, you wouldn’t necessarily even need to have a meeting, except perhaps to disseminate information.

As noted in Live from the Forum: Successful Transitions, when you are planning a “forum”, that entails plenty of open discussion, which theoretically can then go into a variety of unplanned directions (and that’s a good thing!)

How Are We Going to Be Together?

By far the trickier question you want to address in Meeting # 0 is how you’re going to be together.

See The Being/Doing Connection.

It’s something that will evolve, of course, but it’s worth spending some time upfront on expectations and desires here.

I hinted at a big part of this just above, when I noted that a “forum” or open discussion is desired.

In fact, the Meeting # 0 idea doesn’t usually apply in other circumstances where a “meeting” is essentially just an occasion to deal with the “same old, same old”.

We’re talking about an exchange of ideas with the goal of co-creating a future together, and that merits more time spent on building a clear, strong foundation.

Back to the Water for More Analogies

A few of weeks ago, in Diving into a Family System Without Making a Splash we were in the ocean, playing with a metaphor.

Well, we’re going back to the water again this week, thanks to some new thinking I want to share here.

I’ve recently taken on yet another role in this wonderful field of ours, which has me re-doing some coursework I did over a decade ago.

As part of my training to become a “project advisor” for teams enrolled in the Family Enterprise Advisor (FEA) program, I’m observing each of the seven modules of the course over the coming months.

While sitting in on the Facilitation and Communication module recently, I was part of a background discussion with the instructors and the team responsible for the course deliverables.

What Needs to Be Done Vs. Who’s Qualified to Do It

While the enrolled participants were in a breakout room doing a role play, we talked about the fact that some former students would sometimes think that having done a quick two-day workshop on facilitation immediately qualified them to run complex family meetings with clients.

The vast majority of students come from a specialized technical profession and quickly recognize their limitations and rightly hesitate to offer themselves up as skilled enough to play that role without additional training.

But there are always a few who overestimate their ability and underestimate the complexity, not to mention the damage they can cause.

While the module on facilitation is meant to serve as a primer so that students understand what families need to think about doing with respect to having regular family meetings, it was not designed to make people skilled experts.

And that’s where I began to think of the analogy that we’re going to jump to now.

My Pleasure Craft Operator Card

I mentioned going back to the water again so let’s look at what you need to have to be able to operate a boat in Canada.

For the record, I obtained my Pleasure Craft Operator Card a few years back, making me, at least theoretically, qualified to operate a boat on the open water anywhere in Canada.

If you own such a boat, however, I strongly suggest that you not allow me to operate it, because I really don’t know what I’m doing, never having really driven a boat before.

My wife grew up on a river with a boat just outside her back door, and hence has decades of experience in everything concerned with safely taking a boat out on the water and bringing it and everyone on it back in one piece.

I play the Gilligan role to her Skipper, although I certainly bear more of a resemblance to the latter.

In case my point is not clear, taking a quick test of my knowledge on boating does not, in any way, give me the skills to safely operate a boat.

That Looks Like It Could Be Fun

So let’s see if we can put the analogy together with the point I’m making.

Taking a boat out onto the lake or river certainly looks like it could be a lot of fun. Let’s face it, that’s part of the attraction.

It’s also not as easy as it looks. 

There’s a show on YouTube called Boneheaded Boaters of the Week that you can check out if you don’t believe me.

There is no equivalent show about underqualified people leading family meetings, leading to suboptimal results.

Facilitating family meetings can also be fun, which is probably why some people want to try it.

But, staying in the water for a moment, if you just read a book about swimming but have never done it before, would you want me to drop you off in the middle of a big lake for your first attempt at it?

Skill, Confidence, Comfort

Almost a year ago, in On Clergy and Family Meetings, I shared a story about someone who had been a hospital chaplain, who now worked for a multi-family office.

I noted that I believe he’d be qualified to run family meetings because he had certainly experienced what it’s like to be in the room with a family during a difficult time.

He clearly has the skill and confidence to walk into a situation where a family is trying to make important decisions together during less than ideal circumstances.

Feeling comfortable playing a key role in that environment is not something everyone is cut out for.