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Reveling in Revelatory Family Situations

Always Seeking to Uncover New Information

There are many concepts that arise in different ways and places in my work, and when I come across the same idea in various forms during a short space of time, it always gets my blogger brainwaves flowing.

Regular readers recognize my penchant for wordplay, including the use of words that might fall outside our everyday vocabulary.

I’m judicious with my word choices when speaking with most people, and I freely use the most accurate word to describe my thoughts, assuming I’ll be best understood that way.

Such is the case with a recent discussion I had on a coaching call I had with my long-time coach, Melissa.

I noted that I had some upcoming events ahead, that would make the next couple of weeks very “revelatory”.

Coaches Revel in Revelations

As coaches, we both understand full well the value we can bring, and she didn’t miss a beat.

She chimed in that a big part of what we do is to help our clients reveal who they are to themselves.

In turn, those clients can also focus on revealing who they are to others, but doing that internal work first is more helpful than you may realize, until you do it.

 

While that certainly applies to coaching, there’s also a big tie-in to working with client families in a facilitation capacity.

I’ve written about a particular aspect of this here before in Revealing a System to Itself.

Taking It Up a Level

Where coaching is often more of a One-on-One endeavour, facilitation involves groups of people, and one way that good facilitators can think of their role is to concentrate on revealing the system to itself.

What applies to individuals and the concept of helping them each discover who they are “as a person”, also applies to groups of connected people.

A connected group of people acts as an interdependent system, and facilitating such a system is all about helping them discover things about themselves and their relationships that used to he hidden to them. 

This can help unlock many areas, including new ways of relating to each other, which can lead to great progress.

It isn’t necessarily always easy, and sometimes what’s learned can be surprising and tough to digest, but seeing things more realistically is always useful to any group.

Another Example of Seeking Revelatory Info

I was recently contacted by someone who was referred to me by a business school professor at a University that has a family business program.

The young man was already running a successful and growing small business, and was entertaining the idea of having his brother join him in the business.

As I embarked on a couple of exploratory calls with each of them to see if and how I might be a resource to them, a couple of things became apparent.

As usual in any new situation I learn about, I have no idea or pre-conceived notion of where things might lead and how best to proceed; there’s a lot of figuring it out as we go, and that’s perfectly fine.

In speaking with them both separately, it became clear that the issue of compensation would be potentially thorny for them to resolve.

Why Don’t You Start There?

This is where I surprised even myself. I’m typically a fan of starting slow, and working on banking some small wins early on in any process, to provide useful momentum.

But in this case, since they were trying to decide on a “go/no go” of whether the second brother would quit his job to join the firm, I suggested they “Zag”, instead of “Zig”.

My suggestion to them was to see if they could come up with a satisfactory compensation arrangement they could both agree to, and to tackle that issue as their first major step.

My thinking is that the process of negotiating this area would be quite revelatory to the way the rest of their working relationship would go.

If they get through this obstacle, future challenges will seem easy in comparison.

It’s Not What Happens That’s Important….

There’s a saying that it’s not what happens that’s important, it’s what you do about it afterwards that counts.

Revelatory family situations tee up some of the best opportunities to respond in new and better ways.

Alternatively, they can also highlight some important “no go” decisions too. Either way, they lead to progress.

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The Special Sovereignty of the “G1”

Most People Prefer Being No.1 to Being No.2

Every once in a while, I get a blog idea that I save for a later date, and then another one comes up and I repeat the process.

And then, through some serendipitous process, it dawns on me that I can actually combine them into one post, and benefit from some interplay between them.

It doesn’t always work out the way I planned, but I’m willing to give it a shot. 

Why Can’t I Be My Own G1?

The first of the ideas I decided to write about concerns the way that people who work with wealthy and enterprising families like to label their generations.

We always start by talking about the first generation, known as G1, and then their offspring are G2, their grandchildren G3, and so on.

The fact that we all do this makes even the family members become unwitting participants in this game, without thinking about how absurd it can seem to some.

The label of G1 typically gets assigned to the person (or couple) who “started the business”, also known as the founder, the wealth creator, or patriarch/matriarch.

Why This Can Be Sub-Optimal

Of course these people did not simply fall off a turnip truck, they presumably had parents of their own, for whom they would be G2, and grandparents for whom they were G3.

The way we begin the story can overemphasize the input of G1. Yes, in many cases, even most, the role that person plays is in fact outsized and shouldn’t be minimized.

There are plenty of examples, though, where the G1 portion of an enterprise’s existence was a modest success, and it was only in G2 or even G3 that things really took off in terms of success.

Couldn’t those responsible for that restart the labelling process and dub themselves “the real G1”?

“We Want to Be Our Own G1”

I had a call recently from a G2 who explained that he and his wife were interested in “starting our own G1”.

Their family had already done a lot of work on family governance where G1 and G2 set up structures and traditions to preserve that family legacy.

And, now that they’ve seen that success, this couple is interested in recreating a new start as G1, with their own children, who are currently teenagers, as G2.

What About the Sovereignty?

Let’s switch to the other blog idea now, which came from a session at a recent conference, where a couple of dozen of us were working with and learning about an interesting tool to use in our work with families.

During a debrief towards the end, one of the participants, whose work I’ve admired for a while, said something in a way I’d never heard.

Speaking about some of the challenges of those in G2 or G3 of many wealthy families, he stated “some of these people don’t have a lot of sovereignty”. (Thanks Scott)

Hmmm, sovereignty! What an interesting way to phrase that.

Let’s take a closer look, shall we.

Google to the Rescue

I already had my own meaning of sovereignty in mind, but for the purposes of this blog, let’s see if Mr. Google can shed some light on this.

     Sovereignty:

  •      Supreme power or authority
  •      The authority of a state to govern itself
  •      A self-governing state

These definitions don’t automatically lend themselves to individuals, but there are certainly parallels.

Who enjoys being in situations where you’re unable to “govern yourself”?

When G2 Wants to Reclaim Sovereignty

When the couple called me and stated their wish to be their own G1, it was the first time anyone had approached me like this in the decade I’ve been doing this work.

It was exceptional, in the true sense of the word.

It was, though, from my viewpoint, a perfectly natural and healthy way to think about the progress this family is hoping to make as they transition from their G1 to G2, towards their own, new G1 to their G2.

The good news is that this doesn’t have to be (and shouldn’t be!) an “either/or” question.

It’s actually a wonderful opportunity to create a “both/and” scenario.

This family branch of G2’s will continue to be an active part of that family, while also co-creating new realities for their rising generation, who, someday, may wish to begin anew as their own G1.

Wouldn’t that be great!

 

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Another Rocky Mountain Connection High

RendezVous’23 Raises the Bar (Again)

Every summer since 2014 I’ve looked forward to the annual RendezVous of the Purposeful Planning Institute, which is regularly the best week of my professional year.

I’m writing this at the Denver airport as my flight home has been delayed. 

This conference, along with other PPI activities throughout the year, has provided more blog inspiration than anything else over the years.

As our closing keynote speaker noted today, this is not a conference, it’s an experience. He was bang on, as I told him as I hugged him when he was done. 

I lost count of how many hugs I was involved in over four days.

The Inside View of the “Village” of Work

Many readers know that I’ve been involved in one way or another in the preparation and planning of this event over its last 6 iterations, which included 2 “RendeZoom” versions thanks to you-know-what.

Last year we got together in real life once again, and the experience was among the best ever, which many chalked up to the fact that it had been 3 years since we’d all been together.

The bar from RV’22 was therefore already high, and yet everyone I spoke to agreed that we’ve raised it once again.

Survey feedback is yet to come, and of course there are lots of things that can be improved, but I for one still have a long way to come down from this annual Rocky Mountain high.

The Joy of Connection

Last year’s theme was “The Fundamentals of Human Connection” which was quite à propos considering its post-pandemic timing.

We followed that up this year with “The Joy of Connection”, and I cannot recall ever making so many connections at a conference, and not just shallow ones.

As many of us admitted, working with families on the eventual transition of their wealth from one generation to the next can be very emotional work, which is ironically often lonely for those who practice in the area of professional guidance and facilitation.

This is the one week each year when so many of us come together to share our experiences, learnings, challenges, frustrations, and dreams of what’s possible, with so many of our like-minded and like-hearted colleagues, many of whom become close friends (hence all the hugging).

“You Have to Experience It to Understand”

It would be impossible to do justice to the experience in just one blog post, so I won’t even attempt that here.

In previous years, I’ve written some kind of summary or highlight blog after returning home.

This year I just want to share my gratitude for the PPI Community who are truly my “tribe”, which I’ve known for nine years now.

I’ll surely circle back on some of the topics we discussed in future posts, over the coming weeks and months.

One comment I heard from a few attendees, as they related their difficulty in conveying what goes on at RendezVous to colleagues, was “It’s really hard to describe, you have to experience it to understand”.

Amen.

So Much Work, So Much Reward

As noted above, having an inside view of some of the committees (called “expeditions” in PPI-speak”) involved in preparing this annual extravaganza, I’ve seen first hand just how much work is involved.

Thankfully, the “many hands make light work” proverb applies, and we know that it truly takes a “village” to pull it all off.

The organisation itself (PPI) continues to evolve and mature, along with the field of working with wealthy families that we serve.

Since our fearless founder, John A. Warnick, convened the first RendezVous in 2011, the leadership has evolved as well, and is now about to pivot to an even more distributed model, much like what some of our family enterprise clients face when the founding generation cedes its place to the rising gen.

Light On Content, High on Vibe

Apologies for those who read my work for content, as this post is light on that.

I’m trying to convey the vibe of this group, who continue to inspire me and my work.

The conference is NOT light on content, even though much of that content is focussed on process, as in how we work with family clients.

As one presenter noted, the process is the product!

If you think this group might be for you, get in touch and I’ll gladly fill you in over a Zoom call

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When the Parents’ Dream Becomes their Kids’ Nightmare

Just the Way “WE” Always Wanted It

In many ways this post has been a long time coming. I’ve run into versions of what I’ll be sharing this week for years now, but never felt compelled to devote a whole post to it.

Some confluence of cases in my head, from the past and from current discussions with clients and prospects, has resulted in my finally deciding to tackle this tough subject.

In other ways, though, it’s so simple to describe, that even those who know little about family business can easily relate to such stories when I share the basic fact patterns.

Every parent says they want what’s best for all of their children, and every single one of them believes it when they say it.

But they sometimes overestimate how much they know, as well as what they can control to make that happen.

Building the Dream Family Business

The closest I’ve come to writing about a version of this was way back in 2016, with When your Greatest Desire is also your Greatest Fear.

But that post was about the fact that parents hope to get to a level of wealth that makes the lives of all their family members easier, and then end up “overshooting” that level, and suddenly realize they’ve got a whole different challenge on their hands, often labelled as entitlement.

This week we’re looking at parental desires again, but from different perspective, and with a whole other kind of downside.

Unlikely Business Partners

The simplest way to describe the phenomenon is to consider a family business with just one person or couple in charge, who have more than one child together.

They will often want to bring all of their offspring into the business with them, and run things together as the prototypical “one big happy family”.

And this can work for a time, especially while the senior generation remains in place, to mitigate any sibling issues “in the bud”.

The problem comes later, after the exit of the parents, when the siblings end up in a situation where they’re now unwitting partners together.

They’ve worked together for while, but at a lower level, with less at stake and possibly less ego involvement.

Eventually they realize they’re stuck in a partnership with people with whom they never would have entered into business together of their own free will.

“Plans that Don’t Include Us”

Too often the parents make plans with professionals regarding their estate plans that include an operating business, and because they’ve long dreamt that what they’ve been building will continue on with the whole family at the helm, those plans end up creating sibling partnerships that really don’t have a high likelihood of surviving long term.

See Why Succession Planning Fails

When the cart (the legal structures) is put before the horse (the relationships of the offspring expected to work well together), things are set up for failure more than for success.

And it happens all the time.

Hopefully it can be caught in time, plans can be modified, and a new plan, this time including input from those most affected, can be put into place.

If not, those who end up “stuck as partners” risk having their family relationships damaged because they can’t live up to Mom and Dad’s dreams.

We’re Better Than Our Parents!

I’ve even seen versions of this where a parent hopes to have all of their offspring continue together despite the fact that they previously worked with their own siblings, and quickly realized that was not a good fit.

They couldn’t work with their own sibling, yet they expect their heirs to successfully work together; presumably they believe their own parenting skills are far superior than those of their parents!

Parenting skills are just one variable in this equation, and the human desire for some independence is typically stronger than whether your parents taught you to play nicely together.

Playing nicely as children is one thing, working together as adults is quite another.

Time for a Reality Check

When a family calls in someone like me, it’s often an opportunity for a reality check on those dreams we were talking about.

Assessing the likelihood of success is a large part of what I do, and in many cases (most?) some modifications to “Plan A” are required, to increase the likelihood of their success.

Success looks different for everyone, but continued family harmony is at the top of my list.

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How Do We Serve Thee – Let Me Count the Ways

Experts Playing in Many Different Sandboxes

During the decade since I had my calling to work with families on transitioning their wealth from one generation to the next, I’ve met hundreds of other professionals who also serve families hoping to achieve that goal.

This work is typically quite complex, and there’s often a lot at stake for the families, so it’s actually quite normal that many experts will serve any given family over the years, as the family and its needs evolve, along with the businesses and assets they own.

The past few years have also seen an increasing recognition that we experts must learn to work together if we hope to properly meet the needs of such families in a holistic way.

See: From Multi-Disciplinary Field to Interdisciplinary Ecosystem.

In addition to the work we do serving these families, there are many other ways to help this ecosystem evolve, and many different “sandboxes” in which some professionals play, as part of advancing the greater good.

An Abundance Mentality Helps

I’ve been blessed with meeting so many others who share the abundance mentality that’s required for professionals to agree to share their knowledge with others, while understanding that trying to “corner the market” isn’t really the best way to go in an emerging field like this one. 

See: Spreading the Gospel Vs. Cornering the Market from 2013.

 

 

I had a recent exchange with a colleague I’ve known for years that caused me to reflect on the various ways I’ve been participating in this ecosystem, which I somehow (selfishly) imagined was common knowledge. 

I share my thoughts about my work and the industry regularly, and this has gradually seen me develop a following that continues to grow.

The fact that this colleague I’ve known for years seemed unfamiliar with my work made me realize that not everyone consumes my content, and many go about making contributions in lots of other ways too. 

It also made me grateful for those of you who do follow my contributions.

Peer Organisations Are Prevalent and Front and Center

There are three main peer groups that I’ve been involved with since I began this work, and there are others I’ve not joined, because, well, you can’t do everything.

I found this work via Family Enterprise Canada and their Family Enterprise Advisor program, and I continue to contribute to that organisation as an ambassador, podcast host, and member of their editorial committee. I’ve also MC’d their annual Symposium the past two years.

See: Let’s Talk Family Enterprise podcast

Then there’s FFI, the Family Firm Institute, where I also enjoy interacting with peers in the field. I’m in a global virtual study group there, and a faculty member in their Global Education Network (GEN Program) where I’m one of the instructors for the Family Governance course.

Last but not least, PPI, the Purposeful Planning Institute, has resulted in some wonderful professional relationships and great learning.

Their annual RendezVous in Denver is always a highlight for me, and I’ve been lucky enough to serve on the Wisdom Expedition, charged with planning and selecting all of the breakout sessions for that conference.

Activities, Content Creation, Teaching, Serving Families

For those entering this ecosystem, there are so many ways to learn, get involved, and interact with other, like-minded professionals.

I’m grateful to those who’ve made great strides already, leading the organisations I’m part of as well as everyone who also creates content, does webinars, teaches courses, and organizes events so we can meet and learn together from one another.

So many people have been thoughtfully sharing for years (even decades in many cases) and this is beneficial to all of us who work with families, and of course ultimately to the families themselves.

Career Life Cycles, Like Families

In a “meta” kind of way, it’s noteworthy that the industry has career life cycles, not unlike the families we work with.

The elders lead and are eventually replaced by those who learned by following their footsteps.

Professionals all contribute differently based on their strengths, priorities, time commitments, and career cycle stage.

I continue to enjoy the parts I play, and realize how lucky I’ve been to follow many of the great leaders in this space.

It’s also a pretty small world, kind of like a big family, in many ways.

Post Script

I recently learned that my blog ranks nicely on this list of the Top 45 Family Business Blogs, and they asked me to share this link, so you can check out the others too.

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New Labels for Three Circles with Similar Results

Family-Business-Ownership Has Its Limits

The ecosystem of professionals who work with enterprising families is naturally quite diverse, as this work has become more interdisciplinary than ever before.

This week we’re going to look at some of the models these experts use to think about and explain the complexity involved in doing this work well.

My exposure to this began with the venerable Three Circle Model from Tagiuri and Davis, which I first wrote about here in Three Circles + Seven Sectors = One A-Ha Moment.

If you check the date on that post, you’ll see that it’s now over a decade old, so it stands to reason that some of my views on this have evolved in the intervening years.

From the Family Office World

Let’s start with something I’ve seen a couple of times now from some thought leaders from the family office space.

I’ve heard about the “MLF ratio”, as in the percentage of the time spent by those who work for the family office that’s spent in each of three key areas.

It seems many family offices have a ratio of about 70 / 20 / 10.

What does that mean?

That 70% of people’s time is spent on the Money, another 20% on Legal matters, and then a final 10% is spent on the Family.

Those I’ve heard talk about this are typically in favour of finding ways to increase the Family number, to at least double or triple where it typically falls.

From the Trustee World

I recently saw a similar triumvirate that I think stemmed from the world of trustees for wealthy families.

This one looks at Assets, Documents, and Relationships.

 

The assets are what the family owns, the documents are the legal papers that explain who owns what (and who’s allowed to do what), and oh, yeah, let’s not forget that there are a group of family members that are being served here!

And isn’t it always the problems in the relationships of those family members where most of the problems arise?

Again, I think that those who speak about this trio are those who are in favour of finding ways to increase some of the thinking about the relationship questions on the front end of decisions, as opposed to having to then clean up a mess that resulted in poorly thought out “documents”.

From Other Family Wealth Experts

I also recall hearing someone recently noting that heirs don’t only inherit wealth, they also inherit structures.

So if we wanted to turn this into a three-point model, it might be “heirs, wealth, structures”.

Once again, we look at the wealth/assets/money/business (what) as one leg of the stool, the family/relationships/heirs (who) as another, and then the legal/ownership/documents/structures (how) as the third.

Doing Away with the Circles?

At this point, we can even do away with the circles, for the sake of simplicity.

What the Three Circle Model does so nicely is to highlight the overlaps for some of the people, because in the family business world from which it emerged, the issues caused by family-employees and family-owners versus family members who are neither (or both) are often front and center.

But as a family’s wealth increases and the portion from an operating business decreases, these other ways of looking at things often make more sense.

Who and What Aren’t Enough

The one thing that doesn’t change is that more often than not, the balance of time and effort is way off from what it should be.

Regular readers won’t be surprised to hear that I think that too much focus is put on the money, the business, the wealth, the assets, while too little focus is put on the family, the relationships, the heirs, and all things related to the human capital.

Likewise, those in charge of the documents, the structures, the legal arrangements, the ownership (beneficial and otherwise) are given far more attention than they deserve.

In its simplest terms, it boils down to Who gets What.

It is very important that all of this be spelled out properly, especially when so much is at stake.

However, there are a couple of other questions that shouldn’t be forgotten along the way.

Let’s start with some WHY questions:

  • Why are we doing it this way?
  • Why don’t we involve our heirs?

And let’s add a big HOW question:

  • How is all this actually going to work, with our family?
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Enjoying Many Finales While Avoiding “Finally!”

Fun with Similar Words, Part Umpteen

My wife and I were recently back in “full house” mode for a few days, as both our recent college graduate offspring decided to grace us with their presence at the same time.

I always enjoy the mental stimulation of this family time, as our similar-yet-different senses of humour get reacquainted and combine for many laughs.

One evening they indulged me as I shared highlights of a recent episode of America’s Got Talent that I’d seen, whereupon I realized that the word “finale” has a number of possible meanings.

Add in the fact that I often intentionally mispronounce that word as “finally” (for humorous effect) and you now have the genesis of this post.

Let’s see if I can turn this all into something useful for those in the family wealth transition ecosystem.

At Least Three Types of Finales

As I zipped through the recording of the episode, I stopped on a few acts I thought were worth sharing, including one that featured a really nice visual finale that we enjoyed.

So there’s the first type of finale, the end of a particular act, the last few seconds of a performance that lasted a couple of minutes.

We then watched parts of a couple of other acts from the 2-hour episode, before finally watching the last performance, which was the finale of that episode.

Imagine all the attempts at using every possible “double entendre”, feigning ignorance of what someone meant, sarcasm, and every other kind of dig we could employ to try to confuse, frustrate, or otherwise get a laugh from our family trio.

Of course we even brought up the idea that in a few weeks we could watch the “finals” of the competition, which would then be another kind of finale.

So we already had a finale of a performance, of an episode, and of a season. 

The Journeys, Not Just the Destinations

As I attempt to turn this family time into a blog post, the various time frames, and the fact that they each had an endpoint, were where my mind went.

It made me think about each finale as an endpoint, or destination.

As I wrote in There Is No Destination, I like to focus more on the journey instead.

In fact, after every finale, there’s always something else about to begin.

Bringing this to the overarching subject of this blog, the idea of family continuity, and transitioning an enterprise to the next generation of one’s family, let’s think about this as it pertains to the views of the “NowGen” and the “NextGen” of a family.

Back to the Long Game and the Arcs of Life

As noted last week in Stepwise Planning for Family Enterprise Transition Work, you can only plan so far ahead in this work, because each step depends on how the previous one turned out.

It’s almost like there’s a never-ending series of finales, each followed by another round of what’s next.

The trick is to periodically take the time to reflect on how these steps fit together when looked at from the very long term, “arc of life”, viewpoint.

Family wealth transitions are intergenerational by definition, so it certainly behooves us to look at them from that lens.

Many people have difficulty “going there”, mostly because it forces them to think about how things will look in a world “post me”, i.e. after my final finale. (You know, “if I die” as opposed to “when I die”).

But you can only get so far if you don’t consider that view.

Don’t Set Yourself Up for “Finally!”

Let’s wrap with a look at a couple of versions of “finally” that you’ll want to avoid.

First, please don’t look at “estate planning” and “succession planning” as events, that involve putting ideas and decisions to paper as an item on a to-do list.

Too many people do this work, along with outside experts, and once they sign the documents, they exhale and say “finally”, that’s done.

It’s a process, not an event, and you’re never done.

Second, please make sure not to set things up in a way that creates the conditions for your heirs to quietly and subconsciously root for your demise.

Too many people put themselves in a position where the lives of their offspring will be much better after their passing, as opposed to during their lives.

You really don’t want your death to create a “finally!!!” reaction from them. 

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Stepwise Planning for Family Enterprise Transition Work

You Can Only Plan So Far Ahead

This week we’re looking at the reality faced by those of us who work with groups of family members as part of our role in guiding families through the challenges they face when transitioning their family assets to the next generation.

For those who simply advise a family leader (or couple) it’s typically much simpler. You give them your best ideas and advice, a few tips on sharing information within their family group, wish them luck, and you’re done. 

Of course, what happens next, when they in turn speak with their family members, is that they’re met with questions, resistance, quizzical looks, rolling of eyes, and all manner of uncertainty. Things often grind to a halt or spin out of control from there.

Some families are wise and lucky enough to find and enlist the help of skilled outsiders who know what questions to expect and can help guide the family forward, at least by one more next step.

That “one step at a time” aspect is what I want to share more about now.

 

More Peer Group Benefits 

Let’s put some context around how this topic became top of mind for me recently.

As noted in Meta Views on Sharing with Peers and Families I participate in a few regular meetings with peers, where we share ideas and stories about how we work with families.

A recent call had someone sharing a live case that they’re involved with, and the dozen or so others on the screen provided them with all sorts of ideas that they might pursue with the family we’d discussed.

And Some Sports Analogies Too

My mind kept churning after the call, and I couldn’t help thinking that even though this advisor now had a handful of great ideas that they might pursue with the family at their next meeting, it would be next to impossible for them to lay out a long term plan for how to implement these great ideas.

While every advisor and family leader may have some idea around the best approach to take as a family recognizes the need to begin to have regular meetings and to create some semblance of governance, it’s difficult to lay out Step A, Step B, and Step C, in order.

Trying to carve it in stone from the get go is NOT recommended.

You can only realistically plan Step A, and you need to keep B, C, D, etc. on the back burner (or in your back pocket), until they can all, as a family, see what works, what gets traction, and what the family is ready for.

As a fan of sports analogies (see Formula 1 Racing and Working with 1% Families) the next morning I tuned into a soccer match….

Tic-Tac-Toe Just as They Planned

The FA Cup game began with a pass all the way back to the goalkeeper, who fired the ball downfield in what seemed like a set play.

Surely this couldn’t turn directly into a scoring opportunity as they’d drawn it up in the locker room. There are too many moving parts on the field. Or so I thought.

A mere 16 seconds later, the ball was in the back of the net, and I wondered if maybe I was wrong. The play involved about 4 or 5 players, and the 4 or 5 steps all worked out in order, seemingly exactly as planned.

Playing the Very Long Game

As I tried to process what I just saw, it finally came to me. The score in the game was 1-nil, but there were still 89 minutes to go (at a minimum).

They managed to put a few exact steps together and successfully attained one step along the way to victory, but the rest of the game was played with more of the typical “fits and starts” that sports fans are accustomed to seeing.

Similarly, when working with a family on an intergenerational transition, you’re playing an even longer long game, measured in years and decades, not seconds and minutes.

As advisors or coaches who work with families, sometimes we can draw up a nice sequence of moves that work out, but it’s much more important to know how to guide the family through the ups and downs of the whole season.

Having family members learn how to play nicely together as a team is always key, so time spent on that is never wasted.

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Stop Assuming the Worst – Using the MGI Method

A Simple Adjustment Makes a Big Difference

There’s an expression that I’ve found myself using more and more recently when speaking with people, but I don’t think I’ve used it in writing that often.

When I talk about the principles behind much of the work that I do with families, as I try to guide them to prepare for the transition of their business or their wealth to the next generation, I often marvel that things are actually quite simple.

“None of this is rocket science!”, I typically state as some point.

Regular readers may recall that I also like to remind everyone that “simple” is not the same as “easy”.

So this week I want to share a concept that is far from rocket science, that is relatively easy to explain, and that while not necessarily easy to do at first, does get easier with practice.

I’ve been trying it myself since I learned it and can attest to its usefulness.

A Book Recommendation from a Podcast

For the past few years I’ve been serving as one of the hosts of the Let’s Talk Family Enterprise podcast, which continues to be a labour of love for me.

(My Dad used to say “There are only two reasons to do something: Love or Money”. Mystery resolved for the curious.)

One of the standard requests we have for each guest at the end of every episode is for a book recommendation, and I’ve been nicely surprised by most of the responses.

I’ve ordered many of them based on the suggestions of my guests, and enjoyed the vast majority.

And so it was with episode 45 when I spoke with Kristin Keffeler about her book, The Myth of the Silver Spoon, and the book she recommended, Good Inside, by Dr. Becky Kennedy.

I ordered that audiobook from Audible, and listened to it during a car trip.

While I only have one take-away as I reflect back on it, it’s a major one, and it’s the subject of this post, which I’m finally getting to!

People Generally Are Good Inside

The premise of the book is that, generally speaking, people ARE good inside. It can be easy to forget that from time to time, especially when we’re dealing with our own family members.

What the author then suggests is to adopt the MGI method, in order to minimize our over-reactions to situations, especially when we still don’t have all the information around something that has occurred.

And when you think about it, when we first learn about anything, we almost never have all of the information, we typically only have our own, quickly arrived at, perspective.

Kennedy suggests learning to always defer to the Most Generous Interpretation of what you learned.

That’s the MGI, and it sits at the other end of the continuum most of us default to, which is to ascribe the worst imaginable view of what has happened, usually basing this on some assumptions, many of which turn out to be wrong!

Examples in our Own Families

There are many everyday occurrences this applies to, so there are plenty of opportunities to learn to put this into practice.

Years ago I began a daily meditation practice, which continues today, and it has made a similar difference to my stress levels.

Say I come into the kitchen and I see someone left some dishes in the sink. I could simply get angry inside and assume some forgetfulness or laziness on the part of whoever left them there.

Or, I could apply the most generous interpretation to what I see, and say to myself that the culprit got distracted or was in a huge hurry.

If I send a text to a family member and then notice hours later that I am still waiting for a reply, I could assume that they are purposely ignoring me and waiting to reply in order to make me angry.

Or, I could use the MGI method, and tell myself that they must be very busy, and maybe my text arrived at a very inopportune time for them.

Making a Habit of This Practice

It’s a simple mind trick that can become a habit, and that’s the secret to making it work for you.

Any single time you do it is almost irrelevant, like meditating once, or going for a jog once a year.

But as you do this more and more, it can help in keeping you calm.

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On Discernment and Resourcefulness for Family Clients

Key Success Factors for Working on Family Transitions

When I stated sharing my thoughts in this blog over a decade ago, I decided to write a weekly post and figured I’d see how long I could keep that up.

Well, I’m still going, and often people ask how I come up with fresh material 52 times a year. One answer is that I recognize that nothing is truly original and subjects come up in different forms and contexts, which allows me to repeat certain themes.

This week I’m combining the ideas of discernment and resourcefulness, both of which I wrote about in 2018, in separate posts.

Let’s jump right in.

Patrick Lencioni Fan Club?

I’m a fan of the writings of Patrick Lencioni, and if you’ve never heard of him, you’re missing out on something. He’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I love the way he brings clarity and simplicity to his work.

His latest book, the Six Types of Working Genius, is where the concept of Discernment jumped off the page at me again.

I highly recommend the book but will cut to the chase here and focus on the fact that Discernment is one of the types of genius, and it also happens to be in my personal top 2 (along with Engagement).

Discernment is the ability to see the big picture of what’s going on and then to divine what needs to be done as a next step.

See Questions of Discernment in Family Business for my initial thoughts on this in 2018.

Where Are We in This Transition Journey?

When a family is working on transitioning their wealth from one generation to the next, it is truly a journey, and not an event.

There’s also a whole heck of a lot of complexity going on, and a number of interested parties, all of whom see things in their own personal way.

This is why it is sometimes useful to engage an unbiased outsider to guide the family on this journey.

If that person is also skilled in the area of Discernment, I hope that you can understand why this would be a plus.

Bringing the Right Resources to Bear

Now let’s look at the resourcefulness question, and see how it ties into serving families.

The first thing one needs to recognize is that any one person quickly hits a limit in what they can provide, by themselves, to a large, diverse and complex family.

Knowing what other services and resources are out there that can be woven into how we serve families is often the key to our continuing to be able to add value as the family evolves and moves forward.

Let’s look at a handful that I’ve used or incorporated into my client work over the years.

See also: The 3 R’s: Finding a Responsive, Reliable, Resource

Outside Platforms and Services for Families

  • I’m working with some families using the MTM 360 platform that has been instrumental in getting them started holding regular family meetings.
  • I recently used the Family Enterprise Assessment Tool (FEAT), which was very helpful in clarifying what my client family needed to work on next.
  • I’m just starting down the road with a family where we’re looking at using the Assess Next Gen tool as a way to plan the next steps in the eventual exit of the G1 parents from the business.
  • I’m also a big fan of the Values Edge Toolkit and have used it a few times to help families discern, understand, and follow through on the values that they all have in common.
  • Last but not least, I’ve been looking at bringing another client family into working with the Tamarind Learning wealth education platform.

All of these are potentially useful for families at one time or another, and it also helps that I know the people who’ve worked hard to develop these resources, so that I have confidence when introducing them.

Weaving It All into the Family’s Timeline

Back to discernment, a big part of doing this work well is involving the family leaders and working together to figure out the answer to this key question: 

                         What does this family need now?

Many of these tools have only been created in the past decade, and others have had major revamps and improvements recently.

This ecosystem continues to evolve, enabling professionals to serve complex families in more productive and useful ways than ever.

Naturally, if you’re curious about any of these and want to talk about how they might be a fit for your family or one that you serve, please hit me up and let’s talk.

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