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Your Family’s Continuity Journey: Progress or Paralysis?

What’s the Key Difference Maker?

Each week here we look at something related to the world of successful families and the challenges they face when attempting to ensure that their success will continue through their next generational transition.

While many people still use terms like “succession planning” and “wealth transfer”, I prefer “continuity” and “transition”, and I’ve written about these choices often here over the years.

I also like to refer to a family’s journey together because that is ultimately more important to their success than any “destination” they plan to reach.  See There Is No Destination

That journey can be filled with good progress in a positive direction, or it can sometimes get bogged down into some version of paralysis.

So this week I wanted to look at what the key difference is between those who continue to move forward and those who instead get stuck and feel paralyzed.

We Don’t Talk About the Important Stuff

Since around the time I wrote The Family Conversations You Know You Need to Have about a year and a half ago, whenever I speak about the work I do, I typically talk about helping families have important conversations.

Almost every family will acknowledge that these conversations should ideally be taking place, yet, left to themselves, they are unable to make progress.

And so when I heard a friend and colleague recently put it in a simple way that was new to me during a recent webinar, I knew I was onto something I needed to share here.

Like me, he is a big fan of the idea of good governance, and he shared the following quote: 

 

    “You can’t govern what you can’t talk about.”

(Thanks CY.)

Governance: Communication and Decision Making

The simplest definitions of governance usually mention communication and decision making.

When you add a bit more meat to that skeleton, you start to look at the key questions that surround those simple (yet not easy) concepts.

Some of these include the following:

  • WHAT subjects do we need to discuss?
  • WHEN are we going to talk about them?
  • WHERE are we going to do this?
  • WHO needs to be part of this?

As families figure this stuff out, in what normally becomes an evolving trial and error process, they can hopefully establish some sort of governance system.

Progress or Paralysis

I just hinted that this involves some “trial and error” for a reason.

Too many families believe that they can and should be able to figure all of this out in one sitting, rip off the band-aid, and move on to other, more interesting matters, like running the business or managing the wealth.

Unfortunately, attempts to do too much too fast are fraught with the risk of things breaking down and then the conversations stop and we are once again paralyzed.

When a family is able to convene and have some conversations, sharing information and viewpoints, and then come together again at a future meeting and continue to talk, progress is always possible.

Remember my wise colleague’s maxim that you cannot govern what you cannot talk about.

Back to the Family CRAP Again

A few months back in Ideas on Dealing with the Family CRAP, I introduced a mnemonic to help remember a key point, and it’s now time to dust it off because it is pertinent to this week’s topic.

Recall that I was suggesting that the secret to success is to Convene Regularly And Productively, i.e. C.R.A.P.

Convening just means coming together or bringing together for a meeting or activity, but it also doesn’t just happen by itself.

Meetings need to be planned and scheduled, agendas need to be prepared, a time and location need to be agreed to.

No, it isn’t rocket science, but it does take some intention and effort.

And the families who make these efforts will see the benefits over the long term.

Positive Peer Group Feedback

I recently shared my friend’s quote about not being able to govern something if you aren’t able to talk about it in yet another peer group setting.

It resonated very well and one member even thanked me for it as we were sharing our closing thoughts.

That feedback was a nudge for me to write about it here, and getting feedback from these posts is also something that feeds my desire to continue this weekly habit of mine.

Let’s keep families talking, so they won’t become paralyzed.

 

 

 

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The Case for Growing the Family Governance Space

When I discovered the field of family governance over a decade ago, it was just that, a burgeoning field.

In the intervening decade plus, it has continued to evolve and now feels like more of an ecosystem.

See From Multidisciplinary Field to Interdisciplinary Ecosystem from 2022.

There is ever more activity, interest, attention and buzz, and that’s generally a good thing.

As a participant in and evangelist for this space for all that time, regular readers will note that I have been going to all sorts of related events and reporting the progress being made in real time.

I’m never shy to check out an event that looks compelling, and have added new ones to my regular repertoire over the years.

So when I heard about the latest family business case competition, I was intrigued and declared that I was definitely in.

A Twist on the Case Competition: Adding FEA’s to Teams!

Last May in Halifax at the FEC Symposium, Ivey professor and longtime FEA Program supporter David Simpson announced a new event.

I’ve known him for years and as a long time judge at UVM’s FECC (see Re-FECC-tions on 10 Years of Judging at SG-FECC), I connected with him and offered him any assistance I could give.

But then when I dropped in on my alma mater to see him last fall to discuss what he was planning, he threw me for a loop with his idea.

He wanted his MBA students, who’d be taking his Managing the Family Business course during the winter semester, to be put in teams that also included a Family Enterprise Advisor (FEA ™) as participants in the competition.

Hmmm, this was way different, and possibly “out there”, but as I said, I was certainly intrigued, and committed to be involved in whatever way made sense.

Returning to My Old Stomping Grounds

So on a recent Friday, I returned to the campus where I met my wife over half my lifetime ago.

And I was about to be part of a team, rather than one of the judges, which was the role I had become accustomed to.

Things were nicely organized so that on the Friday evening, we were introduced to our teammates over dinner, allowing us to get over the awkwardness before we were to get to work on our slide deck and pitch on Saturday morning.

It also allowed me to learn about how the MBA program has evolved in the decades since I was a student. 

I’ll be back in London in the fall for Homecoming, for the 35th anniversary of my graduation.

During my 2 years there we worked on hundreds of cases, but not a single one was about a family business.

A Refreshingly Live Family Case 

It’s nice to know that students can learn about family business in (some) business schools these days, and the idea of having them team up with practitioners who also work with families was a great learning opportunity.

The other great part of the weekend was that instead of reading about a business family which is usually how cases are worked on, we got to hear the members of the family in their own words.

The Friday dinner was followed by a “fireside chat” in front of the whole room of competitors.

Simpson conducted an extensive interview with the five family members (both parents and three of their four adult offspring), and then an extensive Q & A period ensued.

A Bit Too Competitive?

Learning about business using the case method has been going on for over a century since its origin at Harvard in the 1920’s (Thanks Google!).

I’m not sure they envisaged how competitive it could become, but I guess it’s yet another way to gamify learning to increase interest.

These competitions usually take place between students from different schools, so things can get very tense.

The Ivey version we worked was more of an “intra-mural” contest, and therefore a bit less competitive.

Debriefing with some of the FEA’s afterwards, it seems like the level of effort was pretty high, even though the stakes were not enormous.

Family Governance Goes More Mainstream

I realize that it would be an exaggeration (along with some wishful thinking) to state that the idea of family governance has gone mainstream.

But it certainly does seem like we are seeing it pop up in more and more places.

And that’s probably a good thing. Let’s keep this going.

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On Sovereignty and Self-Righteousness in Families

Revisiting Some Downsides of “My Way”

Much of my work time is spent thinking and talking about supporting families through intergenerational transitions of one sort or another.

These families have achieved a certain level of wealth and success, and the hope is that these will both continue to serve their family well into future generations.

Many people underestimate the complexities involved when family relationships and financial wealth come together, and believe that some combination of creating more wealth and securing it in good structures will take care of things.

Regular readers and experienced colleagues will recognize the folly in those conclusions.

There are issues that may not show up on financial statements or legal documents but instead stand out on a genogram that can trip a family up along the way.

A Confluence of Meetings One Day

Sometimes my calendar ends up creating some unintentional sequences of events that happen to shine a light on a certain topic, and that’s what occurred one day recently.

In the morning, a colleague and I had an overdue catch up call with a client couple, during which we discussed where their family was still stuck in some patterns that weren’t working for them, and how we might assist in helping them break out of those.

Midday, I was a guest on a webinar with another advisor, where a number of topics were discussed relating to the responsibilities and the rights of rising generation family members.

Then late afternoon, I had a call with the matriarch of a client family I’ve been working with for a couple of years now, and some of the same issues from earlier were touched on once again.

The Strong Desire for Sovereignty

Thinking about all this had me flash back to a blog I wrote a couple of years ago, The Special Sovereignty of the G1.

Sovereignty, as we looked at back then, is about the “authority to self-govern” one’s life, or the life of one’s family.

Whereas the generation preparing to pass wealth down their generational tree typically wants to remain in control as long as possible and keep things together, the eventual recipients of that wealth often have a different viewpoint on those questions.

There can be a tug-of-war between these groups, while the younger members attempt to exercise their “rights” and the older ones want to first see proof of sufficient responsibility.

Managing these tensions can be difficult, thereby creating the need for non-family experts to sometimes assist in facilitating the necessary conversations to work through them

When Self-Righteousness Gets in the Way

Having been part of such conversations with various families over the years, I’m in a position to share from that experience both with family clients and with readers here each week.

Those meetings I had on that one day recently had a bit of a common thread running through them, and they involve a delicate matter that isn’t easy to bring up with clients.

It’s much easier for me to write about, hopefully in a way that gives me a better angle to raise the matter with clients!

The title of this post should make it obvious, while the fact that I’ve pushed this to the latter part of this blog hints at the difficulty in even naming it.

Let’s just say that if you hope to have a good relationship with your adult offspring, minimizing one’s self-righteousness is a great idea.

Your Superiority Complex Is Showing

It would be one thing if parents simply shared their thoughts about their progeny when meeting with me alone, in a venting sort of way.

This is part of the role that advisors play, allowing their leading generation clients to blow off steam and complain about other family members.

Believe me, it works in both directions, and listening to rising generation family members as they share frustrations with me about their parents is also part of my role.

But some of them barely hold back when we’re all meeting together, and it sometimes surprises me.

When parents act as if they’re morally superior to their offspring and the judgement can be felt in the room, everyone is uncomfortable.

Let’s Get Together! Sorry, We’re Busy

When those same parents later lament that the family doesn’t often spend time together, I’m sometimes left shaking my head.

You’ve achieved great wealth and success, and raised mature, responsible adults, try just enjoying it together, without the unnecessary and unwanted moral judgement.

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Airplane Analogies for Enterprising Families

Family Enterprise Stories Take Flight

When you write a weekly blog, you never actually turn off your antennae for ideas that may spark some new way of sharing your ideas on your chosen subject.

Over a decade ago, as I had my calling to work with enterprising families, I began sharing my thinking here 52 times a year.

A recent text exchange with my son, who had some air travel planned on the day of a snowstorm, got me thinking about airline travel, and so that’s where we’re going this week.

We’ll look at how a family that owns a plane might discuss privileges, consider how where you sit on the plane affects your experience, and what happens when your flight is delayed.

So let’s all fasten our seatbelts and put our phones in airplane mode, although I’m not sure why that’s still a thing.

Who Gets to Fly the Family Plane?

As I flash back to my FEA training I often think about the great example that was shared early on, where the family’s ownership of a business was likened to owning an airplane.

“Just because our family owns an airplane, that doesn’t mean that every family member automatically gets to be the pilot”.

The idea we were to glean from this is that ownership by the family of an asset does not mean that every family member thereby gets to play whatever role they wish with respect to that asset.

I have since shared that example several times, and the message seems to resonate in almost every case.

But some recent exchanges, both among my own family members and with clients, have also brought the idea of air travel to mind as ways of highlighting some useful family enterprise thinking.

Does It Matter Where You Sit On the Plane?

So now let’s head over to our gate to prepare for our commercial flight.  

My son was preparing to fly just before a blizzard was to arrive.

As an interested Dad, I looked at the weather reports and texted him my concern and hope that he’d take off before the weather became and issue.

We’ll ignore his snarky response letting me know that he’d land at his destination before the first snowflakes were expected in his departure city, and instead concentrate on where he’d be sitting on the plane.

He was flying on the frequent flyer points of a family member (the family into which he’d recently married) and would be in business class.

That’s where it dawned on me that if the flight were delayed or canceled, that would affect everyone scheduled to fly, even those seated in the bigger, comfier seats up front.

All passengers land at the same time, although some deplane before others.

Who’s Paying for the Family Vacation?

My client families sometimes organize family vacations together and airline flights are often part of those plans.

Questions about who pays can arise, as well as whether or not they should all be on the same flight together, and even who gets to sit in what section of the plane. 

Some colleagues have clients who are above all this, thanks to their ownership of private aircraft, which can bring in even more complex issues.

When families include various branches with unequal wealth, all sorts of potential conflicts can arise around planning trips together, and who pays for what.

Enjoying the Benefits of Being Part of the Family

One of the realities these families need to recognize is that each family member will necessarily have a different lived experience.

Not everyone will enjoy the benefits of employment in the family’s business. 

Likewise, some will not suffer the pitfalls of working for their parents.

Some family members will enjoy the nice big comfy seats at the front of the plane and be served free drinks, while others may be crammed in a middle seat in the last row.

Attempts will often be made to make things more fair, and that’s a good thing.

But it won’t be the same for everyone, and if you are completely realistic, it can’t be the same for each and every person.

Some will go on more plane trips than others, and those who “get to travel” for work may be looked upon jealously by others.

Likewise, those who “have to travel” for work may look jealously upon those who get to stay home.

And it will always be so.

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On Confidence, Trust, and Lessons from Translations

Bilingualism Can Teach Us Unexpected Lessons

Sometimes I take for granted how lucky I am to have been born in a place where speaking more than one language is the norm and not the exception.

Being the son of immigrants who had no choice but to learn new languages as teenagers is also part of my family context, so there was never an excuse either.

Long time readers may recall past blogs where I’ve featured interesting anecdotes that stem from the way similar words have different meanings in English and French, or how thinking about subjects in more than one language can reveal hidden gems of insight.

If you like that sort of thing, read on. Otherwise read on anyway, unless you’re afraid you might learn something new.

A Local Holiday Gathering of Peers

While 99% of the content I produce in this space is in English, I do speak French every day, because I live in the part of Canada where that’s the language of the majority, and because I can.

The cultural aspects of the language are not insignificant, and the realities of those whose first language and culture are French Canadian are quite different from most of the rest of North America.

While most of my peer network is not local, I maintain wonderful connections close to home as well, but mostly “en français”.

At a December gathering of this network, one veteran of this space was congratulating the organizers for bringing together professionals from various domains, so we could meet and develop connections with others who work with the same types of clients, i.e. enterprising families.

Confidence Means Trust in French

He noted that a key element that needs to be nurtured among professionals is “la confiance”, which, not surprisingly, translates into “confidence”.

And yes, when someone is confident, their message tends to land more positively.

But “confiance” is also the word that francophones use for “trust”, and that’s what he was referring to.

Lest anyone be unsure, I quickly jumped into the fray and asked him to clarify that he was in fact referring to the fact that professionals need to trust each other, and that being confident was not what he was suggesting.

He agreed and thanked me for the opportunity to clarify his point.

Flashback Moment for Me

As I write those words, I’m having a private flashback to my early days of writing these blogs, over a dozen years ago.

My kids were young teens at the time and as they saw their Dad writing a blog every weekend, they wondered, and asked, “who reads these?”, with some inherent teen skepticism.

My reply was that for now it was probably a limited number of people that would hopefully grow, but that I knew that nobody would ever hire me if they didn’t trust me, and that they could never trust me if they didn’t know me.

This remains why I continue to share my thinking here each week, writing from both my head and my heart, about the difficulties families face, as well as the challenges faced by the advisors who serve them.

You’ll note that the same “knowing someone before trusting them” dynamic also exists between professionals.

The Many Meanings of “Trust”

So we know the French word for trust is “confiance”, but what do they call a “trust”, that structure and entity that’s prevalent in our work, in the language of Molière?

I’m glad you asked.

Because a trust in French is a “fiducie”.

Well isn’t that interesting, the French name for a trust definitely conjures up some thoughts that also have their place in how professionals approach this work with families.

We need our clients to trust us, and wouldn’t it be nice if all of those who serve a family could act as fiduciaries.

The Trusted Fiduciary – Coming Full Circle

As professionals who serve families get to know one another, in the hopes of perhaps someday collaborating, understanding to what extent our colleagues are comfortable with a fiduciary standard can be enlightening.

I already know to what degree I hold my relationships with my clients dear, so before agreeing to work with others, I need to feel like their commitment will match mine.

I love it when they seem confident, but it’s only after I know that I can trust them that we can begin to work well together.

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Two Wrongs that Definitely Don’t Make a Right

Some Words to Avoid in Family Discussions

When asked about the work I do, I typically reply by referring to the kinds of families I deal with right up front, because that context is so important.

While just about every family could use some support in the areas I help out with, enterprising families are positioned to benefit the most, because there’s a lot more at stake.

I talk about the fact that these families always have subjects that they need to be discussing together, and that they all actually know very well that they should be devoting time and effort to such conversations.

Yet nonetheless, even though they’re all aware of the need to do this important work and to have these important conversations, left to themselves, they just aren’t able to make progress in this area.

Holding the Space and Showing the Way

A huge part of my role with families is to hold the space during the important regular meetings where these discussions take place.

Making everyone feel safe to express what they’re thinking, as well as what they’re feeling, is a large part of the role a facilitator plays.

It’s so important to have an outside, neutral person play the role of running such meetings, because anyone who actually has a stake in the outcome is automatically biased from the start.

The facilitator is in charge of the process, including who speaks when, and making sure that some of the quieter voices are heard.

See Bringing the Weather (And a Deck of Cards) and Diving into a Family System Without Making a Splash

But in addition to holding the space, there’s also the part about showing the way, or modelling the kinds of behaviour we’re looking for.

The Coaching Calls Between Meetings

Often much of the progress I help families make comes not during their time together, but instead during the one-on-one coaching calls we have between meetings.

These are great opportunities for me to connect with each member of the family so they see that I’m there for everyone, not just those “at the top” who are the ones who pay me.

It’s also a wonderful chance for me to talk to them about how they relate to one another, in a more discreet way.

“I appreciate the way you shared that with me, but is that how you plan to share it with so-and-so?”, I might ask.

“You Are Wrong”, and What That Also Means

So we’re finally getting to the subject I teased in the title, about the “wrongs”.

Sometimes in a family there are those who feel like their way to see something is the only way, and that any other viewpoint is therefore wrong.

The difficulty here is that such an attitude normally comes with decades of evidence that the person holding it has actually been “right” most of the time.

When I hear family leaders speak this way, this quickly becomes the first issue I need to address, but doing so in a one-on-one conversation goes over better than if I attempt it in a group setting.

When a family member hears that they’re “wrong”, it can land as “nobody cares what I think”.

“What’s Wrong with You?” – Also to Be Avoided

 The second wrong I want to throw into the mix is, thankfully, not that common, but it does still rear its head and must not be ignored.

Recall that when I work with families, we’re almost always trying to transition from a pretty autocratic, top-down, decision making environment, to a more democratic one, where everyone’s opinions and ideas can at least be heard.

When a discussion degenerates into anyone saying something like “What’s wrong with you?”, I know that I need to step in.

Two people need to be addressed in such cases, the one who spoke those words, and the one on the receiving end.

Handling the “Designated Difficult One”

Many families have a “black sheep” or “designated difficult one”, and that person can become the scapegoat for everything that’s not going the way the family leaders would like.

By the time I enter the system, such lines are usually drawn in indelible ink, making my job more difficult.

Coming from a coaching background that sees every person as naturally creative, resourceful, and whole, encouraging this person to engage can be a challenge, but one I don’t shirk.

Getting the family to understand that nobody is wrong, and nobody needs to be “fixed” is always my goal.

Please avoid accusations containing the word “wrong”.

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Connect with Family – Or DIE Trying

Striving for More of a “Family of Affinity”

It truly is a privilege to work with families as a resource as they face the challenges around transitioning their business or wealth to the next generation.

Seeing the entire family as my client makes this complex, as noted a couple of weeks ago in Remaining Equidistant and Neutral in Work with Families.

But as someone who’s now been doing this professionally for over a decade, it’s amazing to see just how many of these disparate families have some of the same underlying desires.

Almost every last one of them is striving to become more of what Jay Hughes calls a Family of Affinity.

At the same time, most have also discovered that pushing too hard to make this happen often backfires, as hinted at last week in Navigating the Sweet Spots of Life in the FamBiz.

So we’re going back there this week with some ideas on how to think about this to increase the family’s odds of success.

Yet Another Mnemonic to Consider

Regular and long time readers (thanks!) won’t be surprised to see that I’ll now share yet another mnemonic here, although with some negative connotations for a change.

Having already shared about “ATM”, “PACE”, “PAL”, “MEDAL” and “ACE”, I’m now introducing “DIE”, as teased in my title.

As families consider how to increase the amount of family connection, I invite them to think about Desire, Intention, and Effort, i.e. DIE.

For families to increase their connection, all three are necessary, and they also happen to line up in that order.

We’ve already kind of covered the first one, desire, by noting that almost all families really want to make sure that their family remains truly connected as much as possible.

Is the Desire Reciprocal, and How to Make It So

What almost always happens is that there is plenty of desire for connection from some members of the family, but that there are also some family members for whom that desire is much more muted.

At the same time, when those who have that desire are let’s say, “over-expressive” in that area, it can be a turn off for those who are looking for more independence from the family, as noted in the blog linked above.

Quick hint for those with extra desire: the only person you can control is yourself, not the others, so this is where thinking about “what can I do differently” should trump “how do I get them to change”.

Intention – Clarifying Why This Is Important

While desire is pretty much an internal feeling, we need to figure out ways that we want to deploy it on the exterior.

But we’re quickly back to the same conundrum we noted earlier, i.e. how we’re expressing the desire for connection and how a bit too much of that can backfire so easily.

It’s pretty easy to see how intention evolves from desire, but what I invite you to consider here is how your intention is being perceived by those you’re hoping to persuade.

Perhaps if the intention, the “why” behind the desire for more connection, were more clear to all, your efforts (we’re getting ahead of ourselves a bit!) would be better received.

Those “why’s” will also be easier to accept if everyone can clearly see what’s in it for them to play along in these attempts to increase family connection, as opposed to what’s in it for the instigators.

Not All Efforts Will Bear Fruit

Anyone reading this for tips will surely already have expended various efforts in this direction over the years.

Allow me to normalize that this is rarely simple, meaning that trial and error, as well as good timing, are usually required for success.

This may require several rounds of iteration; reigniting your own desire, refocusing your intention, and then making the next effort that you think might be fruitful.

Starting small and engaging with some of the family members may also be a trick to gain some momentum.

For parents hoping to engage all of their offspring, starting with those who are more amenable and getting them to enroll some enthusiasm from their siblings could be an avenue worth exploring.

Not Giving Up, but Not Doubling Down

I’ll close by reminding you that if improving connections within your family is important, having some sort of “family project” to keep everyone united in some way should be your goal, and you can’t ever give up!

Doubling down isn’t the way to go either, so pick your spots and try again later.

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Navigating the Sweet Spots of Life in FamBiz

Or, What We Can Learn from Goldilocks

When I was growing up I had a tendency to believe that if something was good, then more of it was surely better.

As my hair has turned gray and I’ve got lots more mileage on my odometer, I recognize that this is not only “not always true”, but that in almost all cases, too much of something, even a good thing, will have its own drawbacks.

I realize that some readers may now assume that I’m going to get into the subject of financial wealth, and while that is tempting, we aren’t going there this week.

I’ve got three examples to share that have little to do with wealth, but everything to do with the virtues of finding the happy medium.

“Two Reason Businesses Fail”

Recently I was catching up with an old friend who is now running a business that is benefitting from the A.I. infrastructure building boom.

He noted that they’ve never been busier and now have a large backlog of work ahead of them.

“Nice problem to have”, I replied.  Well, yes, and…

He reminded me that there are two reasons businesses fail: not enough work, or too much work.

If you can’t deliver on the work you have promised, you risk eventually falling back into the former category.

Strategy and Heart

A few days later I was speaking with my coach who shared that she was continuing to focus her practice on finding people who shared her belief in the importance of tapping into their heart as part of their executive coaching with her.

Over the years as she has coached hundreds of clients, she has come to see that those she really needs to convince to trust what their heart and their body is telling them, really are not good long term clients for her.

She highlighted that those who are 100% focused on strategy and who therefore minimize the importance of her queries to them about what their heart is telling them, don’t give her what she needs, to want to continue to support them in their attempts to make progress as executives.

“You need to balance strategy with heart”, she implored, speaking to the already converted.

Forces of Togetherness and Individuality

As we now pivot to the normal focus of these weekly missives, let’s get into how this idea of balance, or, finding the “sweet spot”, affects families who are facing the challenges involved in an eventual generational transition of their business or wealth.

When I started studying Bowen Family Systems Theory over a decade ago, I quickly began to understand how every person finds themselves somewhere on a continuum between striving for individuality, versus seeking the comfort of togetherness.

You won’t be surprised to learn that those who strike a balance between the two typically do better in life.

What may seem surprising to some, though, is how different members of the same family can vary in where they each land on that continuum.

One Big Unhappy Family

It’s certainly laudable to strive to have the prototypical “one big happy family”, and now that I have over a quarter century of experience as a parent, it makes even more sense to me.

Enterprising families I’ve had the pleasure to work with over the years have had a variety of views on this.

Some have had difficulty acknowledging and accepting that their offspring need to explore their own individuality as they mature, and lament that they don’t seem as gung ho about whatever “family project” the parents are hoping to build.

Others, perhaps because they recall how they felt around that same age, not only accept this “discover the world” phase, but encourage it.

I do know that parents who overstep here, usually unconsciously, only add to the problem.

Finding the Happiest of Mediums

In an ideal scenario family members enjoy spending time with each other and get along well.

They become what Jay Hughes refers to as a “family of affinity”.

Avoid forcing people to spend more time together than they want to.

Having people enjoy being together of their own volition works best when you have adult-to-adult relationships, resisting the temptation to slip back into “father/mother knows best”, which made sense when they were children, but is now way past its expiry date.

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Remaining Equidistant and Neutral in Work with Families

On the Nebulous Prospect of “The Family” as the Client

When I had my calling to work with enterprising families over a decade ago, the idea of having “the family” as my client seemed to make lots of sense, as it was very intuitive to me to want to work for the good of everyone.

The concept was presented to me during the Family Enterprise Advisor program (FEA) and since I was not yet an advisor, but instead someone who came from such a family, it seemed like an easy thing to grasp and adopt.

Thirteen years later, I can tell you how difficult this can be in practice, and we’ll look at some of those challenges here this week.

We’ll talk about neutrality, remaining “equidistant” and avoiding triangles, and some of the traps you need to look out for when serving family clients.

There’s a lot to cover so let’s jump in.

Reality and Perception Can Differ

At the beginning of a relationship with a family, when I share that I look at the entire family as my client, heads typically nod along. 

It sounds perfectly normal and benign.

The problem is that a family is not some unitary entity, it’s actually a whole system of interdependent beings, each with their own viewpoints, agendas, and needs.

While it’s laudable to be “all things to everyone equally”, those varying needs of the individuals can get in the way and be challenging.

Sometimes doing whatever we can to be perceived as neutral as possible is the most important part of the way we act.

I was part of yet another peer call recently when this subject came up, and I shared my view of a family I’m working with where I try to stay in between G2 and G3 and try not to let either side feel like I’m more aligned with the other.

Someone replied and used the word “equidistant”, and I noted that because I had never heard it phrased that way and I liked it (and it became the impetus for this post).

Is Equidistant the Same as Neutral?

The following month as this group met anew, the subject came up again.

This time, the idea of neutrality was mentioned, which seemed to resonate better with many on the call.

We then got into a discussion around neutrality and once again got into the part about being perceived as neutral being as important as actually being neutral.

And because this group is focused on family systems theory, we eventually got around to the idea of triangles and the fact that family members often try to bring their advisors closer to their corner of any triangle vis-à-vis others in the family.

While all of these labels are related to the same idea, they aren’t necessarily synonyms either.

But it certainly did turn into an interesting discussion and hopefully the makings of a useful blog post!

Is It Facilitating, Coaching, or Mediation?

This brings us to another, related, subject; how we label our work.

In the past, I had a business card and email signature that mentioned coaching, facilitation and mediation as the services I offered.

I have since removed any mention of mediation, because I felt like situations that require mediation are just a bit beyond my comfort zone, and because I now know other people who do this better than I can, and to whom I will refer clients instead.

In fact, as I’ve discussed with others who do offer mediation, it’s very important to decipher on the front end of meeting with a prospect, whether they’re looking for a facilitator/coach or if they are well past that stage and actually need mediation.

In the latter cases, we need to ensure that the first discussion is cut short, lest we then get labelled by the other party as “not neutral”, i.e. biased in favour of the person who contacted us.

Neutral and Ready to Engage

Wrapping up, let’s just reinforce that being neutral, and being perceived as such, is not the same as being dormant.

When the engine of my car is running, even in Park or Neutral, it is “ready to go”, and to serve it’s intended purpose.

I hope I’ve underscored some of the challenges in having the “family” as your client.

Every person needs to feel comfortable believing that you are there for them, at all times.

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Skills, Knowledge and Attitude for Work with Families

Distinctions Between Knowing What and Knowing How 

Writing about a niche subject like family business and wealth transition challenges on a weekly basis is bound to see me repeat some ideas, especially since I’ve been doing it every week for well over a decade.

Such is the case this week, and I almost ended up revisiting something I addressed in 2021 with way too much overlap, but caught myself in time to readjust this post.

As sometimes happens, witnessing someone share an idea in a new way just in time for me to incorporate it here was quite serendipitous.

So whereas I had initially thought about contrasting only skills and knowledge, adding in the concept of attitude will give my thoughts a fresher edge.

So let’s get going.

Knowledge Isn’t Enough

The main thrust of this piece was to be my highlighting that in order to work with families as a facilitator in the governance space, knowledge, i.e. “what to do”, is not enough.

Because this work is more about process than content, and more about relationships than structures, having the communication skills to guide a discussion is an absolute necessity.

The idea of writing about skills came to me recently when I saw a TV commercial encouraging young people to join the “skills trades”, in order to begin to tackle some of Canada’s economic headwinds like our housing shortage.

We can’t just “know” that we need more housing, we need people with the skills to build it.

And in order to get people to want to get those skills, we need to begin to change their attitudes towards those trades.

The Desire to Obtain Required Skills

Back to the matter at hand, working with families who want to transition their business or wealth to the next generation, knowing what they should do is only the first, small, issue.

Having the skills to engage with them so that they can have the important conversations amongst themselves on how best to do that, given their particular circumstances, is probably even more important.

Too often, very knowledgeable professionals have done a great job of helping these families put together the structures to hold and grow their wealth, with very little thought as to how the actual family members will need to interact with each other to make everything work.

I’m happy to relate that more and more of these experts are beginning to recognize the need to go deeper with these family clients, and are looking to level up their skills to engage with their client families in this way.

The attitude towards such skills is evolving in a good way.

Does Attitude Precede Skills?

Back in 2021 in Skills Vs. Knowledge in Family Enterprises, we looked at the idea that interpersonal skills are an important asset for advisors to work on if they hope to help families.

While many advisors worry about getting too personal with their clients, if you want to remain “sticky” with the families you serve, it becomes key to embrace the attitude that you need to show them that you care.

During a PPI thought leader call recently, David York, whose ideas I’ve shared here a number of times over the years, addressed this point.

He noted that while some advisors shy away from personal topics out of a fear for not wanting to become their client’s therapist, that’s not the best way to look at it.

“You don’t have to be their therapist to ask questions, to show that you care about them, to be their friend”, is how he put it.

Again, this begins with an attitudinal shift.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Like with so many skills, the more you practice, the better you get.

But it all starts with adopting the right attitude towards this work.

You don’t need to get to the point where you feel like someone’s therapist to ask them about their family members.

The knowledge that makes professionals able to serve business owners is what gets them to the table.

But developing the skills to have deeper conversations with their family clients is what makes them indispensable.

Adopting the mindset of being a caring friend is probably the simplest way to think about it and get started.

And then keep practising and it will come more naturally with time.

Skills can be learned and improvement can come rather quickly too.

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