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Family Offices and Impact Investing: A Great Fit

This week we’ll look at a couple of subjects that have been written about a lot over the past few years.

I’ve written about the family office space recently, and promised to write about more often.  Impact investing, on the other hand, I’ve not written about, yet.

It’s interesting that more people are beginning to realize that family offices and impact investing actually go together like peanut butter and jelly, or ham and cheese.

I’m not claiming to have unearthed anything new here, but want to comment on some aspects of this combination that give it so much potential.

 

 

Millennials on the Mind

Let’s start with the premise that many family offices are essentially investment vehicles for wealth that is owned by a family.

Let’s add in the fact that these families want to keep their wealth in the family, and that much of that wealth is often liquid wealth, which can be invested in a wide variety of asset classes.

And finally, let’s not forget that when the wealth (eventually) gets transitioned to the rising generation of the family, there are likely going to be some millennials involved.

If you Google “millennials impact investing” you will get all sorts of hits.

Much of the mindset that impact investors bring to the table overlaps almost perfectly with everything that I’ve ever read about millennials.

 

 

Family Engagement

Anyone who works with wealthy families knows that a key obstacle to successful wealth transitions has always been the difficulty in getting and maintaining the engagement of the younger generation of the family.

It’s only natural for young people to want to find their own way in the world, to explore and develop their own passions, and follow their own dreams.

Their parents, who are currently stewarding the family’s wealth, and who may have been involved in creating and growing it, often become anxious when their offspring do not show any interest in these efforts.

 

family Business office

Generational Priorities Converge

So for families who have liquid capital to invest in different asset classes, it isn’t much of a stretch to begin to look at investments in companies or funds that look to make a positive impact in an environmental and/or social fashion.

Impact investing is about making money first and foremost, just not at any cost.  If younger family members can identify potential investments that satisfy both a social benefit along with an opportunity to make a financial profit, it should be a no-brainer to consider such opportunities.

I’m thinking about this from the point of view of a family that is trying to find ways to combine what is important to all generations of the family.

For a family office to look seriously at impact investing even takes into account future generations, including young children and those who aren’t yet born.

 

 

Like Philanthropy, But Different

Some people confuse impact investing with philanthropy, so let’s address the comparison here.

Philanthropy is another way that some wealthy families use to bring the family together and help prepare the rising generation.  Working together on a family foundation is a nice way to learn financial literacy and how to work together with others.

Families who understand and teach their younger generations the importance of giving back to their community have realized that there are lots of win-wins here.

But impact investing is different, because it’s actually about finding ways to invest money for profit, not just out of a sense of charity.

It just isn’t about profit without regard to side effects and unwanted consequences.

 

 

Who Gets to Decide?

Of course it’s easy to say that family offices should take impact investing seriously and start doing it.  It’s another to figure out how to do it, including asking the questions around “who gets to decide?”

We’ve looked at “what” to do (impact investing) and we’ve explored a bit of the “why”, (because of the engagement of all generations), but that still leaves a lot of the “how” questions.

A few weeks back, in Putting “Family” in the Family Office, I noted:

 

Ideally, the goals of the family would also

be taken into consideration too, not to

mention the family’s mission and vision

 

Impact investing needs to be driven by the family’s vision to really succeed.

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Global FamBiz Students Compete for Glory

The University of Vermont recently held the 6th edition of their Global Family Enterprise Case Competition(FECC) in Burlington.

It was great to see this fantastic event back on the calendar after a one-year hiatus as they awaited completion of their brand new digs.

I was privileged to be back to serve on a couple of judging panels, a role I had enjoyed at 3 of their previous competitions (2014, 2015, 2016).

 

Truly Global Reach

I was scheduled to judge on Thursday and Friday, but because Burlington Vermont is only about an hour and a half from home, I decided to head down in time to catch the first round on Wednesday afternoon.

There were 13 teams in the undergraduate division and 12 graduate teams.  They had been drawn into divisions Wednesday morning.

As it happened, the “FFI Division” consisted of four teams from outside North America: China, Guatemala, the Philippines and Spain.

I decided to spend the afternoon watching that division because of its diversity.

Let’s just say that I was quite impressed with the caliber of presentations, even before considering the fact that most of them were working in their second or third language.

universities participating in Global family business competition

Tell It To The Judge

On Thursday my work truly began.  I was the lead judge of my panel, and as it turned out, I was also the oldest of the four judges, probably by at least a decade and a half.

We saw presentations by undergraduate teams from Canada, USA and Mexico.

Our task was to rank the four teams in order after we had seen them all present and survive our Q & A period.

As luck would have it, all four judges came up with the same rankings so our deliberations were quick.  This allowed us plenty of time to provide what we hoped would be useful feedback for the teams.

We also spent some time on allocating our six stars (points) for best presenters from the teams that we saw.  There were lots of worthy candidates to choose from.

 

 

Disagreements Happen Too

On Friday, the judging panels were mixed up again and I ended up with 3 new people on my panel, and I was no longer the lead judge.

We were in a graduate division, and the teams we saw were from Canada, USA, Germany and Sweden.

When it came time to determine our rankings, unlike the previous day, the four of us were all over the map.  There were three teams who received a top rank, including one that had received a fourth-place vote as well.

This deliberation wasn’t as simple as the previous day’s.

 

 study rooms for students at a university

Not Much Difference

Family business cases, whether in real life or as captured by those who write cases for University classes and case competitions, are always very subjective.

By “subjective” I mean that every person can interpret everything they read, see, and hear according to their own personal filters, experiences and understanding.

When the teams completed their 20-minute presentations, we had a 10-minute Q & A to probe for more depth and clarification.

We got to hear a lot in that half hour, but considering these cases were based on real-life situations that had decades of history behind them, we were really only scratching the surface.

In the end, the difference between first and fourth was not very large on either day that I judged.

 

 

Better Every Year

From the first time I attended FECC until this year’s edition, things have been getting better every year.

Likewise the field of family business as a subject that Universities teach is also advancing, and the profession of advising business families continues to move in positive directions.

If this blog post is starting to sound like it’s coming from a big fan, then you’re reading it correctly.  If it also sounds like I am angling for an invitation to return as a judge next year, that’s also a strong possibility.

 

 

And the Winners Are

On Saturday night the winners were announced.

Congratulations to the undergraduate winners, from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

In the graduate category, the winning team was from the University of Adelaide in Australia.

Click here for all final results.

And the whole University of Vermont crew deserves kudos once again for a fantastic job of creating and hosting this unique event.

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“Nose In, Fingers Out” for Family Business

“Nose In, Fingers Out” for Family Business

Today’s topic is one that I’ve been thinking about for a while, ever since I first saw it mentioned back in 2017.

If you Google “nose in, fingers out”, you’ll see that it has been used by a number of people, attesting to its usefulness in creating a mental image that most people can quickly grasp.

I need to give a hat tip to Larry Putterman for putting it on my radar screen first.

 

 

It’s All About Boundaries

A topic that arises often in business families is that of “boundaries”, and there are many reasons for that, and anyone who has ever worked with, or in, a family business knows what I’m talking about.

But while the “nose in, fingers out” idea is about boundaries, it is also a subtle way to discuss how boundary lines are not all necessarily a solid concrete wall, but perhaps just some steel slats.

Boundaries are important, but we need to think about, and talk about, what the boundaries are supposed to accomplish, if we are going to establish the optimal boundaries for our situation.

 

Boundaries

From CEO to Chairman

The area that Putterman specializes in is Boards of Directors, and in the family business context what he is most often referring to relates to a person who has decided to scale back their involvement as part of a transition.

The former leader of the operations of the business, likely the CEO, has decided to pass on the reins of the operations, but to stay involved in a lesser capacity, and not disappear altogether, at least not yet.

There are different ways to take these kinds of steps gradually, of course.  My father brought in a non-family President and stepped into the Chairman role, but kept the CEO title for himself for a while.

Quite often the biggest step is the one where the CEO mantle is relinquished, and only the Chairmanship is retained.

 

 

How Much Is Out, How Much Is In?

In a family business, an outgoing leader will (hopefully) get to the point where, for many reasons, it makes more sense to scale back their involvement, moving from day-to-day operations to more of an oversight role.

These kinds of transitions happen all the time.

But sometimes they work out well, and other times, well, they just create problems.

This is where the “nose in, fingers out” idea comes in.

 

 

What Is Permissable?

The devil, as they say, is always in the details.

The nose and the eyes go together, so you are allowed to look around and sniff around as much as you like.

As you would expect in an oversight role, continuing to observe whatever is going on in the company is allowed and even required.

Below the nose is the mouth, of course, and this is usually the first place that problems begin to arise.

 

 

The Mouth Can Be a Finger (?)

If the nose and eyes go together, does that mean the mouth does too?

Probably not.

Once you step back from the day-to-day to oversight, what you say to people, at least those who are involved in the daily operations, needs to be weighed very carefully.

Problems and confusion arise quite quickly when the old boss walks around and tells “his people” what to do.

In fact, it is at this point where the mouth has become tantamount to a finger.

 

 

Encouragement Yes, Direction No

When the ex-leader talks to the employees, care must be taken to limit their words to encouragement and not direction.

When they are in a board setting or discussing things with others involved in oversight only, then the mouth is once again an agent of the eyes.

 

Road directions in a desert

 

What About Other Family Members?

 

There is another area where the nose in, fingers out situation comes up in family business that I’d also like to touch on here.

It’s the one where family members who do not work in the business interact with others, often siblings, who do.

There are boundary issues here as well, as those who don’t work there have an information disadvantage that they usually need to overcome.

Sometimes their questions seem a little too much like fingers in, rather than just noses.

For those being questioned, the best defence for this is to try to be as transparent as possible, and to get out in front of any questions.

If you satisfy their noses, they will be less tempted to poke their fingers in.

 

 

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Equanimity: Yours for only $250 Million!

Every so often, I hear a word that sounds kind of familiar to my ears, but that also gives me a bit of an uncomfortable feeling.

Usually, the feeling is one of guilt, because that newish, cool word sounds like something that I really should understand, but I’m not 100% sure that I do.

Alas, we cannot know all of the words, and even if we learned one new word every day as some might suggest we do, I’m not sure you could ever learn them all.

 

 

Audible Strikes Again

Over the past few months, I made a few trips to our cottage to work on my next book, and I’ve been taking advantage of my subscription to Audible, the audiobook division of Amazon.

When I listen to music while driving, it sometimes puts me to sleep, so audiobooks have been a godsend.

I recently listened to a couple of books about meditation and mindfulness, and it was in one of those that the latest “special” word struck me: Equanimity.

It sounded majestic and important.  But I didn’t feel like I knew enough about it, even though I was falling in love with the word.

 

 

Let’s Google It

As recently as a few years ago, I would have gone to the bookshelf with the dictionaries and thesaurus and looked it up, but like many people I just Google everything now.

Lo and behold, thanks to some dumb luck with timing, there was a news story out about the world’s most expensive yacht that also happened to have a cool name: Equanimity.

Like a little kid seeing a shiny object, of course, I had to read about this huge yacht that the Malaysian government had just seized that was said to be worth $250 Million.

I’d worry about the definition later.

I even watched a Youtube video of the scandalous Asian billionaire owner getting his first tour of the vessel a few years earlier.

 

Dressing store

Definitions and Meanings

But let’s get down to business here.  From Google, here are some definitions and meanings I liked:

mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper,

especially in a difficult situation.

Also:

Equanimity is a state of psychological stability and composure which is undisturbed by experience

of or exposure to emotions, pain, or other

phenomena that may cause others to lose

 the balance of their mind.

 

Stable and Composed

Most people probably like to think of themselves as stable and composed, and I guess that most of the time they are correct.

The problem isn’t what happens “most of the time” though, the trouble is what happens “in a difficulty situation” or when “emotions and pain” are part of the equation.

And when you happen to work with other family members, you know that emotions and difficult situations come up all the time.

 

 

Be the Bigger Person

I always say that the only person you can control is yourself, and so the onus is on each and every one of us to strive for our own equanimity, and try to be the most stable and composed person that we can be, in every situation.

Can meditation help you become better at this?  I think it can and there is more and more research all the time that supports this view too.

But before we can get too far, we really have to make a personal decision that this is something that we really want to do, and that we are ready to make the efforts that will be required.

 

Finding Inner Peace

In July 2018, in Rest in Peace, While You’re Still Alive, I wrote about this as finding peace,

But whether we call it peace, calm, composure, or equanimity, it really doesn’t matter, because we all have different versions of it that resonate with us better.

The important thing is to work on getting better at self-awareness and self-control.

 

 

Good for Each Generation

Whether we’re talking about the “now generation” who are currently running the family business, or the “next gens” who are rising to eventually replace them, this is equally important.

It even helps if you have advisors or coaches who exhibit equanimity to help you along the way.

I’ve been in meetings with families where everyone was even tempered, and I’ve been in others with other families where tempers really flared.

Even a little bit of equanimity goes a long way.

 

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Putting “Family” in the Family Office

Back in September in From Family Business to Family Office, I finished up by noting that I’d be writing about the family office space more frequently going forward.

I diligently followed that up four weeks later with another post on the topic, Family Office: “WHAT” vs. “HOW.  But that was more than two months ago, so this is slightly overdue.

Coincidentally, I just came across an article from a recent issue of The Economist on the subject, which I found interesting, called: How the 0.001% invest.

 

 

An Investment Vehicle

An important angle of that story is evident from their secondary title:

“The family offices through which the world’s

wealthiest 0.001% invest are a new force in

global finance that few have heard of”

The story makes the point that some of the giant family offices from around the world are making waves in the financial markets like never before, which is causing them to be talked about even more.

I typically don’t talk about the “0.001%” very much, on the assumption that they are already quite well served, and because they constitute a tiny fraction of people who could ever use my services.

 

Where is the Family?

I typically write about things that actually concern the families themselves, even though most people care only about their money.

The number of people who would bend over backwards to cater to the “super-rich” to manage their wealth is huge.

The number of people like me who want to be a resource to those families as they manage the family aspects of their intergenerational wealth transitions is comparatively tiny.

So it’s up to me to ask the question, then, “Where is the family in the family office?”

 

 

Family Members as Clients

Well if the story from the Economist is any indication, nobody really talks much about the family members themselves, preferring to concentrate on the family’s wealth, and ways to increase it.

This also happens to be where most of the professionals make their money, by helping the family office make money.

The members of the family, for whom all of this work is ostensibly being done, are rarely mentioned.  They are, though, the “clients” of the family office.

Because every family office is unique to the family it serves, it is hard to know how many of them actually have deeper levels of family involvement in the work the family office does.

 

 Meeting room for family

Values, Goals, Mission, Vision

Because many family offices come about as the result of liquidity events in family businesses, many of the same issues are often found there.  Some are simpler than those in an operating business, while others are more complex.

See: Huge Liquidity Events – Great News, Right?

Hopefully, the family office is not simply making investments based on maximizing returns, if those investments would go against the values of the family.

Ideally, the goals of the family would also be taken into consideration too, not to mention the family’s mission and vision.

This, of course, pre-supposes that the family has worked together to define their values and agree on the goals, mission and vision of the family.

I’d guess that very few family offices are currently benefitting from that kind of guidance from family clients who’ve done that important work.

 

 

Family Office as a Catalyst

Regular readers know that I like to harp on the importance of having someone “with a different last name” around the table at meetings.

It’s important for family meetings to run well, and so having a facilitator who is not a family member is the best way to go.

Someone from the family office could be well placed to handle such a role.

 

 

Multi-Family Office Opportunity

For large single-family offices (SFO) there’s really no excuse for not doing the important work of involving the family and preparing the rising generation.

For multi-family offices, (MFO) the idea of offering assistance with family meetings is an opportunity to differentiate their services from those who are strictly investment managers for high-end clients.

 

 

Check Before you Sign

This is not a new idea, of course.  Many firms tout their assistance with family matters on their websites and in their pitches to potential family clients.

There is, however, a huge variation in the service levels that different firms out there can offer their clients in this area, so if part of the reason you are looking into an MFO is for help with family dynamics, be sure to ask LOTS of questions first!

 

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Calm, Clear, and Connected

Each week in this space, I talk about things that affect the world of family business and family wealth, especially for families who are planning for a successful transition to the next generation.

This week’s subject is family meetings and three ways to assess them after the fact.

My premise is that you should strive for “calm, clear, and connected” meetings.

Let’s take them one at a time.

 

 

Keep Calm and Carry On

I’ve written a couple of blogs on the subject of calm, including Calm is Contagious earlier this year, and Calm-fident Advice for your Family in 2016.

When a family can meet calmly and discuss important matters while everyone remains composed, the results are usually much more satisfying than when voices are raised in anger.

It is normal for some contentious subjects to arise, on occasion, where things get a bit louder and more animated.

When the loud and angry meetings outnumber the calm ones, it’s usually not a good sign.

Ideally, there can at least be some calm parts of each meeting where the family can truly benefit from everyone’s best thinking and ideas.

 

birds flying in a V-shaped form

My Kingdom for Some Clarity

Another subject that I talk about regularly is clarity and the need for things to be clear.

Most people think that they have a clear picture of things in their own head, and that’s probably a good thing.

When we talk about a family though, it’s also important for everyone to have the same clear picture, and that’s very rarely the case.

There are many valid reasons why different people have different pictures of what they believe to be the reality.

Problems will arise when people who are working together to make decisions about important matters don’t have a common understanding of what they’re dealing with.

And a huge underlying issue here is that people often simply assume that their view is not only correct, but also that the others share their view.

One of the benefits of having an outside person present at family meetings is that this person can ask the “stupid questions” that the others would likely be afraid to ask, because they don’t want to risk appearing ignorant.

Of course, this presupposes that you can find an outsider who is prepared to act this way in the interest of clarity for the family.

I laid out some of the questions that you might ask in I Can See Clearly Now in 2016.

 

 

Connected: The State of the Relationships

The third element that I think is important for family meetings is connection.  I realize that this one may seem a bit less obvious to some, but please stay with me here.

Families work best when everyone is on the same page and everyone has an opportunity to be heard.

When I facilitate family meetings a big part of my role is to ensure that each person has the opportunity to speak and contribute.

You may wonder about my choice of the word “connected” here, and I guess I must confess that part of the reason I chose it is that “calm, clear and connected” evokes the old “cool, calm and collected” expression most of you are probably familiar with.

But the connection angle also stems from my understanding of the importance of family systems theory.

 

Family meeting

Interdependent Parts of a System

The members of a family are all interdependent parts of the family system.  I actually try to focus more on the relationships between the people than I do on the people themselves.

I try to notice all the non-verbal cues that I can when sister speaks to brother and son speaks to mother, and so on.

When everyone relates well with everyone else, meetings are more productive and the decisions that are made are more likely to stick.

 

 

Recap: Calm, Clear and Connected

No meeting is ever perfect. In fact, the focus shouldn’t be on any single meeting, but on having a series of regular meetings.

Try to get better from one meeting to the next, as the process evolves.

More calm is generally better than less calm.

More clarity, even if it takes a bit longer to make sure everyone understands things the same way, is better than less.

And when everyone actually connects with everyone else in meaningful ways, that’s ideal.

Think back to your last family meeting.  How did you do? Where can you improve?

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“Arts” and “Crafts” in Advising Families

This week I want to look at a couple of different concepts in the domain of family enterprise advising.

They are two separate ideas that happen to also be related, and I want to see what we can learn from the intersection.

 

 

Art AND Science

In 2014 in Family Business Advising: Art vs. Science I wrote:

 “What it comes down to in many ways is that it is an art to deal with the family, while dealing with the business is more of a science.

To be a good family business advisor, you need to be able to bridge both of these, art AND science.”

 

I’ve repeated this often since then, and still believe it today.

Many people who work with family businesses have a preference for the art aspect or the science side, and I think that’s only normal.

 

 

Honing your Craft

While constrasting art versus science is pretty easy for most people to grasp, the other idea may be less clear, and that’s the idea that advising families is a “craft”.

When I first heard this from a respected thought leader in our field, I tilted my head to the side to consider it, and then began nodding in agreement.

 

Arts and Crafts

Arts AND Crafts?

So the intersection of “art” from the world of “arts and science” and the concept of a “craft” that one hones over a career, has been simmering in the back of my mind for a while now.

Ergo this blog post on “Arts and Crafts”, which is a pretty common term, but from a completely unrelated area.

Could it be that working with families on transitioning their wealth to the next generation is akin to “arts and crafts”?

 

 

“OK Google, What’s a craft?”

According to Google, a craft is:

noun, “an activity involving skill in making things by hand”.

While I like the first part about the need for skill, the second part, about making things by hand, may not fit with where I thought this was going.

How about “craft”, the verb?

There, we get “(to) exercise skill in making (something)”.

Again, there’s an emphasis on what the craftsperson is making, which brings up a whole other set of issues when the subject is family enterprise advising.

What are we trying to “make”, a harmonious family?  (That may be a future blog post.)

 

 

How About an Artisan?

What if we switch languages?

A “craftsman” in French is an “artisan”, which also happens to be a word used in English.  Maybe we’re on to something.

An “artisan” is a worker in a skilled trade, especially one that involves making things by hand. Hmmm, feels like we’re back at the same place, until we see the next line:

Artisan (of food or drink): made in a traditional, or non-mechanized way using high-quality ingredients.

I think I finally found what I was looking for!

The “non-mechanized way” that an artisan does something is essential to it being a craft.  Let’s run with that.

 

Arts and Crafts

The Non-Mechanized Art

The art of working in the family circle has always felt to me like there was some sort of “flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants” quality to it.

I always liked that aspect of it, being confident in my ability to respond to whatever presents itself in a meeting with a group of family members in a way that promotes calm, clarity and connection.

The “non-mechanized” aspect of a craft just adds to that understanding.

There is no checklist or flowchart that tells me what to do next.

 

 

Arts and Crafts = No Accident

Bottom line, I guess I had never thought of arts and crafts as being a part of what I do.

Then again, I have been fascinated by another French/English term that I have heard used in recent years; Bricolage.

My primary schooling was in French, and on Friday afternoons we did plenty of “bricolage”, while friends of mine going to English schools were doing “arts and crafts”.

So, from oxforddictionnaries.com,

          Bricolage: noun, construction or creation from a

                                diverse range of available things.

 

 

Developing Family Governance

When I think about what it takes to support a family through the efforts of developing their custom-made family governance systems and structures, the term “bricolage” actually fits pretty well.

There’s lots of art, and also plenty of craft.

And if the family was involved in it, they will like the result, even if it isn’t beautiful to outsiders.

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Building a Bridge vs. Buying One

Analogies have long been one of my favourite ways of trying to convey interesting ideas to audiences.

Most are quick “one-shot-deals” that come up in a conversation and never get used again.

Others have more staying power, and become part of my “go to” arsenal of tales I use to get important points across.

Today’s blog should become part of the latter group, as I will surely find opportunities to use the story behind it with plenty of families, and their advisors, going forward.

 

 

Team Building Exercise

The setting for this story is a campsite in the woods, the week before school starts up again in the fall.

The main characters are 10 High School Seniors, along with a few adult chaperones from their school.

The students had been chosen by their classmates, and approved by school staff, before summer break, to act as prefects for the coming school year.

The trip itself was designed as a team-building exercise above all, and included a major project: building a bridge together.

 

 

Inside Info and Unplanned Events

I was not part of this trip, but I did have someone close to me who provided me with inside information about it, after the fact.

As a parent, I had known about the trip in advance, but the details of the project only came up afterwards, thanks to a number of bee stings that my daughter and a few others had the misfortune to experience.

If you have teenage kids and you’ve ever tried to get information about an incident they were involved in, you know how these discussions go.

“You got stung?  Four times?

How did that happen, what were you doing?

A bridge? In the woods?

Why the heck were you building a bridge in the woods?”

Train crossing a bridge with a steam coming out of it

 

Photographic Evidence on Social Media

A few days later, the school tweeted out a photo of the students and their handiwork.

I’ve gotta say, the picture I had in my head before I saw the tweet was of a more “substantial” bridge.

But it was technically a bridge, so I can only assume that it met whatever expectations had been set.

More importantly, by all accounts the experience they went through together, including the unplanned parts, did have the desired effect.

They’ve been working together and leading all sorts of school activities since then, and while everything doesn’t always go perfectly according to plan, that trip, and the bridge project, did serve a very useful prupose.

 

 

The Magic of Co-Creation

The end result was not so much a bridge in the woods, but a cohesive group of people who knew how to work together.

If they had really needed a bridge, the school could certainly have found other ways of getting one built.

But the overall goal was to have the teens work together on making decisions, communicating, and solving problems together.

The entire exercise was one of co-creation and teamwork.

 

 

Similarities to Governance

If you’re a regular reader, (thanks!) then you may recognize the three elements that I just outlined above:

  • Decision-making
  • Communication
  • Problem-solving

They are of course the main elements that we include when we define governance.

Family governance is something that can and should evolve from within the family group, and it is best done with as many of the key family members as possible.

Please see: The Evolution of Family Governance for more.  (That blog also includes links to previous posts on the topic.)

Girl with a backpack crossing a bridge

 

Can’t We Just Buy the Bridge?

If your family has recently decided that governance is an important part of your intergenerational wealth transitions, I urge you to heed the lesson here.

Yes, you probably could “buy” some elements of a governance plan from some professional advisors and consultants.

There are those out there who are willing to sell you a “family constitution” or a “family charter”.

Be forewarned that you may be buying a “bridge to nowhere”.

 

 

It’s All About the Experience

Like our teens in the woods, it was never about the bridge.

Families often need the experience of building

something together more than they need a bridge.

Once again, I’m arguing that process is more important than content.

The key family members who will have to live with the agreements they make over the next few decades need to be key actors in their design and construction.

Even if they do get stung a few times along the way.

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Stopping the Disintegration of Family Wealth

I’m writing this blog on US Thanksgiving weekend, and it strikes me that one of the things I’m most thankful for is this weekly project of mine, which has forced me to keep my antennae up, so that I can share fresh thoughts every seven days.

I began this habit in 2012 and while many of the early posts have been dropped as my website moved from one place to the next, this process has been nothing but beneficial for me.

I can selfishly say that even if nobody ever read a single one of these posts, I know that simply writing them has been a useful exercise for me, because it has been essential to the way I integrate everything that I’m learning, reading, and thinking about.

It’s also nice to be my own editor and publisher, giving me free reign over all subjects and how I present them.

 

 

Just One Word as Inspiration

As I’ve done at times in the past, today I’m writing a post that was inspired by one word.

Well, actually, it’s a pair of related words, and it’s the juxtaposition of the two words that created the A-Ha moment that became the spark for this blog.

Those words are:

Disintegrate and Integrate

A few weeks ago I was on a long drive, listening to an audiobook to make sure that I stayed awake, and there it was.

I’m not even sure which book it was anymore, and I don’t know if it was the way the author wrote it or simply the way the reader pronounced the words, but I was struck.

 

 

Cartoonish Disintegration

Something about the word “disintegrate” that had never ever registered in my head was the fact that it is the opposite of the word “integrate”.

Hunh…

I had always had a mental image of disintegration that probably came from watching cartoons.  Picture someone with a ray gun, pointing it at an enemy and pulling the trigger, and they’re reduced to a pile of dust.

If you wanted to put them back together, presumably you’d need to integrate them, or maybe re-intergrate them (?)

 

Family Wealth Disintegration

I typically write about family business and family wealth, and the issues that come with transitions from one generation of a family to the next.

One of the biggest concerns of the Now Generation is always that the Next Generation will not be able to grow or maintain the wealth sufficiently, and that the wealth will eventually disintegrate.

They may not use those words, but that’s a common thread that runs through just about every family whose concern is wealth continuity.

Their top concern may lie in the lack of ability of rising generation family members, it may be that the family is growing faster than the wealth, it could be a stagnating business, entitlement or family discord.

 

 

The Opposite of Disintegration

Back in 2014 I wrote Solid Wealth vs. Liquid Wealth, where I talked about wealth that was “locked in” to an operating business and contrasted that to a post-liquidity event and the challenges around managing liquid wealth.

While I still like that analogy, I think that disintegration vs integration can give us a bit more to sink our teeth into.

So:

If we’re worried about disintegration, why don’t we 

consider ways that we can use integration to counter it?

 

A boat in the water

FOR the Family, BY the Family

A favourite saying of mine is “FOR the Family, BY the Family”.  Let me explain the context of that.

If a family is going to have any chance of having their wealth continue for generations, then they can substantially increase their odds of success by involving as many family members as possible in the plans for how that is going to happen.

In short, the family members need to be integrated into the planning.  That means having conversations with them, which includes more listening than talking.

 

 

Co-Creation Makes Better Plans

I’m not saying that this path is easier than simply dictating all the terms and conditions to them.  I’m saying it has better odds of succeeding.

You cannot expect that this process will all happen quickly or without any bumps along the way either, that’s also true.

But how important is this to your family, after all?

If you fail to integrate those for whom you are planning into the exercise of that planning, you can expect the wealth to disintegrate.

 

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Don’t “Transfer” Family Wealth; “Transition” It

For years now we’ve been hearing about the huge multi-trillion dollar “wealth transfer” that’s occurring thanks to the demographics of the Western world.

As baby boomers age, there’s no escaping the new realities that this huge demographic shift is causing.  But hopefully, we can escape some of the negatives that might accompany it.

I believe that when we think about how a family’s wealth should move from one generation to the next, we shouldn’t be thinking about a transfer, we should be thinking about a transition instead.

 

 

Is It Just Semantics?

I’ll leave it to interested readers to Google these words in an attempt to parse all of their differences, and will instead concentrate on some simple and observable comparisons and contrasts.

The most fundamental aspect to consider is the time that something takes, from start to finish.

When I was a kid, one of my friends moved away because his Dad was transferred.  One day he was working in Montreal, then suddenly, he was transferred to Toronto.

He finished work on Friday in one place and started up his new job 500 kilometres away on Monday.

 

Wire The Funds

If you’ve ever wired funds somewhere you know that one day the money is in your account, and then the next it is not.

Somewhere during the day (usually at around 2 PM for some reason) the funds instantaneously go from one account to another.

They have been transferred. Boom.  Here one minute, gone the next. A single event has happened and is now complete.

When a family’s wealth, including the financial wealth and everything that comes with it, is transferred as a one-shot event, it can be a real shock to the system.

The word “shock” is rarely used as a positive in the area of family business or family wealth.

 

Arrow on wall

 

Slower, Smoother Transition

So what do I mean when I say “everything that comes with it”?

I actually wrote about a few of these details back in 2015, in Transition Planning: No Day at the Beach.

In that blog, I wrote about the transitions of management, leadership, and ownership.

Strictly speaking, a transfer typically deals with the ownership of the wealth.  When someone suddenly owns something, they are then usually expected to also manage it as well.

 

Ownership Is the Big One

One of the problems that can arise with intergenerational wealth is that the ownership sometimes goes from one individual to a group, who are often siblings.

This is where the questions surrounding management and leadership come in.

When more than one person now owns the wealth, how they will manage it, and who will take the lead are also questions that get put on the table.

If the word “governance” is suddenly coming to mind, congratulations, because that’s certainly where my mind is heading too.

 

Respect My Authority

Another related concept that doesn’t necessarily get discussed enough is that of authority.

With ownership of any asset comes certain authority, but it can depend on so many details.

And when you talk about authority, there is of course explicit authority and implicit authority, which do not always go hand in hand.  (Note to self: there’s a whole blog right there!)

Numbers and pie charts

Interdependent Wealth

The distinction between transfer and transition came up for me recently as I continue to make progress on my next book.

My working title is “Interdependent Wealth”, with a secondary title as follows:

How Family Systems Theory Illuminates Successful Intergenerational Wealth Transitions

That’s nine words in a secondary title, which feels like a lot, but I can assure you that a great deal of thought went into each and every choice that I made, right down to the final one, Transitions.

 

A Gradual Handover

It was during the choices I was making about these words that the whole transfer thing really hit me.

On a macro level, society is certainly witnessing a huge transfer of wealth.

But what’s more important to any family is what occurs on a micro level, and families should be concentrating on their wealth transition.

 

Event Versus Process

Bottom line, a transfer is more of an event, or one of many components or things that need to happen.  It is a tactic.

A transition is a process, it is the overall strategy required to make the right things happen, in the right way.

Focus on the whole transition, not just the transfer.

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