Teach Your Children Well
There’s a trend in my field that I’m noticing around the idea of learning, where the concept of having a “learning family” seems to be in vogue.
I think that families that can get all the way there will be well served by this type of thinking, and yet I know most families will never get there, and the majority of those are simply not realistic candidates for it in the first place.
I have some friends and colleagues who label themselves as “fractional chief learning officers” for families and I wish them well because that sounds like a very rewarding career.
My work is typically done “upstream”, as in, way before a family can even begin to consider themselves a learning family.
But the idea of having the family learn together is usually not far from the work I do.
Section 01
Left to Themselves, What Do Families Do?
As someone who plies his trade as a resource to families, I often find myself talking about what happens to families who choose not to engage an independent outsider like me to support them.
I help families have the important conversations they know they should be having, but, left to themselves, they aren’t having.
When families are left to themselves, lots of things that need to be done don’t even get put on the to-do list.
Okay, this was supposed to be about learning, wasn’t it?
Yes, sorry for the diversion; and when you think about learning, you almost automatically think about teaching, the other side of the same proverbial coin.
In a family, there’s a natural tendency to think that the parents should teach and the children should learn.
Section 02
Is “Adult Children” an Oxymoron?
Parents as teachers and kids as learners works well when the kids are still children.
In most of the families I work with, those “children” are now adults, which some people call adult children.
I’m familiar with a quote that states that “adult children” is an oxymoron; they’re either adults or they’re children.
I like the contrast this paints.
Let’s use that contrast to highlight the fact that once they’re adults, the ways that learning and teaching happen need to be updated to reflect the adult-to-adult relationship reality that now exists.
Families can and should begin to learn together, and the idea that learning only flows in one direction, i.e. “top down”, needs to be scrapped.
Section 03
I Want to Teach You a Lesson
We’re more than halfway through and I have uncharacteristically not yet shared the genesis of the idea for this post.
Alas, we’ve arrived.
In a family I’m working with, I’ve got a situation where a parent wants to make sure one of their offspring learns a lesson from something they overlooked about a decade ago.
As their family advisor, I agree that this young adult would do well to understand their misstep and learn a lesson from it.
The problem I’m wrestling with is that there’s a parent who seems to want to use this occasion to “teach them a lesson”.
And that has a very different look and feel, along with the sub-optimal consequences I fear it will entail for their relationship.
See also Questioning Someone Vs. Asking Questions.
Section 04
A Difficult Attitude Adjustment for Parents
The old “I teach, you learn” the parents used when the kids were actual kids stops working for them at some point and begins to work against them.
Getting those parents to recognize this is often one of the most difficult parts of my work.
Thankfully, some begin to get it and make the necessary adjustments, but some don’t ever get there.
See On Sovereignty and Self-Righteousness in Families.
There’s something I eventually remind parents of when they’re stuck here, and it’s about looking to the future instead of being mired in the past.
Section 05
The Almost Inevitable Eventual Role Reversal
When your children were babies, they relied on you 100% for food, shelter and even cleaning up after their natural bodily functions.
If you live long enough, that script will eventually flip, and you will be the one relying on them to oversee someone taking care of those things for you.
If that script flips abruptly, you may not like what you reap.
In an ideal circumstance, there will be a long period (decades) where the adult-to-adult relationship is relatively horizontal, and not “one up, one down”.
You can all learn together, from each other.
At A Glance
From Top-Down to Horizontal
Tap each card to reveal the shift.
+Shift IHave the Missing Conversations
“The important conversations they know they should be having, but, left to themselves, they aren’t having.”
+Shift IIScrap “Top-Down”
“The idea that learning only flows in one direction, i.e. ‘top down’, needs to be scrapped.”
+Shift IIILearn a Lesson, Don’t Teach One
“That has a very different look and feel, along with the sub-optimal consequences I fear it will entail for their relationship.”
+Shift IVRetire “I Teach, You Learn”
“The old ‘I teach, you learn’ … stops working for them at some point and begins to work against them.”
+Shift VPrepare for Role Reversal
“If that script flips abruptly, you may not like what you reap.”
+Shift VIGo Horizontal
“The adult-to-adult relationship is relatively horizontal, and not ‘one up, one down’.”
Lots of Areas to Work on Together
One of the reasons why working with families on intergenerational transitions is so complex (and so interesting!) is that there are many transitions, or transmissions, that need to take place.
They run kind of in parallel and sometimes in series, and they overlap in many ways too.
We’ll delve into this idea, inspired by a recent article that happened to focus on how artificial intelligence is affecting these challenges.
So, we’ll be looking at wealth, values, authority and identity and how families want to make sure that all of them trickle down the family tree.
Section 01
Hat Tip to a Fellow FFI Fellow
The article in question is from the fantastic weekly FFI Practitioner (you don’t need to be an FFI member to subscribe, and it’s free) titled The Fifth Inheritance: Can Artificial Intelligence Transmit Judgment Across Generations?
Its author is Patricia Annino, an FFI Fellow and FFI Award winner, and it raises lots of great questions about how A.I. can be useful to families and those who serve them.
I want to focus my blog on what almost felt like a throw away line that grabbed me, because it matter-of-factly noted the four subjects that I don’t feel are recognized as well as they should be.
Here’s the line:
Historically, families have sought to transmit four things across generations: wealth, values, authority, and identity.
Followed by:
Artificial intelligence may introduce a fifth inheritance: judgment.
Section 02
Lots of Focus on Wealth and Values
When I look at Annino’s list of four inheritances, it feels like they divide easily into a couple of pairs.
There’s always a great deal of attention (too much!) paid to the wealth, especially the financial component, so there’s no surprise that it sits atop her list.
Similarly with values, as soon as anyone points out that the financial wealth is not the only thing to consider, a large majority of those working in this space with families will quickly mention the importance of transitioning family values from one generation to the next.
And with wealth and values transitions getting so much attention, many families, and the experts supporting them, will think that list of two items is long enough already.
Section 03
What About Authority and Identity?
We’re now getting into a couple of more difficult areas, and one where many families struggle.
The idea of transmitting authority in a family is naturally difficult in many cases simply due to math.
If authority is currently concentrated in one person or a couple (one household), what happens when the next generation is comprised of more people, in more than one household?
That’s what I mean by math, because we’re introducing the idea of division of authority.
Ideally the wealth will have benefitted from enough multiplication so that when it gets divided there’s still plenty for all. But are families also dividing the authority over that wealth?
It takes a lot of effort and intention to work all of that out, and it’s rarely easy.
Likewise with identity, attempting to maintain a singular identity over numerous households takes more work than most families are willing to undertake.
See The Special Sovereignty of G1.
Section 04
To Transmit or To Transition?
One word that Annino used stood out to me and that was her choice of the word “transmit”.
I like that word better than “transfer” and I have written about my dislike for that word in the past. See Don’t Transfer Family Wealth, Transition It.
I just asked my friend Mr. Google something about transitioning identity, and some of what he came back with was way off the mark, believing I wanted information on a very different kind of transition that some families must deal with.
But coming from a family whose former business was fabricating towers used by electricity producers for their transmission lines, the idea of transmitting wealth, values, authority and identity will surely grow on me.
Section 05
How to Transmit Judgment and Wisdom
The article was centered on how A.I. is being used to preserve the judgment of the wealth creator after they die, and it’s clear that there have never been more ways to do that than right now.
She uses the word judgment, and I like to equate that with wisdom.
The ability to consult a bot to learn what grandpa would have done is interesting but must rely on those asking to then come together and agree on how they’ll interpret that wisdom together.
Learning to have the judgment to use our forefathers’ judgment will be a difficult human task for many.
At A Glance
The Five Inheritances
Tap each card to reveal what’s being transmitted.
+Inheritance IWealth
“There’s always a great deal of attention (too much!) paid to the wealth, especially the financial component.”
+Inheritance IIValues
“The importance of transitioning family values from one generation to the next.”
+Inheritance IIIAuthority
“Transmitting authority in a family is naturally difficult in many cases simply due to math.”
+Inheritance IVIdentity
“Maintaining a singular identity over numerous households takes more work than most families are willing to undertake.”
+The Fifth — Inheritance VJudgment (or Wisdom)
“Artificial intelligence may introduce a fifth inheritance: judgment. She uses the word judgment, and I like to equate that with wisdom.”
On Inclusion and Belonging in Groups and Families
Regular readers (thanks!) know that I’m involved in a number of groups of professionals who work in some area of the space I work in. See On Peer Groups and Feelings of Infidelity.
All such groups go through phases of evolution, and the way things have always been done needs to be refreshed from time to time.
As it turns out, a few of my groups are at such inflection points, and in some of them, the actual membership of the group is in question.
This evoked thoughts about how we think about and discuss important questions, like the ones in the title of this post.
We’ll start by examining this in groups of unrelated people and see how things apply in families, especially those hoping to transition their wealth (in all its forms) to the next generation(s).
Section 01
Self-Directed Peer Group Stories
One of the peer groups I’ve enjoyed being a part of for the past few years is moving from a paid model, where a membership fee is what gets you in (after pre-qualifying), to a self-directed group set to begin in the fall.
This is a huge change, because the onus of organizing and facilitation will fall on volunteers instead of “staff”.
At our recent final “paid” meeting, the discussion around how we (may or may not) move forward was quite lively and yet not necessarily conclusive.
This will involve not only who is in or not, but who will be responsible for what.
Section 02
The Ever-Growing Membership Model
Another group has been around for decades, and the culture there was such that if you ever came to one of the annual retreat weekends, you were a member for life.
This has created an unwieldy number of people on our email list and difficulty in knowing who is even interested in still being part of the group.
We’re at the early stages of implementing an annual membership fee to weed out those who would prefer not being contacted anymore, but I can tell you that those discussions have been much more involved than you might expect.
Section 03
A Few More for Good Measure
Yet another group I’ve been a part of has seen its leadership change hands every few years, and we no longer have someone monitoring attendance so as to remove those who are AWOL.
And yet another group, one that’s “included” in one’s membership in an institute, is currently figuring out who gets to be part of one of its many “learning circles” as we move into our second year of operation.
Having members not show up and yet maintaining a waiting list for others has become problematic.
Finally, a group I created in 2020 is now undergoing our own self-reflection on how we continue to evolve, although that membership has typically been governed by who I’ve chosen to include.
Section 04
Who Gets to Be Part of the Family Project?
One of my favourite ways I’m brought in to work with a family is helping them get started on their “family governance journey”.
Nobody reacts well to the word “governance”, so I like to think of it (and sometimes talk about it) as a family project.
The simplest way to explain it in many cases is to say that we’re trying to figure out the best way for “my wealth” to become “our wealth.”
So obviously, deciding who gets to be part of this project needs to be done with great care.
But while this is easy to say, it’s not necessarily easy to do.
See Who Gets to Decide Who Gets to Decide, and Continuity Planning: Who Is at the Table?
Section 05
“The Family Has to Decide”
All the veterans of this work will say that these decisions need to be made by the family, and they are correct in that it is not up to an outsider to make decisions like this for the family.
Some families would likely prefer to have someone else impose such decisions so that they could then proclaim innocence before anyone who did not agree.
The toughest questions surround whom to include, and when.
I always suggest starting small, because it is easier to add people later than to remove someone.
I also have a suggested rule that nobody is forced to come to family meetings, even if they are invited to participate.
A family project will evolve with time, and the goal is to have decisions become more democratic over the years.
Get started with a small group and go from there.
At A Glance
Rules of Thumb for the Family Project
Tap each card to reveal the principle.
+Rule IReframe Governance as a Project
“Nobody reacts well to the word ‘governance’, so I like to think of it as a family project.”
+Rule IIFrom “My” to “Our”
“The best way for ‘my wealth’ to become ‘our wealth.’”
+Rule IIIThe Family Decides — Not an Outsider
“It is not up to an outsider to make decisions like this for the family.”
+Rule IVStart Small
“It is easier to add people later than to remove someone.”
+Rule VInvite, Don’t Force
“Nobody is forced to come to family meetings, even if they are invited to participate.”
+Rule VIGrow Toward Democracy
“The goal is to have decisions become more democratic over the years.”
Coming off a weekend spent with peers, I’m still basking in the warmth of positivity we all gave one another during our precious time together.
Existing relationships were deepened, some relatively new ones rose to a new level, and a couple of brand new ones are off to a great start.
Of course these thoughts always get my juices flowing on considering how such ideas also affect the work we do with the families who entrust us with helping them “hold their space” safely.
So that’s where we’re headed this week, looking at gratitude and feedback, and how they play into deep connections among people.
Let’s get going.
Grateful for the Professional and Personal Connection
Last year after that same peer group’s annual weekend, I wrote about how I sometimes felt like I was cheating on these friends because I also interact with peers in several other groups.
See On Peer Groups and Feelings of Infidelity
But this year when we went around the table for our check out comments on Sunday, I realized that this group is a bit different, and it actually felt like the connections were deeper.
Some combination of the size of the group, the culture we’ve developed and nurtured, the quality and depth of the conversations and just how we all seem to feel so safe to be vulnerable together, all add up to its specialness.
We have many things in common on a professional level because of the ways we all work with families, and we have personal connections.
Gratitude for Sharing in Client Conversations
During one of our sessions that recent weekend, we worked on the idea of giving feedback in a more constructive way, called “feed forward”.
My friend Mr. Google’s AI overview just informed me that this concept originated from coaching and leadership guru Marshall Goldsmith, and it’s summed up nicely as:
“a proactive, future-oriented communication approach focused on providing suggestions for improvement, rather than analyzing past mistakes”
It’s actually just a small tweak in approach, which can yield huge differences in results.
I’ve noticed myself giving feedback in one-on-one conversations with clients where I want to use this more.
I already make sure that the members of my client families know that I truly appreciate when they’re completely open and real with me.
Feedback + Gratitude = Deeper Connection
When you work with an entire family group, there’s often some sort of family hierarchy in place, which may stem from seniority in generations, positions inside the business, or even birth order.
In order to properly serve the entire family system, facilitators like me need to make sure that while we recognize that such hierarchies may exist, we are not beholden to them.
We need to make sure that even the folks who feel like they’re lower down the pyramid are important to us, and thereby to the rest of the family.
It can take a while to establish a deep enough connection with each family member for them to truly believe that while we are there to serve the whole family, that includes every last one of them.
I believe that my giving them grateful feedback, increases the odds that they buy into me as their advocate.
The Better I Understand, the Better I Can Serve
Trying to reconcile each person’s desires, viewpoints, fears, and wishes is complex enough when you don’t actually understand what those are.
When I sense that an individual has been vulnerable with me by sharing something that they likely haven’t shared with others in the family, I thank them and remind them that I can best serve them and their family when I get each person’s true input.
When your professional work can sometimes be summed up as “family relationship specialist”, it’s important to develop and maintain deep connections with every family member.
If I want to help a family get along well enough so they can come together productively to make important decisions about their common future, they all need to trust me enough to allow me to play that role.
Building and Maintaining Trust Is a Forever Challenge
So whether we’re dealing with peers who also do this kind of work or with the family member clients themselves, the way we are is often at least as important as what we do or what we say.
So Much Common DNA, So Little Consistency
As someone who spends much of my time thinking about how families function together, I’m always eager to enter any real world “laboratory” to observe members of the same family as they assemble for whatever reason.
So imagine how lucky I felt over the past couple of months when I “got to” attend not one, but two, “celebrations of life”, the events formerly known as funerals.
Over the past decade or two, it seems we’ve finally found a way to put the “fun” back in funerals.
Thanks to the conscious choices to delay these events for several weeks after death, some of the grieving is allowed to happen in smaller private groups in advance.
By the time the greater extended family and friends group gathers, a much lighter atmosphere allows for more of the celebration we now usually experience.
Catching Up with Relatives After Many Years
Considering how rich with information post-life celebrations can be, it’s almost surprising to me how seldom I’ve written on them.
In fact, I think I need to go back 10 years to Family Business Flashback to find the last time I wrote specifically about a family funeral.
A couple of months ago I attended a celebration of the life of someone who was more of a distant relation, but was still someone with whom I had had many interactions.
Pam was quite gregarious in life and it was great to hear her daughter Laura eulogize her and make everyone laugh.
What stayed with me was when Laura shared something that had occurred between Pam and a grandson, and then she contrasted how his other grandmother would have reacted very differently.
I’ve begun to share this with some people, and ask them to compare their two grandmothers and note whether they were similar or different.
I know that mine were polar opposites, and so are the grandmas of my offspring.
It kind of feels like “opposites attract” but one layer above and even more magnified.
Another Pillar of Our Past Now Gone
The more recent event was my aunt Liz, my late father’s older sister.
She’d been instrumental in our family’s immigration to Canada story, and without her bold first move, my parents would surely never have met, and so whose blog would you be reading now?
One of her granddaughters shared so many stories that brought laughs to the assembled family and friends.
I congratulated her for the speech afterwards, and we laughed at how Liz would probably not have appreciated everything she shared, but that it was great that she did so anyways.
It made me flash back to when I eulogized my father, and it enabled me the opportunity to share some sides of him that many people were likely unfamiliar with.
I feel like I “humanized” him for some who were only used to his tough exterior, which felt safer to do with only his ashes in the room, and not his judging glare.
More Random Life and Death Musings
The opportunities to be with extended families as they gather like this are an interesting vantage point to view how resilient some family members are.
When many people from a family branch have survived various tragedies over the past few decades, it can be reassuring to see how they continue on courageously nevertheless.
Perhaps there are lessons there on how strong a family can become when they learn to rely on each other, even if they have more practice at it than they wish they had.
Understanding a family’s history can take a while when you’re hired in to work with them, and you can never get to the level of depth that you can in your own family.
Family History Lessons Travel Differently by Branch
Another interesting fact that emerges is that lessons about the family’s past aren’t typically shared to the same degree in every family branch.
Some stories from Aunt Liz’s eulogies about their family’s pre-immigration past were “brand new” to some of my cousins, whose parents rarely share about those olden times.
Every branch evolves in its own way, and siblings are all their own people despite overwhelming similarities in their DNA.
But although we all evolve into different beings, our shared history and roots can remain a huge strength to be tapped into.
In the end, everyone’s life deserves to be celebrated by family and friends.
Allocating Budgets Is Never Simple
When I sit down each week to compose something worthwhile for families facing challenges around their wealth transitions, my inspirations come from all sorts of directions.
This week, we’re taking our cue from the world stage, starting with how various governments face choices regarding where to deploy their resources, and then we’ll see if we can find some parallels to the realities faced by multi-generational families.
I know lots of people who’ve begun to minimize their consumption of news for the sake of their sanity, but the subjects I’ll touch on also happen to be evergreen and therefore ubiquitous, so don’t worry about following along.
Government and Governance, Ugh!
A dozen years ago when my first book, Shift your Family Business came out, I was happy that I chose the title “Governance, Ugh!” for chapter 9.
I wanted to underscore the fact that for most people, that word does not resonate well.
At the time I didn’t necessarily connect it with the more common word, “government”, which also has more negative connotations than positive ones.
When I ask my friend Mr. Google about the root word for government, its A.I. summary returns, in part, “… the act of directing, controlling, or steering a community”.
I like the fact that “directing” and “steering” are there, but also that sandwiched in between is the harsher “controlling”
Controlling the Flow of Funds
In the end there are final decisions that need to be made, and ultimately the buck needs to stop somewhere.
The world’s major governments are often caught in interesting dilemmas when they always seem to have plenty of money to spend on certain priorities like waging war, but never seem to have anything left to spend on feeding their hungriest people.
On a smaller scale more locally, whenever there’s talk about some new venue for a sports team, the argument “but what about our crumbling hospitals” is never far behind.
Decisions always involve choices, and it’s usually difficult to satisfy everybody.
So what does this look like in families?
When the Family Owns an Operating Company
As I was planning to write this piece, my initial idea was to focus on “family wealth” as opposed to “family business”, but then I happened to check my email one day and decided to touch on both.
I continue to read lots of content from all over the place in this ecosystem, and I don’t mind giving the occasional shout out to those who consistently put out good stuff.
So when I got the newsletter from Mercer Capital with the headline Capital Structure as a Reflection of Family Priorities I knew I wanted to include a link.
That piece looks at risk tolerance and control, long term vision and evolving stakeholder needs, as well as family dynamics and liquidity needs.
Somehow when decisions revolve around an operating business, decision making can be expected to be more, well, “business-like”.
Of course such expectations can quickly be dashed.
Family Wealth – “Post Liquidity Event”
Since more of my work now involves what I call “family circle” issues than business circle ones, we’ll now move over to how decisions around money and what it can be used for are made when the family’s wealth is mostly liquid.
See Huge Liquidity Events – Great News, Right?
Most wealthy grandparents will support some of their hard earned dollars going towards their grandchildren’s education, yet they may frown on Bobby III arriving at their house in a Lamborghini that was bought with those funds.
So maybe Bobby III should wait until the wealth creator has passed away before splurging.
The question of what is an appropriate use of a family’s wealth is ever-present, and there is not one right answer that suits every family.
Families need to work this out amongst themselves.
The older generation members naturally have more say, but eventually the family needs to hear everyone’s ideas around how these decisions will go.
Who Gets to Decide? – The Answer Evolves
Writing this conjured up memories of a long ago post (almost 9 years!) titled Who Gets to Decide Who Gets to Decide.
The generation in control will often tend to hang on to that authority as long as possible.
I typically encourage them to open things up slowly once their rising generation are adults, but I’m not always able to convince them as easily as I’d like.
Having them “practice” living with and managing wealth makes sense, even if they do sometimes end up spending some on things we’d prefer they didn’t.
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.
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.
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.
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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