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Coming at this Again from a New Angle
There are some aspects of the work that I do with families that are difficult to grasp for many people, including some of my loyal readers.
In conversation, I typically note that I work in a niche within a niche, and have been known to add another level of niche as well.
This week I want to delve into this idea a bit more in writing, even though I did touch on it relatively recently (last year) in Serving Exceptional Families – Proceed Slowly.
Let’s begin by digging a bit deeper into the key word, “exceptional” a bit more, because it sits at the crux of the matter.
In the True Sense of the Word
My good friend Mr. Google is helpful as always, this time bringing me to vocabulary.com, which served up for “exceptional”, among many others, the following:
- Surpassing what is common, or usual, or expected
- Syn: Uncommon: not common or ordinarily encountered
- Syn: Extraordinary: highly unusual or exceptional or remarkable
My idea in sharing these definitions is to help accentuate just how much of a niche a lot of the in depth work really is.
Universal Applicability of Many Concepts
Of course most of the general concepts I write about here do in fact apply to families and the challenges of having every member remain on good terms with one another.
I had a tag line on the back of my business card years ago that read “Helping families create the harmony they need to support the legacy they want.”
The first half of that, about the harmony, is admittedly pretty universal, as just about every family would be all for improving the ways that each family member relates harmoniously with all the others.
It’s the second part, about the legacy, that is less common, especially insofar as finding families who are willing to bring someone in (and pay them) to help with this part.
There needs to be a certain level of financial wealth, as well as complexity, and of course a desire to maintain family ownership, at least through the next generational transition.
Challenges of “Democratizing” This Work
Over the years I’ve heard many colleagues mention a desire to “democratize” this work, and offer it to families who are not part of the “1%”.
I get it, and of course when anyone mentions this idea, many heads begin to nod in agreement. But there are a few challenges to this.
The first challenge is that this typically involves a lot of work, that the family members need to buy into. That’s because they all need to actually commit to doing this work themselves.
You see, while you can (and should) hire people to come and help the family with the work, the family members need to play a very active role.
And of course, most families, even if they are willing to do the work, are not in a position to hire someone qualified and experienced to properly guide them.
“What About Your Family?”
I was recently on a call with a new colleague who had the idea of doing this work with more “regular” families, and I tried to explain these challenges.
He then asked me about me and my own family.
It was after sleeping on that question that I decided to revisit this question.
My family isn’t exceptional enough for this. My family of origin might have been, but after our liquidity event over 30 years ago, it eventually became clear that we weren’t going this route.
The family I married into also had some potential elements in place, but their liquidity event also made it clear that this wasn’t for them either.
In fact, very few of the families I’ve ever met are good candidates for full blown family governance and continuity planning.
And that’s not a bad thing.
Examples from the Other Extreme
While being labelled an exceptional family is usually a compliment, it’s obvioously not always the case.
I’ve had the misfortune of working with some families that were exceptionally dysfunctional too.
Some members of such families have also proven to be exceptionally narcissistic, exceptionally delusional, have exceptionally high self-regard, and I could go on.
There are of course many families who could use the kind of help I love to provide. Finding the exceptional ones who tick all the boxes is hard work.
Could yours be one?
It Can Go Either Way (And One Is Better)
In my work, I get to hear lots of stories about families and how they try to deal with preparing for the future together.
For the most part, the situations remain stable for long periods of time and it’s relatively simple to know what to expect going forward from one year to the next.
Sometimes, however, something unexpected hits the family, and it really throws them for a loop, which seriously upsets the equilibrium, and chaos ensues.
This week I want to talk about how some families are able to respond to such a catastrophe in a good way, while for others it can mark the end of positive relationships.
Examples Abound, Never Black and White
Everyone has heard of the various kinds of events that can occur, but today I’m sharing stories of a couple of families with whom I’ve had recent contact, either via my work or though acquaintances.
One involves a business family that suffered a significant and sudden loss of their financial wealth, and who are now trying to come to terms with their new reality.
The other is about a family whose patriarch passed away relatively recently, at far too young an age, and the subsequent effects of the hole in his family that this left, including the straining of relationships that used to be strong.
I want to share some ideas on how both families can hopefully realize how important their attitude will be in how things play out for them.
In short, as I teased in the title, they can either come together and become stronger for each other, or else they can point fingers, give up, and split apart.
Regular readers know which side I come down on.
Different Kinds of Grief, On Varying Schedules
Naturally, there’s an element of grief involved in recovering from any kind of disaster that results in a significant loss. And, as we’ve all heard, everyone processes grief in their own way, and on their own schedule.
The types of grief in the two family examples are quite different, as the loss of a person and the loss of financial wealth are not comparable.
But there are possibly more things they have in common than one may realize, especially when a family is left grieving together.
This is where some of the ideas around attitude come in.
Additional Strength and Resources
When speaking with such families in these circumstances I like to offer a perspective that they might not be seeing, where each person can serve a useful purpose to their other family members by providing strength when another is feeling weak.
Because they each process their grief differently, hopefully at least one of them can be strong for the others when needed, and then the others can reciprocate when things are in reverse.
Regular readers know of my dislike for the word “help”, as in “let me help you”, so that’s not exactly what I’m getting at.
I like to look at it from the viewpoint of being a resource for others, the difference being who approaches whom.
I’m not offering to “help” you per se, but I am offering myself as a resource to you, when you decide you want to avail yourself to that.
Picking Each Other Up
Without this becoming a dissertation on the stages of grief, once shock and denial are in the past, then anger, bargaining and depression are likely areas where one family member can help pick up another from time to time, and the burden can be distributed.
The alternative, which is always sad to see, is when these stages lead to family members dragging each other down instead.
An attitude of “this hurt me more than it hurt you” is easy enough to understand, but it’s difficult to see how that’s helpful to anyone.
Taking the Time to Make the Time for Each Other
My hope for families trying to come out on the other side of tragedy is that they can learn to take the time to make the time for each other.
Simply being there for one another, even if not much is said, can be so much more important than most people realize.
Yes, misery does love company, but one person with a positive attitude can make a huge difference.
Strength in numbers is possible for families, especially when working through the grief of a catastrophe.
Some Useful Parenting Advice
Every so often, I’m lucky enough to hear a great pearl of wisdom and manage to jot it down, and it turns into a perfect title for a blog post.
This one came from a presentation I attended at the recent FFI conference in Boston.
Many of the blogs I write are of course based upon the wisdom of others, and I think I do a pretty good job of sharing the credit when it’s due, at least when it makes sense for me to do so.
Let’s jump into the details so that we can then unpack this subject a bit more, as it relates to family wealth and its eventual transition.
Emerging Adults Don’t Always Launch as Desired
The presentation in question was a breakout session entitled “Emerging Adults: Moving forth the family firm”.
It included three presenters who shared ideas and strategies around helping families get positive results for their family businesses by ensuring that their rising generation members were well prepared for what is expected of them.
One of the presenters, Diana Clark of the O’Connor Professional Group, provided my money quote, towards the end of the discussion.
As someone who has worked in the field of addictions for decades, she had a warning for all parents.
“Don’t make having “happy” kids your main goal; make sure it’s a by-product”, she said. “Otherwise”, she continued, “they’ll end up coming to see me.”
What’s Wrong with Being Happy?
To be clear, she was not saying that having happy children was not something to strive for.
She was, however, providing a warning that I think all parents should heed, i.e. Don’t make their happiness the primary focus.
The familiar refrain we’ve all heard (and likely even said), “I just want my children to be happy”, can lead to many undesirable consequences.
I touched on part of this way back in 2015, in the post “Over-Parenting: Worse than Neglect?”
What I had labelled “over-parenting” back then included some examples of not allowing children to struggle for themselves, which has as its root a desire to keep them “happy”.
What I think Clark was getting at is that making your children’s happiness the main focus is actually kind of a cop out.
From Dependent to Independent
When you reflect on the roles that parents are expected to play, I’m not even sure if happiness is supposed to be near the top of the list.
To me it is much more of a recent phenomenon, a far cry from the “children should be seen and not heard” that was popular not too many decades ago.
I’ve been a parent for over twenty years now, and it is definitely a work-in-progress.
Also, times have continued to evolve, and it’s often difficult to swim against the current when you live in a society of instant gratification.
I’ve always felt that one of the primary parental responsibilities is to make sure that our offspring progress from a state of dependence upon their parents to a state of independence from them.
What a child needs a parent to do for them at the age of 5 is different from what they need at 10, and at 15, and at 20 and 25.
From Independent to Interdependent
When dealing with the families I work with professionally, those who’ve built up a significant asset base, that they hope to transition to the next generation of their family, making sure their offspring are independent is only the beginning.
I urge these families to work towards a state of interdependence, because that’s what is necessary to increase the likelihood of success.
I believe that Clark would agree that trying to make sure that those who succeed us become independent, and capable of functioning as adults in every way, is way more important than making sure that they’re happy all the time.
In fact, when parents succeed at this, their children will more likely be happy, as a by-product, as she suggested.
A Tale as Old as Time
This can get quite complex, and the struggle to get it right is a story that’s been around forever.
Getting parenting right is tricky, especially when you can do everything for your kids. It’s hard to say “No”.
But having them never require addiction treatment is probably something we can all agree is a good thing.
Best of luck (that helps too!)
Family Governance Is the Ultimate Team Sport
Shortly after writing My “Role / Goal / Control” Life Hack last year, I came up with another rhyming word that I could have added to those three, and I made note of it so that I could someday write this week’s post about it.
Looking at the title I chose for this week’s blog, you may have already guessed that that word is “enroll”.
I’ll quickly recap the initial post, which highlighted a three step way of looking at a challenge one faces.
I suggested taking a moment to first consider the role one was playing in the particular situation, then to think about the goal they’re trying to achieve, and then finally being realistic in understanding that there are only so many elements that one can actually control in any set of circumstances.
Moving Away from the “What” Questions
You may have noticed that all three of those questions normally begin with the word “what”. What is my role; What is my goal; What can I control.
Today, I want to add a different question, and this one starts with Who.
As in “Who can I enroll in this project?”
Some tasks are best handled by a single person, but many others have a higher likelihood of success when a leader is able to enroll the support and participation of others.
I write about challenges that families face as they prepare to transition their wealth from one generation to the next, and so it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that I think that overcoming family challenges is particularly well suited to such group involvement.
Going Far, Going Together
A family “project”, as I call it with some of the families I’m privileged to work with, is by definition something that works best when several people are involved in it.
I can’t believe it was over 6 years ago that I wrote Going Far? Go Together.
That remains one of my favourite blogs, and is based on the African proverb:
If you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.
Needless to say, if you want to have people join you on your quest, it helps if you’re able to enroll them in it.
Some Definitions Are Useful
As often occurs when I write these missives, I end up Googling important words along the way, to make sure I’m as precise as possible getting my points across.
With “enroll”, I came up with some interesting angles:
- “officially register as a member of an institution or a student on a course”
That one wasn’t exactly what I was going for, but just below that I hit pay dirt:
- recruit (someone) to perform a service.
I like the part about recruiting, because it highlights the fact that there is often some outreach required from the leader in order to attract other parties to the task.
In Service of the Family
The “service” is also part of it, although perhaps less noticeably.
The person who is attempting to enroll others needs to convince the others that the “service”, or what’s to be gained, is for the benefit of the others, and ideally the whole family.
When one member of a family begins to take this task seriously it typically feels a bit lonely and even overwhelming in some respects.
Once they’re able to enroll one accomplice, it gets easier, as I discuss in The Exponential Magic of Family Collaboration.
The secret to doing this is to not have high expectations that it will be quick or easy to get others on board.
It really is a marathon and not a sprint, and various family members will each take their own time to understand what’s involved and why their enrollment is important to the success that the family is hoping for.
This Is NOT for All Families
For many families, all of this work is simply a bridge too far, and for most families it’s more work than they’re prepared to do.
But, for some families, it is exactly what they need to be doing, in order for the wealth they have accumulated to be successfully transitioned from one generation of their family to the next.
It truly is for exceptional families, in the true sense of the word, i.e. they are the exception.
I write a lot about family engagement and family alignment, and a big part of both of those is family enrollment.
It takes a lot work and patience to get everyone on board.
Entering Uncharted Territory
This week we’re entering some new territory, in a number of ways. First off, I took up this topic based on a suggestion from a reader I’ve never met.
I received a LinkedIn message a while back asking me to talk about addiction and the role it plays, and was intrigued.
I also realized that this potentially huge topic can be a pretty big deal for some families who are trying to create and pass down a legacy, and yet I’ve yet to discuss it here, despite having written over 400 posts.
That all changes now, as I want to share my thoughts on what is also “uncharted territory” for many families, who are often unprepared for how they should respond when a family member has an addiction.
I decided to revisit a version of the “5 Things” blogs I’ve done over the years, much to the dismay of my wife, who wonders aloud why it’s always five things, and never four or six…
1. You Cannot Change Someone Else
As much as we’d all like this to be different, you cannot change someone else. You can try, and many do, but true change really only occurs when the “changee” does the work.
This can be the most difficult realisation of your life, especially as a parent.
When they have young children, parents can and do manage to create many of the changes they hope to with their offspring.
Unfortunately, at some point, this ends. Then, the more a parent wants something, the less likely their children are to acquiesce.
If your instinct is to simply insist more forcefully, you’re barking up the wrong tree.
2. Look to Provide Help, Not to Punish
An initial reaction to a family member’s addiction might be to use some form of punishment to try to curb the unwanted behaviour.
Punishment, whether simply threatened or actually enacted, will often backfire and make matters more difficult to fix.
Nobody sets out to become addicted to anything.
Yes, there’s often some behaviour involved that’s less than desirable, but by the time they reach the stage of addiction, it’s no longer an easily-solvable problem.
Offering help, in the form of support and understanding, will go much further, and hopefully get the addicted person to cooperate, as opposed to rebel, which is what punishment will often engender.
3. Set Realistic Expectations
There’s no magic wand that will make an addiction disappear overnight.
These situations all vary, of course, based on what the addiction is, how long it’s been going on and how deeply affected the person is, and whether this is the first time or not.
Giving the whole situation the time required to be satisfactorily resolved is what I suggest, and it’s better to err on the side of planning for things to take more time (months/years) than less (days/weeks).
4. Work on Organizing the Rest of the Family
While the addicted family member seems to take up a lot of time and focus, you shouldn’t neglect the rest of the family.
In fact, I think it makes sense for most families to organize themselves to survive for the long term as if the addicted person will never get over whatever their particular affliction may be.
This is a variation on “plan for the worst” but also hope for the best.
If the addicted family member is putting the enterprise at risk, finding ways to minimize and eliminate those risks should quickly become the focus, and that means having different people assume certain key roles.
Making a plan that you can all work on together to get through this makes sense and should be a priority.
5. Bring in Outside Help to Manage It
Few families are well equipped to deal with such issues on their own.
Bringing in outside expertise makes sense for dealing with the addicted person, of course, but may also make lots of sense for the rest of the family as they deal with things in a new way.
I hold himself out as such a resource for families, so this suggestion shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to anyone reading this, of course.
But an addicted family member creates emotional reactions that need to be managed.
You need to reduce the “reactions” and instead focus on a constructive “response”.
Ignoring the issue and hoping it will disappear rarely works out well.
This week we’re talking about Continuity Planning, which regular readers will recognize as the newer and preferred term for what many formerly called “succession planning”.
Too many still use the old term, but I’m doing my part to change the vocabulary, to change the conversations.
Efficiency: Let’s Get This Done
My bias is pretty clear, I find that far too many people look at continuity planning as something they’d rather not spend too much time on.
Especially for families who are running an operating company, which will normally have more than its share of fires to extinguish on a regular basis, taking time away from these urgent matters is typically a low priority.
It’s no surprise then, that when these families finally do agree to spend some time on the less urgent matter of continuity planning, their focus is usually on getting it over with as quickly as possible.
But just because something isn’t urgent,
that doesn’t mean it isn’t important.
Effectiveness: Let’s Get This Right
In contrast to focusing on getting something over with, some families rightfully prefer to concentrate on making sure that their efforts produce a positive result.
A quick Google search of the word “effective” reveals this: “successful in producing a desired or intended result”
This sounds like a much more worthwhile goal to pursue when a family undertakes this important work.
So why do so many families NOT get this right? Let’s go through some of the main obstacles.
Time & Cost
We’ve already mentioned that doing this right takes time, and we all know that “time is money”.
Furthermore, in order to make sure that your continuity planning will “produce the desired result” you’ll need to involve more people and “their” time too.
Many of those people will be family members, while others will be professional experts, again making time and cost factors that could stand in the way.
Professional Bias
I don’t love harping on colleagues who work in this space because ideally, I’ll work along with them to get the family to co-create the best plans for their circumstances and needs.
But so many of the experts that families rely on have their own biases that they have rightly developed over their careers.
You probably wouldn’t want to work with a lawyer who didn’t already have some pretty good ideas about how you could best go about creating your plan.
But that doesn’t mean that you should just turn the whole thing over to them either. Or blindly follow all of their suggestions.
Touchy Subjects
The very idea of continuity planning necessarily brings up subjects that most people try to avoid. We’re talking about death, money, and who will be put in charge of what. Pretty heavy stuff, to be sure.
Of course, you could just be very efficient, draw up the plans you think are best and let the chips fall where they may.
But that seems so “20th Century” to me. There are ways that will give you a far better chance of success.
These involve getting the people who will be affected by your decisions together and making them part of the process to make sure that your “intended result” actually has a good chance of working out as planned.
How Do We Do That?
It really needs to begin by figuring out, as a family, what that “intended result” could look like.
This can’t be done in a vacuum, and it can’t be done in one meeting. There really needs to be a series of meetings, involving both generations of the family.
See: Successful Planning: Who Should Be Involved
What If Our Plans Are Already Made?
Now you may be thinking, “it’s too late for us, our plans are already made”. Well, not so fast!
Do all the family members who will be affected by those plans know what’s coming? If so, congrats, go to the head of the class.
For the other 90% of you, that would be a great next step.
See: Pre-Mediated Planning? Sounds Good To Me
The “Intended Result”
The final destination, or the intended result, should not be something that is dictated by the leading generation.
It needs to be based on the family’s values and their vision for the future.
That will take time to work out, but it will be well worth the effort.
If doing this important work means that you need to bring in an objective outsider to help facilitate the discussions, do it.
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