What is your “True Family Legacy”?

The term “Family Legacy” conjures up different images and thoughts, depending on your age, wealth, and life circumstances.

My view of legacy is that it’s much more of a “family” thing than a “business” thing.

The title on my business card is “Family Legacy Advisor”, which hints at my bias.

It used to say Family Business Advisor, but family businesses have lots of advisors for business issues,

and not enough guidance on the family side

My bias is to concentrate on the FAMILY’s legacy versus the business’s legacy,

Of course, they certainly do co-exist together, often for decades at a time.

But in a multi-generational family business, at some point they usually bifurcate.

Family involvement in the ownership and/or management of a company eventually changes, as the family diversifies its focus to other endeavours

A business is typically organized into functioning groups of people, with more or less clear roles and responsibilities.

That makes the business’s legacy part of the job of a person or group.

But who looks after the family’s legacy?

Well, let me ask, Why Did You Work So Hard all your life?

Business founders work hard to support their family and continue to work hard so that their wealth can also serve the next generations of their family

But many will fail to properly transition that wealth to the next generation, and that goal will never be reached.

Research shows that about 60% of the failures can be attributed to breakdowns in family communication,

and another 25% to poor preparation of the heirs.

The exceptions are the ones who actually put in the work to establish some family governance.

That word, “governance”, scares some families, and I get that

But it doesn’t have to be that complicated, especially when you’re just getting started.

What it does require is some intention, which begins with a decision that it’s important enough to direct some time and effort to this task.

Your “true” family legacy is one that’s custom tailored to your family.

Instead of concentrating on preparing the family assets for the heirs,
make the effort to prepare the heirs for the assets

And don’t just concentrate on transferring the family’s valuables,
work on preserving the family’s values

You already know you can’t do this alone, your heritage is too important for that.

Your true Legacy is much more about your family
than any business, you happen to own

That’s all for today, I hope you got something useful, see you next time.