Sharon Olson is the Founder & President of Olson Wealth Group, Inspired Life Family Office®, a multi-family office & wealth management firm.
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“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.”
When it comes to preparing for family meetings, these words, attributed to Alexander Graham Bell, ring especially true. For multigenerational families of wealth, family meetings can be the linchpins in aligning the family around a shared vision for the family’s wealth and what they want that good fortune to accomplish (and what they want to avoid).
However, without proper planning and setting of expectations among family members, family meetings can quickly dissolve into dysfunction and acrimony, leaving the family worse off than when it began.
Having helped numerous families of significant wealth successfully implement family meetings, I can tell you it’s a staged process that takes time and requires thoughtful preparation among key members of the family. Below are the steps I recommend any family and their wealth advisors take to prepare for a family meeting:
Start with setting goals.
First and foremost, identify your objectives for having the family meeting in the first place. Families are busy, and when multiple generations are involved, it’s critical to be respectful of everyone’s time. So, be crystal clear about what you want to achieve.
For most families, an initial family meeting is intended to align the family around a shared vision and set of values. Questions to ask include: “How do we define wealth as a family? What do we want our legacy to be? How can we be good stewards of our wealth? How do we pass on our values to future generations?”
Know exactly why you are having a family meeting, and ensure other family members have visibility into that thinking from the outset.
Involve other family members in the planning.
Even if the patriarch or matriarch of a family is spearheading the family meeting, it is critical that other family members are involved in the planning. The whole point of a family meeting is to build alignment and consensus around the impact a family wants to make with its wealth. Therefore, a diversity of voices and opinions must be heard, and that includes during the planning process.
Before the first full family meeting, expect to conduct four or more pre-meetings with key family members (typically a spouse, adult children, possibly grandchildren), which are usually one-on-one meetings designed to better understand their respective points of view and what they hope to accomplish, as well as sensitivities and concerns. Talk through the goals you’ve identified in step one. Ensure they understand why the family meeting is needed and what you hope to get out of it. Incorporate their thoughts and ideas into the planning. Doing so will inevitably generate excitement and enthusiasm for the main event.
Before the big event, be sure to communicate pre-reading and homework assignments on topics such as preparing heirs, estate planning and multigenerational action plans, including potentially a workbook with helpful exercises. You want to ensure everyone shows up prepared.
Also, decide together what you don’t want to talk about (such as the exact net worth of the family or who gets what in an estate plan). Set the ground rules for what’s “on the table” to discuss so no one is surprised or disappointed the day of. Be clear, but also strive to create a safe environment where everyone’s voice can be heard and opinions shared.
Don’t go it alone.
Family meetings can be complex endeavors that are fraught with the potential for emotional “land mines” if not executed well. It can take several months to complete the preparation needed and align often multiple households across scattered geographies on the date and location for a meeting. With that in mind, lean on an experienced facilitator to help guide you through the whole process.
I’ve seen firsthand how difficult it can be for a family member to take on the responsibility of preparing for and leading a family meeting while also being an equal part of the actual conversation. An experienced facilitator can be incredibly useful in taking on that burden and ensuring every family member enters into the conversation on an equal footing.
Seek out a facilitator with high emotional intelligence. A successful family meeting is as much psychology as it is planning for the future and mapping out the impact of wealth. A facilitator needs to be able to deftly manage differing personalities and points of view.
A trained facilitator can also help coach and guide the matriarch or patriarch of the family to co-lead the meeting(s). It’s not necessarily an intuitive skill. Leading a robust discussion with your spouse, children, grandchildren and other extended family members on the family’s future and desired legacy is very different from leading a corporate board meeting. Often, the most critical skill is simply the ability to listen.
A facilitator is there to respond to and hopefully resolve any conflicts or disagreements that begin to bubble up during the planning process, leaving the family members to focus on where there is consensus and build from there.
Beware of not being prepared.
If you still think you can “wing” it by inviting your family to a relaxed meeting around the kitchen table without any substantive preparation, just know that even the most informal of settings can result in chaos. That can lead to frustration among others in the family about not being prepared to have a deep conversation about the future, old family “wounds” being torn open to fester once again or missed expectations on the part of the family member who set up the meeting. All of this can result in an unwillingness among family members to engage in this sort of planning going forward.
Family meetings are simply too important to risk not achieving the goal of aligning the family across generations on the desired impact of the family’s wealth. Only through careful preparation can you ensure that everyone goes into a family meeting on the “same page,” aligned around a shared understanding of what you hope to achieve and how you plan to get there.
The information provided here is not investment, tax or financial advice. You should consult with a licensed professional for advice concerning your specific situation.
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