When a family unit is comprised of multiple generations, conflicting perspectives and ways of being often come into play. While these generational differences can challenge unity and harmony, they also offer valuable insights and unique contributions when it comes to navigating important family matters. So how do families leverage these differences as they plan for long-term, intergenerational success?
Family Meetings
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Successful family meetings are an essential component of managing a family-owned business, especially for wealthy families. Such gatherings are not only about ensuring the smooth operation of the business, but also about facilitating family harmony and ensuring that relationships and the family’s legacy continue through generations. Learning from experience that includes failed family meetings, here are 11 tips for facilitating productive family meetings that foster unity and effectively grow wealth across generations.
With the varied viewpoints, personalities, and emotions of UHNW family members, finding consensus can be a difficult topic, yet it is imperative to reach goals and move ahead. Gain insight into the structure and practices required for consensus and consider real-life situations resolved using these techniques.
Planning Family Meetings for Maximum Family Impact
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The family meeting is an important element of the larger family education and communication strategy. Join Edouard Thijssen, Co-Founder & CEO of Trusted Family, and Mindy Kalinowski Earley, Chief Learning Officer at Family Office Exchange, for an educational discussion informed by their decades of work with families.
How to Talk with Your Family About Wealth
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For a variety of reasons, Americans tend to be reluctant to discuss the specifics of their wealth—especially with adult children. While there may be discomfort around talking about wealth, there are several good reasons and ways to have these critical conversations.
Family Meeting Handbook
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This handbook is designed to support families connected through wealth understand the importance and value of family meetings. It provides the concepts, tools, and resources with the intention of helping them optimize their family meetings and build towards a more cohesive, resilient, adaptive family.
Remember when the most difficult decision was selecting where to hold the family meeting? Welcome to the Family Meeting of 2021 where proper planning and expert facilitation matters more than ever. Live polling, hybrid gatherings, cocktail classes, visual notetaking, breakout groups, Zoom burnout, and the list goes on.
Have You Had "The Talk" with Your Kids? (No, not that one. The one about your estate plan.)
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Even if you are not yet ready to share the family's wealth numbers, communicating your intentions to the next generations promotes family harmony and is a best practice for successfully sustaining and transferring family wealth. It may also be time to schedule a family meeting for this purpose. There is no right way to conduct this meeting, but there are factors to consider when planning the meeting, including providing possible agenda items for a variety of ages and knowledge levels.
Strengthening Family Communication and Education
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For most families, a large part of multigenerational success hinges on how they approach challenges and create opportunities. In unprecedented times of social distancing and school closures, there are ways you can use this unexpected “family time” to your advantage, including enhancing education for younger generations and foster family communication through virtual family meetings.
Reinvigorating Your Family Meetings
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If you are wondering how it is possible that everyone in your family is offering an excuse for missing the family meeting date, then it is time for some new ideas or approaches to turn these meetings into events that no one wants to miss. How? By planning a purposeful family event that also happens to include the family meeting. In addition, it will go a long way toward increasing a sense of purpose and engagement when it is organized around the right location, meeting format and family bonding activities.