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The Progenitor’s Dilemma: Avoiding Entitlement When Transferring Wealth
The Progenitor’s Dilemma: Avoiding Entitlement When Transferring Wealth A practical framework that empowers heirs while minimizing negative consequences byline Doug Baumoel, Blair Trippe and Katie Spencer Est. Read time: ~8 to 9 minutes Wealth can, at times, feel more like a curse than a blessing. Wealth magnifies the impact of bad choices and presents dilemmas to those progenitors who must determine how to distribute their assets over their lifetimes and beyond. Perhaps the biggest fear among benefactors is transferring wealth in a way that engenders entitlement. Progenitors do not want affluence to crush the next-generation’s initiative, sense of purpose [...]
Venting With Purpose: How To Complain About Your Family
Venting With Purpose: How To Complain About Your Family Tips for complaining about family members and how best to respond Byline: Doug Baumoel Est. Read time: ~5 to 6 minutes In any family business, complaining about fellow family members is bound to happen. Our natural tendency as human beings is to focus on negative events. This negative bias leads us to complain—a lot. Ten good things may have happened at the office that day, but the one bad thing will get most of our attention. So, we will come home to complain about that one thing (and the one person [...]
Airing Grievances: 10 Tips for Better Communication with Family Members
Airing Grievances: 10 Tips for Better Communication with Family Members Byline: Doug Baumoel Estimated read time: ~9 min The purpose of effective communication is to transmit information from one person or group to another and to convey a specific message that elicits a desired reaction or result. Communications among family members have an additional purpose: To deepen our understanding of each other, find accommodation for differences that remain, build resiliency and bring family closer together. Family relationships are uniquely permanent, so communication must serve not only the content of the communication but the relationship itself. Problems arise, however, when [...]
Wealth Integration: A Multigenerational, Multifaceted Approach for Enterprising Families
Wealth Integration: A Multigenerational, Multifaceted Approach for Enterprising Families Prepare for challenges, manage risk, and empower future generations Estimated read time: ~3-4 minutes What is wealth integration? Wealth integration is about forming a powerful foundation for the future with multigenerational thinking and a multifaceted approach to wealth. It’s about how wealth can be integrated into the lives of individuals and families, productively. (And how individuals [i.e. inheritors] can avoid the Paradox of Choice and wealth’s unintended consequences.) Wealth affords access to opportunities and wealth integration helps families leverage their potential, and empower future generations. The concept of wealth integration [...]
The Paradox of Choice: How Wealth and Opportunity Can Empower or Stifle Potential in Families
The Paradox of Choice: How Wealth and Opportunity Can Empower or Stifle Potential in Families Wealth Integration™: Making Wealth and Opportunity Work for Enterprising Families By Doug Baumoel The book The Paradox of Choice, written by Barry Schwartz and first published in 2004, posits that people, in general, suffer a loss of happiness because we have too much choice in everything we buy, do, and experience. We’re obsessed with choice—that’s why we have scores of different pasta sauces on supermarket shelves. One would think that having choices would enable us to maximize our happiness by finding the one option [...]
Helping Inheritors Navigate, Understand the Complexities of Wealth
Helping Inheritors Navigate, Understand the Complexities of Wealth Six ways the rising generation can productively integrate wealth into their lives Byline: Sarah Schlesinger Estimated read time: ~4-5 minutes Having worked with affluent families for over 20 years, when I ask them what keeps them up most nights, roughly 90% of them respond with fear surrounding raising their children in a wealthy environment. Many of these parents didn’t grow up with wealth, while those who did regret that not enough attention was paid to the experience of inheritance and its challenges, rather than the obvious benefits and responsibilities. Wealth inheritors [...]
8 Ways to Manage Sibling Wealth Disparity this Holiday Season
8 Ways to Manage Sibling Wealth Disparity this Holiday Season The holidays can be the best time to address ill feelings triggered by gift-giving Byline: Blair Trippe and Doug Baumoel Estimated read time: ~4 minutes The holiday season is upon us and, for many families, this time of year can bring a multitude of issues to the surface. One such issue, sibling wealth disparity, (re)emerges when it comes to gift-giving. Money and items gifted by siblings may not be of equal value due to their wealth disparity, and this can wreak havoc and cause conflict among families. In order to maintain [...]
Turkey Talk: Discussing Family Business Issues at Holiday Get-Togethers
Turkey Talk: Discussing Family Business Issues at Holiday Get-Togethers How to handle family business conflicts, decisions, and discussions around the holiday dinner table Byline: Blair Trippe Estimated read time: ~2-3 minutes We’ve all seen the pictures—a happy family gathered around the dining table as dad carves the perfectly cooked turkey while the children play and share their toys in an impeccable home. These television and movie scenes depict families enjoying the holidays filled with laughter and joy. But for many of us, especially for some working in a family business, these images are as elusive as that winning lottery ticket. [...]
The Real Purpose of Family Enterprise Governance: Developing the “Four Capitals”
The Real Purpose of Family Enterprise Governance: Developing the “Four Capitals” Nurturing the four types of capital to maximize the potential of your enterprising family. Byline: Doug Baumoel Estimated read time: 3 mins In this commentary, we explore the four types of capital—financial, human, spiritual, and social, and the family enterprise governance system’s crucial role in promoting each of these for the benefit of the family. Family enterprise governance systems may look different for different families. For some families, governance is a highly structured system of a family council, family office board, and a family business board; all connected [...]
What’s Considered ‘Fair’ in Family Business?
What’s Considered ‘Fair’ in Family Business? 4 things to consider when seeking outcomes that are acceptable to all stakeholders Byline: Rikk Larsen Read time: 4 minutes The question of what is fair has perplexed many family business owners, and their search for fairness often results in conflict. Why? Because when it comes to the search for fairness—there is no single answer. The term ‘fairness’ can have different meanings. In business, fairness is based on merit—the more you produce, the more you should earn; when it comes to ownership, fairness is proportional—the more you own, the more benefit of control and [...]
