Next Gen/Rising Gen
Considering a role in your family business? An MBA may be helpful.
Discover the transformative influence an MBA can have on your future, regardless of whether or not your path leads to your family business. So your family owns a good-sized company and you’re thinking that maybe that’s where your future lies. You started out in the warehouse shuffling boxes back and forth during high school, maybe had a stint in manufacturing or marketing, and you have grown up knowing the company and its industry well. Now, a college grad, you need to consider your future, and make important decisions that will impact not only your career, but your family AND [...]
The Progenitor’s Dilemma: Avoiding Entitlement When Transferring Wealth
A practical framework that empowers heirs while minimizing negative consequences 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 or self-esteem. They also want to ensure that those receiving some of their wealth do not confuse self-worth with net-worth. This can be [...]
Beyond The Box Thinking for Family Business Compensation
When it comes to compensating family employees, a common best practice is to pay family members a salary that’s in line with what non-family members would earn for the same job, adjusted for size and location of the company. A compensation consultant will often suggest such a pay range and, while many family members may receive the higher end of that range, some will actually receive the lower end in an effort to guard against the appearance of nepotism. While a ‘best practice’ such as this can work for many families, we believe this is a simplistic approach that [...]
Wealth Integration: A Multigenerational, Multifaceted Approach for Enterprising Families
Prepare for challenges, manage risk, and empower future generations 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 places the individual and family as the center of concern, with money as simply [...]
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 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 that optimally fulfills our needs and desires. Unfortunately, when faced with excessive choice, we find that we’re more [...]
Helping Inheritors Navigate, Understand the Complexities of Wealth
Six ways the rising generation can productively integrate wealth into their lives 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 face many challenges that are often difficult to discuss. As a minority, they must deal with [...]
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 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 harmonious sibling relationships, it’s critical to understand how to manage sibling wealth disparity. To start, it’s important to ensure the [...]
What’s Considered ‘Fair’ in Family Business?
4 things to consider when seeking outcomes that are acceptable to all stakeholders 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 distributions of profit you should have; and for families, fairness is often (but [...]
Should You Sell Your Family Business?
Should You Sell Your Family Business? To sell or not to sell the family business? The right answer is not the same for everyone– it is whatever works for you and your family. The decision of whether or not to sell the family business is often a difficult one. No matter if the business has been nurtured and handed down through several generations or is still in the hands of the founder, deciding whether or not to sell can be tough. We like to remind families that there is nothing wrong with selling if that’s what makes sense to the [...]
Planning a Successful Career Path for Family Employees
Family Member Employment Strategies Family employees can be a double-edged sword for the family business. They often display profound commitment to the enterprise, but if their employment does not work out for one reason or another it can be enormously disruptive to both the business and the family. Having family members enter the family business should not be done casually, because there are high expectations on all sides. The employment relationship is highly charged, because of the history and intermingling of family and business worlds. Businesses that fall short in planning and addressing the trickier aspects of family employment can [...]
