Today I had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Lee Hausner (family psychologist) and Doug Freeman, JD (a leading estate tax attorney with a specialization in philanthropy) talk for 3 hours on family governance and family meetings for multi-generational wealthy families. Their criterion of success is that a family remain intact, happy and productive, as a cohesive group, for 4-5 generations, or 100 years. "Legacy families" they call them. Philanthropy, and indeed compassion, they see as critical aspects of these successful families. Lee and Doug's firm is IFF Advisors. Doug and Lee are about as good as it gets. Either is brilliant, but together they make a wonderful presentation team. Their audience today consisted of financial people, philanthropy people from the foundation world, and members of several wealthy families. The talk was sponsored by Thompson & Knight, a leading law firm here in Dallas. Given the audience response, I suspect that Lee and Doug will garner client families here, as they are around the country.
Comparing Doug and Lee with my friend Tracy Gary of Inspired Legacies, I would use one word, "community." What Tracy would stress is that happy and successful hegemonic families or dynasties are not necessarily the greatest good God created on his green earth. At worst they are happy plutocrats, or a governing elite, an emerging aristocracy, a self-actualizing, self-perpetuating upper crust - as well as lucrative clients. Tracy would put in a plea for the broken families, the busted people and those who have a claim on us as part of a larger "family," the family of humankind. I find her perspective less "realistic" than Doug and Lee, who recognize that clients pay their bills, and yet a necessary corrective to all of us in the professions who sometimes forget that we are citizens as well as professionals. How wealthy families balance their own goals and the needs of society may be the critical issue for democracy in an ownership society, and an era of rising wealth disparity.
What Tracy is reflecting, I think in her intransigent commitment to community is her own upbringing in her own multi-generational family. "As the twig is bent...." In a very real way she honors her parents through her own life of service. Her sense of community responsibility was a key aspect of her own family legacy. When she speaks of her own childhood, many of the strategies that Lee and Doug recommend for raising healthy kids are ones her parents employed at home.
In any case, Lee and Doug seem to be doing very well indeed and making their firm succeed as a "going concern." I learned a great deal.
As always, thanks you for sharing what you see.
I am all for families staying whole and connected. However I worry about success measures as you state "Their criterion of success is that a family remain intact, happy and productive, as a cohesive group, for 4-5 generations, or 100 years." What is it for a family to be happy and productive? Does that mean embracing all members of the family for who they are and seeking out commonalities among them? Or does that mean that the eldest generation gets to define for the younger generations what "happy" and "productive" mean? It is one thing to leave a family legacy whereby future generations "succeed" by your measures (or else). It is quite another to leave a legacy to your family as well as your community and the world we all share.
Posted by: Jean Russell | February 14, 2006 at 04:14 PM
No kidding. Who decides the disposition of the Kingdom? Lear, Cordelia, or her sisters Goneril and Regan? And, do they decide with the input of wise and loyal counselors, a coterie of machiavels, or with the witty & sad songs of the Fool? The truth is that the patriarch or matriarch generally presides and dictates. The auotractic process can be democtratized, but only with the current decisionp-makers support. This, Jean, is the nexxus of my own interests: To what extent should we as loyal counsellors and "coaches" facilitate the foolish and potentially tragic "intentions" of a Lear or King Midas, and to what extent are we able or allowed to play the role of the Fool who asks the difficult questions you raised? As a busienss person I know the answer. As a former teacher of the liberal arts, I know the answer. But they are not the same answer.
Posted by: phil | February 16, 2006 at 01:51 PM
It is possible that a parent would want what the child wants for himself or herself. There are parents out there who embrace their offspring as wonderful and individual beings. For these families, staying intact for generations flows as the natural course full of love and respect. For those focused on money and wishing to rule and control and limit from the grave, I can't make any guarantees. For those who seek to support and lift up far into the future, for them, I bow low.
We serve the ones who pay the bills. It is how we care for our own children so that they can be their best selves. My children are more important to me than someone else's children!
Good intergenerational planning can be done. It is possible. I hope it becomes more and more possible for more and more families. And I wish the IFF Advisors these loving, healthy families and less of the patriarchs and matriarchs who would restrict and contain their descendants.
Posted by: Jean Russell | February 16, 2006 at 05:02 PM
You sound like a liberal, Jean. Top down control sorts well with entrepreneurs who have built and rule a business. "My way or the highway" at home and at work. Is it good for the family? For society? For the patriarch or matriarch themselves? Well, it would be Fool to question the person in charge. Wisdom don't come easy, but teaching it is not a profit center at most firms.
Posted by: Phil | February 18, 2006 at 09:46 AM