Family in Business

We peel back the layers of this work with kindness and a premise: matriarchs and patriarchs simply want to do the best they can with what they have – in their family relationships, wealth, and business. We’ve never met a family that wants to leave the planet in angst or at odds with the people and assets they cherish the most.

Yet in recent times, cement shoes have laced themselves up, making each step harder than it has to be. There’s persistent low-grade stress or frustration. Avoidance is an accelerant, yet what else is out there?

Traditional legal and financial services models lead directly to family governance work. We believe there’s a before, and sometimes a during, family governance that can dramatically expand the potential and outcomes, financially and relationally, creating family alignment along the way.

The Co-Passion Platform^TM

When families are introduced to us by their longstanding, trusted advisors, we typically observe one of three scenarios…

The family is facing a host of new opportunities and they’re craving a greater sense of unity around how to step into their options.
The closeness and ease the family shared in the past isn’t in the room as often as it used to be.
Toxicity has crept into a well-intended family system and the pain, angst, and frustration are draining the family’s hope and joy, creating messes and battle scars along the way.

Whether triggered by opportunity, friction, or toxicity, the landscape is clear. To maintain or improve the health of the family eco system – and achieve forward progress – external facilitation may be impactful.

“The vast majority of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

The difference between traditional Family Governance and a family tradition of Pre-Governance

At a certain level of wealth, families begin to explore governance around its preservation, use, and distribution. In traditional approaches, a family’s fear of negative outcomes is often met with the creation of rule sets: who’s allowed to do what and when.

Governance is simply the correlation between intention and outcome. You can govern a community, its members, or a company. Family governance establishes agreements for a system of communication, behavior, and support. It sets forth hope that community members will act in certain ways, offering a Plan B for when they don’t – or for a time when the historic rule sets no longer serve the evolving system.

If a family lacks clarity about their intention for the rules, the legal scaffolding can inadvertently predispose a family to conflict. Families find themselves with written consequences for when heirs makes poor choices, yet the family relationships and eco system remain vulnerable.

Our Pre-Governance model is a complement to traditional governance work, so much so that governance advisors often ask us to clear friction and toxicity prior to, or during, their good work of infrastructure.

This work helps families strengthen or restore health in the family system. It guides families and family businesses to see the options and interplay between the interpersonal and integrated legal, financial, and tax issues.

Together, we create alignment, building resilience and skillsets for navigating change and opportunity. When rule sets are later developed, they answer questions like, What can we be passionate about together? or What do we aspire to achieve with our wealth, and why?

The Co-Passion Retreat: Programs for harvesting fresh perspectives.

Programs begin with a combination of private interviews with your longstanding advisor(s), private sessions with the family’s matriarch and/or patriarch, and group sessions with family and non-family stakeholders either simultaneously, or in subsets.

Coming into the programs, stakeholders often feel clear about their own stakes. It’s logical for each of us to claim our turf in life and business. Even still, as we progress through the process, a natural shift emerges: from being invested in a particular result to being involved in a We-driven Discussion.

Families often find the questions and discussion frames we bring forth are the most refreshing part of our time together. They report that critical data comes to the surface that had been missing from previous discussions. Because we come into the conversations with sincere compassion for the depth and complexity of the issues, stakeholders find a renewed sense of comfort in speaking their truths. Likewise, they hear the other truths in the room at a deeper level. The Give/Receive dynamic increases measurably.

We like to call it See Past the Line^TM. Time after time, the group organically designs a path that’s unexpected, broader, and more rewarding than previously perceived to be possible. It’s as if the collective empathy and contributions of all participants has invited the group’s innate wisdom into the room.

Hope is a great conversation

Importantly, this essential work is more of a mile marker than a one-and-done sprint. Going forward, Pre-Governance work becomes a touchstone to ground new cycles of planning, business opportunities, or struggles that emerge in any area. For many, it becomes either an annual ritual, or a ritual for embracing life events, such as birth, death, marriage, or coming of age of a family member.

With hope-at-the-ready, any subsequent program increases a family’s resilience for navigating disparate perspectives. Together, you’ll see that controversy becomes a tool for expanding group wisdom and growth.

Two-day Retreat: from $32,000
In our two-day retreat, we hold a session on the first day, enjoy a casual group dinner that evening, and then enjoy a full-day retreat on day two. Moving forward, many families find it a priority to hold these retreats once or twice a year.
Expanded Retreat: from $52,000
In our expanded retreat, family members enjoy opening the conversations one-to-one prior to the face-to-face retreat. Then, we share two days together onsite, beginning with a session the first day, dinner that evening and a full-day retreat the following day. After our time together, we provide you with a brief yet poignant summary of where you were before our Pre-Governance work, the progress and shifts achieved onsite, and a summary of your decisions and actions for moving things forward.

Hope is a great conversation book

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The Invisible Guest