Building Trust at a Family Meeting — Susan Schoenfeld
Susan R. Schoenfeld, CEO and Founder of Wealth Legacy Advisors LLC serves as a ‘thought partner’ to families of wealth through personal attention and human spirit. Susan is an award-winning Thought Leader; she provides guidance on legacy, next-generation, stewardship, governance, leadership succession, and philanthropy. She recently spoke on Family Governance at Opal Group’s Family Office Forum in Napa, CA.
Building a threshold level of trust within the family is a critical component of planning for a family meeting. It is not always intuitive or easy.
I worked with a family not too long ago for whom I planned a family meeting. There were four branches of the family; the wealth creator generation had a son and three daughters. Based on their family culture, the daughters were sent to boarding school on another continent; they stayed there, married and had families there. The son stayed in the home continent and was raised to take over the family business.
By the time the family business had its liquidity event, the parents had long since passed away. The son sold the family business, and now there was a single-family office that took care of the family-at-large’s assets, investments and other family office functions.
The family office engaged me to plan a family meeting to, in large part, identify, develop and foster the next generation of leaders in the family. As part of my advance process, I determined that the four branches of the family didn’t even know each other, much less have any kind of common trust element.
I identified one member of the next generation of the family who was a photography enthusiast, and we organized a family photography exhibit. Together, we reached out in advance to each family member attendee, and asked them to send in a photo, not necessarily a family photo, but rather a photo that spoke to them for some reason, perhaps a special vacation picture, or just a piece of art that they thought was interesting.
I suggested that the photographer family member make a little exhibit of all the photos submitted, and then I encouraged each person to speak at the meeting about why they chose their photo and why that photo spoke to them. And in that way, they were able to share something really personal about themselves without divulging anything too personal to people who were essentially strangers. And in that way, they were able to get to know each other in a really safe space.
Through that exercise, we started to build a level of trust across the branches of the family. We built a level of intimacy. And from there, we were then able to develop a governance structure and talk about the family business, the family collective investment structures, best practices and policies and many other important initiatives. But it all started from introducing these people to one another, not just “Hi, I’m your cousin,” but rather, “Here’s something about myself that matters to me and here’s why.”
That was a really special opportunity to build trust in a safe and non-threatening space. Once those bridges were built, the additional work of developing the next generation of family leaders could begin.
Susan Schoenfeld, a public speaker & thought partner to families of wealth and their advisors, is an award-winning thought leader. Susan’s switch from successful estate planning attorney and CPA to a trusted family advisor and thought partner was inspired by families of wealth asking her searching questions beyond estate tax planning. As a conflict-free advisor who provides no investment, tax, or legal advice and sells no product, Susan shares her insights directly with wealthy families and with financial services experts. She is active as a keynote speaker and a leader of break-out sessions and workshops at conferences throughout the US.
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