When considering the journey of family wealth, one of the main questions that family leaders ask is, “Where do we begin?”
In this book, we suggest that the most important activity to begin with is reflection: reflection on your intentions, your family culture, and the development of your family enterprise. Reflection on the big questions is the basis for any thoughtful action.
But reflection requires some sort of translation to result in action. This is the point where many families find themselves at a loss: How can we turn our individual ideas, perspectives, beliefs, hopes, and concerns into a shared plan?
A tool that many families use to bridge that gap is a simple one that we call the Family Executive Summary™. Most basically, the Family Executive Summary is a process leading to a document that captures a picture of the landscape of the family at a given moment in time. As such, it provides the basis for a thoughtful road map of how to proceed best toward the family’s shared goals.
A Family Executive Summary is built upon qualitative interviews with individual family members and key family stakeholders (such as attorneys, family office executives, and other advisers). The document that results from these interviews reviews the high-level themes, strengths, and areas of opportunity that emerge from these conversations.
The purpose of the Executive Summary is to provoke thought and set the stage for a meaningful discussion among parents, adult children, and other family leaders. These discussions may center on estate planning, family business management or succession, philanthropy, or other issues central to the impact of financial capital on families.
For example, in one relatively small family we worked with, the Executive Summary involved interviews with the two parents and two adult children. The question animating the conversations was posed by the parents: “How can we together make the best use of our financial good fortune?” The summary captured the main themes of the four family members’ responses to this question, along with the hopes and concerns that they shared.
Families of many more members can also use Family Executive Summaries effectively. For example, we have prepared summaries for families of 20, 30, or even 40 or more members. Such summaries often capture what is on the minds of family members regarding the challenges facing the family in the short and long terms. The summary may then lay out a plan for discussing the most pressing and important challenges through a structured agenda of a family meeting or retreat.
Many families find it helpful to have a nonfamily facilitator conduct the interviews and prepare the Executive Summary. The objectivity of a nonfamily member often allows individuals to share their thoughts frankly with trust in the facilitator’s confidentiality.
The first step in the Executive Summary process is a conversation with the family leader or leaders—often the patriarch and/or matriarch—to:
Once these points are agreed upon, the facilitator will conduct brief (60- to 90-minute) interviews with identified family members or key stakeholders. These interviews give each interviewee an opportunity to share opinions, offer recommendations, ask questions, and surface concerns. The specific data from each interview remains confidential. From this data, the facilitator can create the Family Executive Summary.
Some of the questions that we have used in such interviews include:
While the content of the summary will reflect your family’s unique situation, we often find it helpful to organize the summary in the following categories:
Again, the specific goals of the exercise will determine the necessary parts of your Family Executive Summary. We note that many families find it especially powerful to combine the Family Executive Summary with asking all family members also to fill out the Family Balance Sheet™ (as described at the end of Chapter 1). The results of both assessments can then be combined and shared back with the family.
Once there is a draft of the Executive Summary, the facilitator can meet with the family leader(s) to review the initial draft and decide how best to share the final draft with the other adult family members. Most often that is done within the context of a family meeting. Some of the most common recommendations in the Executive Summary include:
Many families have found the Family Executive Summary process a safe way to identify and discuss matters of great importance and to lay the groundwork for wise and lasting decisions.