Trade-offs exist everywhere and always. What are you willing to sacrifice?

Let’s begin with a cheers:

Here’s to making 2023 fulfilling, fun and also… well… in reflecting on 2022 and how trade-offs exist everywhere and always, cheers to 2023 being enough for you however it unfolds. Some goals should be hard enough that they may not happen. Some trade-offs are properly sacrificed for other priorities and goals. Bring your contentment perspective to 2023 along with your ambition.

Last month I wrote:

“To get to a specific, clear and unique investment strategy, the family has to be able to articulate their purposes for investing. Far more specifically than their risk adjusted return tolerances. So investment policy statements are a fun and important governance tool to work on and get right.”

Let’s find perspective together on how IPSs can grow your family wealth.

FW = R (HC + RC)

Your family wealth grows fastest when you consider ways that your resources can amplify your human and relational capital pools. 

Investment Policy Statements: Before running a wealth management firm, my interaction with these documents was limited to a quick review with an investment professional and the occasional deeper dive on behalf of a client.

I never considered at the time that families could create their own investment policy statements. I also was unaware that the document could strengthen family cultures and that unlike the documents produced by the wealth management industry to CYA, there was not any specific rules to follow or legal risks to mitigate.

RC – Families’ relational capital, it’s culture 

An IPS is a document that families can work on: This document is a living document, amended whenever your family sees fit to improve the terms and guiding principles under which financial resources are deployed.

There are many topics an IPS can discuss, but the most important lens in my opinion is how your family’s investment philosophy influences your family’s collective well-being.

A policy to align financial resource deployment with personal and collective well-being.

HC – human capital and personal development

How can your investment decisions positively influence your day-to-day lives?

As a document produced with the mindset that it can amplify a family’s fulfillment and success, a document that can meaningfully guide a family’s seven-generation journey, the focus of the IPS changes significantly from the IPS produced by conventional investment management.

One key policy requires prioritization of family investment interests. Identifying specific areas that family members find particularly interesting is a helpful initiative.

Have you considered for yourself: do you find any particular investments compelling and worthy of more of your time, attention and investment dollars?

Here’s a simple example of the type of policy you could include:

We value investing in industries that family members find particularly compelling for long-term value accretion.

A minimum of 10% and a maximum of 80% of the value of our financial capital should be classified by the family as being in “Well-Being Additive” industries (such industries agreed upon annually by voting family members. 

A policy like this requires that the family stay sharp on topics of interest. Your family will benefit in multiple ways from this focus:

Firstly is the potential for outsized financial returns. The investment in a specific thesis gaining concentration in the portfolio may outperform as Peter Thiel describes:

“You can expect the future to take a definite form or you can treat it as hazily uncertain. If you treat the future as something definite, it makes sense to understand it in advance and to work to shape it. But if you expect an indefinite future ruled by randomness, you’ll give up on trying to master it.”

“The most common answer to the question of future value is a diversified portfolio: “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” everyone has been told. As we said, even the best venture investors have a portfolio, but investors who understand the power law make as few investments as possible.”

Secondly and more importantly, the focus will likely result in finding areas of potential vocation and personal fulfillment. Areas compelling enough that you will learn and grow, ultimately gaining expertise.

Role modeling the expertise and increased agency will also inspire other family members.  While improving your own well-being.

So be curious! Join new communities and bring your beginner’s mindset, and you just might find a fulfilling new focus.

R – resources, financial capital

An investment focus need not result in creating a startup or adding significant risk. For example, an interest in the future of energy could begin with an investment in a clean energy ETF and then possibly advance to allocating to a private equity team focused on a specific area (like power storage for a clean energy example) as you meet the top teams and get curious.

If the interest is so compelling that those risky startups enter the portfolio (like Katal Energy did for me!) then the Investment Policy Statement should consider how to manage those concentration risks while also identifying potential non-financial goals of the investment.

This topic would then become a cross-over policy between the IPS and my favourite policy tool, the Family Bank. You can read the third in my series on the topic at CanadianFamilyOffices.com.

Here’s to a 2023 where we continue to sharpen our unique answer to the tricky question “so what is all this money actually good for?”

To the journey,

Adam

I’m excited to learn about Japan’s 72 micro-seasons, lead through the eyes of a wonderful writer and the person that reintroduced me to nihilism (some very interesting wisdom to distill into family wealth dynamics from nihilism) Lucian James. If you want a philosophy that attunes your attention to valuing your day to day more, I expect this 72 season focus to be enjoyable and valuable!

Find out more here.

Capital Deployment + Risk Management = Family Office Ecosystems

In this month’s edition of Family Office Perspective, I’m distilling the surprisingly complex definition of “family office”.

In this month’s edition of FO Perspective, I’m glowing in the good fortune of mentorship.

The Wealth Equation attempts to simplify to merely 11 characters the critical idea that your family wealth increases when your resources are applied to growing stronger family members and family culture.

The Wealth Equation: FW = R (HC + RC)

HC – Human Capital

Of the ways I’ve worked on becoming a better person, be it coaching, learning (usually from podcasting and online videos), finding new challenges, etc. my greatest growth is due to great mentors in my life.

With the one year anniversary of Dennis’ passing on October 30th, and recently travelling to Aspen, Colorado to take my menteeship with James E. Hughes to the next level, I’m thinking a lot about mentorship these days.

RC – Relational Capital

Harnessing a close relationship into an effective mentorship relationship is fulfilling for both mentor and mentee. We enrich our lives greatly by finding the time to mentor and be mentored.

Mentorship is a critical skill in being an effective Elder. As the highest wisdom-holder within a family enterprise, but without the control, it is an Elder’s influence that defines her agency. The influence is the action and certainly there has been no greater influence in my life than my mentors.

R – Resources

One aspect of mentorship that I’m fascinated by, because I think understanding incentives is paramount in building strong family office ecosystems, is that mentors are (in my opinion) unpaid.

I don’t think you can pay for effective mentorship. That looks more like teaching or coaching to me – also valuable relationships for sure. But the resource to monitor expensing in mentorship is time, not money!

Time is our greatest resource.

How can we spend our time effectively as mentors and mentees?

Here are my favourite tips from perusing the internet for good advice on mentorship:

Practical:

• Frame the time. The mentee should have an agenda.
• Come prepared. The agenda should be delivered prior to meeting.
• Get to know each other. The agenda should always include time for getting to understand each other’s worlds.
• Use effective and increasingly curious questions to gain understanding of each other.

Emotional:

• Be genuine and direct.
• Be teachable / look to deliver advice in a teachable manner.
• Look to the future and action plan; mentorship is not therapy.

Accountability:

• Goal set effectively and complete accountability check ins.
• Follow through on the last session’s actions.

Dennis did far more for me than mentor. I saw how he acted constantly. I saw him invest in people every day. I saw him remain calm in adversity. I witnessed his high level of trust, which was was truly unparalleled and resulted in events to his detriment often.

But he always maintained that his trust in people was still worthwhile even though it occasionally burned him.

Dennis was far more than a mentor; he was also a role model.

Geez, I’m “spoiled ripe” in so many ways, and in ways that spoiled rotten people could never imagine.

To the journey,

Adam

post-script, a paragraph of a poem by Douglas Malloch:

Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.

Read the whole poem here.

In this month’s edition of FO Perspective, I’m hopeful you can help me answer for myself the question: what are the issues and opportunities facing families and how can I help with them?

We won’t use the Wealth Equation this month. Although I’m sure I could find a way to describe myself as a resource to amplify a family’s human and relational capital pools 🙂

The Wealth Equation: FW = R (HC + RC)

In 2017 I realized I wanted to help families harness the power of their wealth to build stronger family cultures. In June 2019, that journey led me to working with Max and building Vesta Wealth Partners together. Now, because it is time for Vesta to transition leadership, given Max and I believe deeply in leading fulfilling lives, the time has come for Max to succeed myself with Max in the role of CEO.

The platform is in a strong position and Max is ready to be the CEO after his significant support for the business as owner, director and investment management teammate.

Max and Jared’s vision was that families like the Fortmullers deserved institutional-quality portfolio construction. Much like our investment strategies, we sought out to build a diversified business in delivering on this vision.

It has been quite the journey! Lots of stories, lots of growth, incredible learning. It has been a great success.

Not-so-humble brag: I’ve loved acting as a fiduciary for the Fortmullers, in my case my fiduciary role came in management of their business and single family office (“SFO”). The opportunity to integrate directly into the Fortmullers’ journey is something I’m very grateful for.

It has been a remarkable way to launch my journey in family governance to a whole new level, and with the growth mindset I have and desire to make an impact, now is the time to find new ways to empower entrepreneurial families to thrive.

So this update reaches you at an interesting crossroads for me. I’m actively searching for the right problems to solve and the biggest opportunities in family governance to make an impact. Here is my question:

• What are the biggest problems (and therefore best opportunities) to help families harness the naturally destructive nature of money on human fulfillment and family culture?

I’m all ears, I have some ideas, and you are receiving this update as a dear friend that I’m certain has unique ideas of your own for me in supporting this mission. Thanks in advance for your comments.

In this month’s edition of FO Perspective, we ask “what is the form of good stewardship”?

Stewardship. What a popular word in family governance circles. Important? Absolutely. But the Wealth Equation reveals an important take on the “stewardship” definition. Hopefully you agree, dear reader, that my definition tweak is for the better!

The Wealth Equation: FW = R (HC + RC)

Your family wealth is equal to your resources multiplied by the sum of your human capital (quality of people) and relational capital (quality of relationships).

R

Stewardship is most commonly thought of as the efforts towards protecting the family’s financial capital. Stewarding the wealth through generations requires a keen eye on effective uses of financial capital.

But as stewards I believe we become a little too focused on losing the money. It’s a very common fear. Wealth preservation cannot be the only goal with the capital.

Perhaps this perspective comes from the wealth creators, who saw the luck and effort first-hand required to amass the wealth. Perhaps this perspective comes from the wealth heirs, who see the money as culturally success-defining for their lives. And so long as more wealth exists when they die than when they inherited, they were deemed “successful”.

Both of these fears arise from a misunderstanding of money as a resource.

Given that meaningful family legacies arise from growing your people and strengthening their culture, the money might blissfully float unrisked through the generations and, sure, financial stewardship succeeds.

But often that use of financial capital will fail the family wealth and impair meaningful family legacy.

Stewardship includes stewarding forward what the family stands for. And I hope each and every family with a champion reading this (like yourselves!) knows exactly what your family stands for and how to steward those goals aligned with those values and principles.

HC

Arriving at a healthy relationship with the wealth and understanding the power of effective stewardship is a journey for every individual in the family. Certainly, the more family members that take the time to consider their fears around wealth, fear-set those, and arrive at an upgraded definition of stewardship will be increasing the family’s Human Capital.

RC

Communal pressures around wealth preservation are tricky. Those principles are valuable and certainly the opposite view, a frivolous view of the wealth, is much more destructive for the family. So the family culture has to apply some value to wealth preservation.

But in considering the stewardship of wealth, I believe family cultures should develop an abundance mindset. Combining a discipline of financial preservation with a scarcity mindset leads to overly fearful deployment of capital.

It should be entirely ok for family cultures to deploy capital into their people and their relationships and into investments that may lose capital if there are valuable other goals achieved. For example, with both success or failure of an entrepreneurial venture, risking the capital and unearthing valuable lessons from the failures should be supported by the family.

There should be a celebration of those lessons and a healthy relationship developed around failures in any family culture. No pariahs.

Conclusion

Regardless of the choices we make, outside forces could make the money disappear at any moment.

And what is left after the money is gone (or you pass away) is the relationships and the culture that can breed the kind of people that you are proud of. People capable of rebuilding wealth if need be. People you are proud to call family.

Because after all, time is our greatest resource and spending it wisely is far more valuable to your family than prudent investing.

In last month’s FO Perspective, we looked at culture as the most effective influence on success or failure of family legacies. I alluded to the other key driver of success and for those with the ol’ growth mindset, the answer is obviously personal development! Thank you for reading on Canada Day!

As individuals get stronger they act more in alignment with their goals, and discover clearer and more relevant goals as well.

I believe well-meaning, growing, caring family members cannot help but become better contributors to family goals, although sometimes managing individual and family goals can create quite the interesting set of trade-offs and conflicts!

I’m in Invermere right now with cousins from the States that I haven’t seen in ages (and all of our kids are creating quite the mayhem), it is Alex and my 12-year wedding anniversary, and my goal of writing about family governance monthly is at stake! So I’m fortunate to lean heavily on a LinkedIn Post, I note that the best place to start is personal development when worried about the future impact of the family wealth on the family.

That article has a great School of Life video embedded. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is often represented as a pyramid because it gives a relatable image to the idea that the bottom levels of the pyramid are more very critical and often the greater focus of people. Basic human needs and safety and security should never be taken for granted.

Except wealth clearly distorts this focus.

There are very few heirs that can find fulfillment in creating a life where they have their basic human needs served. That would feel more like giving up, wouldn’t it? Maybe I’m being harsh.

No I’m really not being harsh, a focus on the bottom of the pyramid is definitely not taking advantage of the incredible opportunity that our good privilege provides to make a big impact and find big fulfillment.

Because privilege ensures that our pyramid does not work the traditional way, quite a lot of time and resources should rightfully go into the top needs; seeking self-actualization and striving for transcendence.

How can the wealth equation frame our understanding of the importance of personal development in the context of meaningful family legacies?

FW = R (HC + RC) 

Your family wealth is equal to your resources multiplied by the total of your human and relational capital pools.

R: Spend resources on personal development, it is as simple as that. Both time and money can be extremely effectively deployed into improving oneself. Please reach out if you aren’t sure where to start with topics like coaching, peer mentorship, conferences, mental models, seeking mastery, culture mining.

HC + RC: Growing your human capital clearly a key to this wealth equation, but I find it amazing how regularly I forget that we are all just humans in our relationships and even the best sides of all of us are going to run into mistakes in the context of decades-long relationships. We have to be kind to our family members, because we have to build up our relational capital for those downturns when we have to spend a little of that goodwill and trust we have built up in the only way that caring families really understand.

FW: leading more fulfilling lives (while maintaining a commitment to the family’s values) is the most autonomous way to contribute to the family legacy.

Complex words and well-paid professionals often impede progress. So an early issue of Family Office Perspective has to address the incredible consulting field of Family Governance that covers most of my favourite topics, but is also often a little too complex. This consulting field delivers value to families similarly to how management consultants advise businesses.

Let me know when I’m being complex because I’m here to empower!

Governance is certainly a complex topic. A lot of time and attention goes into this field with good reason. Governance is ultimately about how thoughts and conversations create decisions that beget actions. Governance is too often prescribed through lawyer’s eyes though. They focus on establishing policies and procedures that clarify the rules that govern a family’s affairs. Those rules establish parameters delineating good decisions from bad. This is effective governance because it improves the probability of good decisions and from those good decisions, effective actions follow.

Come on, we cannot let the lawyers deliver the most valuable forms of governance!

No way!

Certainly, a strong family constitution and well thought out policies and procedures have a very strong impact on family activity and yes, they are helpful governance tools. However, I’ve known since the very beginning of my journey into the family governance field that there is a lot more to effective families than rules. The real family governance is derived from family culture. I learned this from James E. Hughes whom I mention regularly.

But I also learned this from my own observations. The most successful families I know seem to innately understand what they stand for and are great at celebrating behaviours that fit within their core values. Neither “innate understanding” nor “celebration” would fit within a lawyer’s rules:

Lawyer: “now to New Business topic #5, the Article 6.3 infraction. You can clearly see in the Article that we expect family members to celebrate each other’s successes. So Adam, your failure to attend Shoshana’s Bar Mitzvah results in a penalty as selected by the Celebratory Review Panel at the next meeting that they are able to reach Quorum according to Article 14.4 where the Panel will select your penalty from those listed in Column B of Schedule 1.”

Adam: “I texted my cousin my congratulations, and we FaceTimed the next week, I think we are good.”

Lawyer: “sorry, the rules are very clear.”

Peter Drucker famously said that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Strategy is clearly important to business success, and yes I concede that rules are important to family success.

But culture is far more powerful and important.

So since family governance is about how families take effective action, then clearly the high-achiever families are likely the families filled with love, mutual interest in each other’s success, strong listening and communicating abilities (especially important: strong storytelling) or generally speaking, have strong cultures. Those lucky families will be able to influence individual and collective behaviour really effectively. They will have strong governance even if they don’t have written rules.

While there is no way to achieve family harmony, and there is very little chance that every single family member will align on core values, there is at least a strong chance that families can develop a caring family culture. We can all be inspired to support the growth of our family members and we can all create an environment where healthy actions outweigh destructive ones. These are the families that will thrive for generations whether or not they happen to maintain and grow their financial assets.

So I believe one of the two keys to family governance is family culture, the next key is the topic of next month’s Newsletter.

For those looking for a little more on this perspective, a quick reminder on how the wealth equation relates to this topic. The equation is:

FW = R (HC + RC) 

Your family wealth is equal to your resources multiplied by the total of your human and relational capital pools.

FW: Invest time and financial resources on family governance. Applying financial resources to facilitators will greatly assist in effective family meetings (and informal get-togethers).

R: Spend resources on traditional governance topics like family constitutions and other policies and procedures. But the best use of resources is spending time and intention on building strong individual family members with strong relationships.

HC + RC: Both the individual and the collective grow more valuable with a strong culture supporting them.

This newsletter is titled Family Office Perspective as I hope to deliver valuable ideas from the family office and family governance worlds for all families fortunate enough to have champions like you, dear reader, to receive them.

I started a series on CanadianFamilyOffices.com about my favourite governance tool (besides storytelling) called the Family Bank, check it out!

The wealth equation is my main perspective, the main chord progression so to speak, and these newsletters are all different riffs. So, the wealth equation:

FAMILY WEALTH = FA (HC + RC)

Because the equation is multiplication, there is a clear relationship between deploying resources into your people and relationships and the ability to amplify wealth.

I’m often asked for examples of investing resources into people and relationships. While I often cite investing in more impactful family vacations, adding things like family meetings, videography, and rituals to the traditional luxury and comfort we all love about vacations, it occurred to me recently that another word, not “vacation”, is more appropriate for families when determining ways to make their limited time together more valuable.

The word of the day is: pilgrimage.

However you define your tribe; a pilgrimage is one of the strongest examples in history of effective human development.

I last experienced a pilgrimage following the steps through the Andes and entering through the Sun Gate to Machu Pichu; an ancient pilgrimage.

My regulatory and compliance lawyer Don Campbell recently made the pilgrimage to Omaha, Nebraska. A journey common to those drawn to the Oracle of Omaha. If the term can apply to an investment firm’s AGM, it can certainly apply how your family intends to use it!

I recommend shedding past uses of the term and focus on how you would define a family pilgrimage. Adopt an important term.

FINANCIAL ASSETS

So how does a family invest in a pilgrimage. What are the components?

I have reduced my definition of a family pilgrimage to three components. They are: the journey, unplugging and time. A pilgrimage should include movement within an atypical space, a unique space, hopefully an awe-inspiring space. This creates a natural environment to enjoy new perspectives and thoughts.

In line with designing a unique journey that is unique and requires time and effort, the journey should occur unplugged from your smartphone and regular life. Again, to create a unique and quiet space.

Finally, a family pilgrimage should include family time. The time together, particularly without outside influences in unique space, will no doubt create situations where the people you know best will be different, where everyone will get to think and speak. Family time is always valuable (it is why I love family meetings) and spending time together on a pilgrimage will be uniquely valuable. Perhaps it will become an annual or biannual family ritual!

HUMAN CAPITAL

Pilgrimages 

Pilgrimages are often individual pursuits, in fact some definitions require that they are individual in nature. Although I’m recommending a family pilgrimage, perhaps there are sections journeyed alone. There is something so rewarding and healthy about spending quiet time with yourself. Whether your thoughts are abstract, the mind is quiet, or you explore questions really important to you at that time, any which result is valuable to improving your relationship with yourself.

Although I do not journal, I’ve read that one of the benefits of journaling is similar; organizing your thinking as a form of healing and meditation.

RELATIONAL CAPITAL

These key principles and the overarching ability to live intentionally and adapt. These are the ways to survive for generations.

There’s something so valuable about rituals, ways that groups remind themselves about what they stand for and care about. Clearly rituals like pilgrimages are valuable: I’ll spend a future newsletter on this 🙂

However you define your tribe; a pilgrimage is one of the strongest examples in history of effective culture building.

My mission is to empower entrepreneurial families to thrive for generations. The wealth equation is the best tool we’ve got at FO Perspective to show the important perspective that all capital pools (financial, human and relational) matter for building family wealth.