This news service met with the UHNW Institute recently to discuss how an important new framework can be a key part of how advisors think about delivering integrated advice.

The UHNW Institute, a think tank, is continuing to build out the actionable ideas that it says will raise the bar in how advisors serve wealthy families. And one of the latest additions to its toolkit is its updated “Table Stakes™”  approach.

In the image of a table, the tabletop represents client needs and the four legs of this piece of “furniture” represent the firm, the advisor, the services and the processes that apply. There are three tools shown on the tabletop that help advisors better understand client needs: the Ten Domains of Family Wealth™ methodology, which has recently been updated, the “Catalysts” that spur families to action, and a detailed Family Needs Assessment to help families recognise their needs. (See a link to the updated Ten Domains approach.)

If the tabletop is about understanding what a family needs, the legs represent how those needs are handled in practice. They cover important considerations for firms, advisors, services areas, and processes in serving clients in a more integrated way. 

The Institute wants this framework to be part of UHNW advisors' thinking about how they want to deliver integrated advice. Such an approach comes amidst a worldwide multi-trillion-dollar wealth transfer and increasing complexity. 

Tom McCullough (main picture), managing director of thought leadership and strategy, explained to Family Wealth Report how the Table Stakes framework works and its pupose. We met at the inaugural European conference of the Institute, held at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. 

The fact that the Institute is expanding its international footprint speaks to the international nature of the issues its members wrestle with.

“The idea [of Table Stakes] is that we take all of our models and ideas, such as the Ten Domains, and put them in context for our members,” McCullough said. “This framework  connects the dots with all the great tools the Institute has built.”

“We wanted to make all the tools and concepts actionable…and beneficial for advisors in serving their clients.”

The rising complexity of many families’ lives means a demand for intimacy and a close touch with advisors must be squared with many firms’ need for scale, he said. 

Delving deeper into the tabletop of client needs, in addition to the well-known Ten Domains, McCullough provided more detail on the newer Institute tools: catalysts and family needs assessment. 

Catalysts refer to the events that make a family take action, for example geopolitical events (wars, elections, major economic market changes), liquidity events such as a company sale or IPO, personal changes such as bereavement, marriage, arrival of children, a new job and business enterprise, etc. 

The family needs' assessment, as the term suggests, is a tool to help families and their advisors explore potential gaps in services, knowledge and structures that a family might need to address. “All of these tools help build a better understanding for the client and their complex and often interconnected needs,” McCullough said. 

The “firm” leg focuses on “practice management,” he said. For example, users of the methodology can understand how a firm is balancing the competing demands for intimacy with clients against the firm’s potential needs for scale. The “advisor” leg covers the main markers of what constitutes a truly integrated advisor: mastery, method, mindset and maturity. The “services” links to what each firm and advisor chooses to offer, including such areas such as wealth planning, investments, governance, family wellbeing and wealth advice. It also raises the debates about what a firm can offer in-house and what needs to be outsourced to specialists. Finally, the “process” leg examines how work is delivered and coordinated, and that involves the assessment, implementation, and monitoring steps found in the “AIM Framework.” 

McCullough recently authored a 19-page white paper for the Institute entitled Table Stakes 2.0: The Service Model of the Future for Integrated Family Wealthy Management.”

See more details about the Institute here.