Unprepared,disaffected heirs can dissipate even the most expansive legacies. Legacy planner Barbara Culver runs Purposeful Planning, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based training provider for experienced advisors who want to help families sustain multigenerational legacies.

Heirs often waste family wealth by spending frivolously, getting involved in lawsuits and making bad investments. The reason: they haven't been prepared for the roles and responsibilities that go with their legacies.

The key to avoiding this is to get heirs involved in the planning process during the life stage that psychologists call "emerging adulthood" -- the few years between late adolescence and early adulthood.

Fresh look

Research shows that today's emerging adults tend to have a far different mentality than those of previous generations. They tend, for example, to take longer than their parents or grandparents did to get married or to settle on careers. Such differences can lead to |image1|chasms of misunderstanding between generations that block day-to-day communication, leaving these young adults feeling alienated. This sense of alienation is an example of the kind of flaw in a family's emotional fabric that can tear the planning process, despite the best efforts of technically skilled advisors.

Advisors looking to help families keep their legacies from disintegrating should consider taking a fresh look at how they work with families.

This is especially critical if your clients seem in danger of joining the 91% of wealthy families that fail to make their legacies last more than a generation or two, according to Roy Williams' and Vic Preisser's book Philanthropy Heirs and Values, which looks at more than 3,000 affluent families.

Traditional approaches to legacy planning -- like meeting with the family patriarch or breadwinner behind closed doors -- can make some family members feeling like bystanders with little or no control over the process; especially when decisions reached in these closed-door sessions weren't shared with family members until after the patriarch's demise. This can lead to distrust, hurt feelings and other negative emotions that damage efforts to preserve legacies.

By contrast, open processes in which as many family members as possible participate can prepare heirs for their futures roles -- and work especially well for families in crisis, as they desperately need a change in approach, a fresh start.

Changing family members' roles might mean changing your own. Instead of having all the answers, the advisor should lead clients to find their own. Rather than being detached and analytical, advisors should be engaged and involved. Instead of listening for sales opportunities and emphasizing product, try listening carefully for problems and offering solutions.

Persuasive language 

Advisors should consider using new language that communicates opportunity and choice. Instead of asking, "What's the problem," advisors should consider saying, "What brings you to see me today?" Rather than "What's wrong?" try "What's most in need of attention?"

While traditional planners might say "This is the best solution for you," a more effective approach for leading client families to answers would be: "My experience in this area has been..." or "Does that seem reasonable to you?" And, instead of the proprietary, "I'll handle this for you," consider: "I have some ideas to share and want to present the benefits of each for you to consider."

This more cooperative, more interactive approach sets a tone that's conducive to relaxing the traditional family hierarchy. Instead of an emphasis on the patriarch/breadwinner being at the top, try to encourage a more egalitarian structure. In this kind of environment, emerging adults are more likely to become involved.

Advisors seeking to encourage this dynamic can play a key role by encouraging retreats where families can talk productively about wealth planning goals. Successful retreats can produce family financial philosophies and more palpable accomplishments such as mission statements, ethical wills and letters of intent.

Such retreats are hardly a stretch for cohesive families who already spend time together at vacation homes. Yet the vacation home itself can be a source of friction, especially for families whose common use of it has nothing to do with reunions.

In my own practice, we had a client family that was in turmoil because of numerous abrasive encounters between the patriarch and his daughter-in-law. When she wanted to change the schedule for use of the family ski house in Colorado, limiting the time her children would spend with their grandparents, the family was about to come apart. My team, which included a psychologist, managed to turn things around by arranging a family meeting where the disaffected patriarch pledged to his daughter-in-law that he'd be less abrasive, and vice-versa. The scheduling issue was worked out.

Of course, this easily could have gone the other way. The bad blood could have increased to the point where the family wasn't able to focus on cooperative planning.

In such cases, clients are better served by advisors who facilitate family disintegration by enabling the family wealth plan to die with dignity. In this scenario, advisors can best help their clients by focusing on the equitable assignment of assets, helping clients stay out of court and discouraging pointless spending. -FWR

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