Every generation is different
How to turn that into a strength, not a problem.
This article is also available in Spanish.
Thank you!
Last week, Fidelius partnered with FBN Ecuador to teach a full-day masterclass to roughly 60 people, on the essentials of family-systems governance plus how to design your ideal family office.
I am grateful to Executive Director Rafael Wong and his team for their amazing work in planning and executing the event. I handled all the content, and they did everything else… which is a lot! FBN Ecuador’s top-quality work, and their unswerving commitment to serving their community, are simply outstanding.
Also thanks to Universidad Espíritu Santo (UEES) in Guayaquil for hosting us at their modern, well-equipped facility; and for their team’s professionalism and excellence… especially their technical and support staff!
Lastly, and most importantly, thank you to the families who participated and who enriched the event with their questions and comments. I’m delighted to call several of them my friends, and I got to spend three wonderful days talking with several others about their amazing stories and lives.
But ONE thing
caught my attention
because it kept coming up
over and over again.
The “generation gap”
I repeatedly heard from families where the rising generation felt strongly that they needed or wanted to live different lives, and organize themselves in different ways, from how the senior generation (those who currently have most of the power and ownership) are currently living.
In one case, G2 (shorthand for “second generation”) had suffered the wear-and-tear to family relationships that was inevitable after a great deal of low-level conflict. G3 was tired of the bickering and the tension, and the cousins wanted to know how they could chart a different path without taking sides in their parents’ fights.
In another case, the G2 siblings got along SO well and SO beautifully that they had no real rules, agreements, or policies: everything was decided in seconds with a smile and an almost telepathic communication between them. A beautiful thing to watch! But G3 knew that this special bond would never scale to 20+ cousins. Their challenge was how to begin creating a set of structures, processes, and agreements that would work well for their future, without ruining the wonderful present their parents were currently operating.
In yet a third case, G6 was taking over the businesses from G5 after a nearly thirty-year period of stagnation. But while the “young” G6 in their fifties controlled operations, their G5 parents controlled almost all ownership. Their challenge? How to revitalize and rejuvenate the company without offending their parents (or aunts/uncles, which is easier to do) and without full control of the investment budget.
All of these families are examples of a core principle of family business (and likely of all families):
Every generation lives in a different world and in different circumstances. Geopolitical changes. Technological changes. Changes in the family’s level of wealth, success, and socioeconomic status. Changes in the family’s relationships. Even things as simple as the number of people in each generation, and whether they are siblings or cousins. Everything changes.
Every generation experiences life differently.
This deeply influences their thinking and their choices.
Every generation also sees their parents make certain choices and act in certain ways. They agree with their parents in some things, but profoundly disagree in others. So every generation chooses to copy some things from their seniors while rejecting others.
Every generation defines their life differently.
You have a choice
Whether you are making different choices than your parents, or having trouble understanding why your children make different choices than you did, you have essentially two choices in how to respond:
The difference in choices is a problem. It shouldn’t happen. There should be continuity. Changes are a rejection of our past choices, traditions, and values.
Or, the difference in choices is generally and in most cases a natural positive, an adaptive and evolutionary change that will help us to thrive in a changing world. Sometimes change is a mistake, but we generally welcome change and give it the benefit of the doubt.
It will probably be no surprise to you when I tell you that society generally teaches reaction #1, but that #2 is healthier and produces happier, more successful families.
Watch for mistakes. Fix them.
Not all change is good. No one is perfect. Sometimes a different choice will give you clearly worse outcomes: more risk, poorer results, or more conflict.
Worse, and even more important, not all mistakes create problems quickly. Sometimes the downsides and negative consequences of errors or suboptimal choices will only be felt years, even decades, later.
So seniors should always be watching for potential mistakes or changes that will make things worse, not better. So should the rising generation. So should the family’s executives in the business, in the family office. And so should the family’s advisors. It is everyone’s job to question the choices we make in search of the best outcomes.
And when we find something that one (or more) of us believes is a mistake to be corrected, we must ALL have the open-mindedness to really evaluate that possibility and be willing to change the decision. We must resist the temptation to defend something just because it was our idea, or because we like it.
Remember: any time we change anything, we will get either a better or worse outcome. Both are possible in every case. Mistakes are always possible.
Different is not worse (or better)
Often, making different choices results in outcomes or incurs costs/consequences that are not clearly better, but are also not clearly worse. I’m sorry to say that this is not always easy and not always clear-cut.
In these cases, my advice is to change when those in favor can articulate a strong reason for doing so. That reason could simply be a very strong desire or preference… it does not have to be backed by peer-reviewed studies and compelling evidence.
But there is a value to continuity, and there is a very real cost to implementing change: retraining the body and mind, reeducating the people with whom we interact, changing parts of our identity or how we are perceived, and building new habits and new patterns in both muscle and mind.
So if it “just seems like a good idea” or “just seems natural”, but you can’t really articulate a strong reason to change, don’t do it. Remember that you have a finite supply of energy and willpower, and there are time AND resource limits on how many things you can change.
But if you DO have a strong case for changing, try it! Be aware of the downsides, and if it doesn’t work then you roll back the change. But if it does work, you will have innovated and evolved something successfully; and both are important components of your continued survival and success.
A word of advice
If I want to make a change, and you think it’s a bad idea, it’s VERY easy to personalize that conflict and quickly fall into a win-lose dynamic. Avoid that.
The two of us are searching for the best option together. And we’ll use our executives, our advisors, and our other resources to help us do so. But whatever decision we make in the end, it’ll be a victory for us BOTH because we engaged in the really important process of questioning a decision and finding the best path forward.
Together.