Saturday, September
4 2010
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Saturday, September
4 2010
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Announcing a new acquisition!!
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What's New at Forte for the year 2007 November 2007C - A Family Mission Statement Can Keep Family Goals First and Money Squabbles at Bay By Forte News Department When rich
families squabble over the family legacy, it becomes headline news. Witness the
recent battle over the ownership of the Wall Street Journal between members of
the Bancroft family. When approached by media titan Rupert Murdoch, various
family members fought over whether to preserve the family legacy at the
legendary daily business paper or take the money and run. Money eventually won. For most
average Americans, such stories are an illustration not only of how money
doesn’t buy happiness, but how it breeds dissention and distance between people
who could be enjoying their wealth and moving in concert. With all that money, how can people be so
unhappy and contentious? Families
with substantial assets – or the promise of substantial assets as a business
grows – might consider creating a family mission statement. While the end
product should produce a document built from discussion, argument and
consensus, it’s not so much about the piece of paper as the process. When a
family sits down to discuss what is really important to them, it’s an
opportunity to take the machine apart and see how it works. Many families start
the process as a way to build consensus about long-term financial, business,
estate and philanthropic goals, but to their surprise, money can take a back
seat. Families discover particular strengths, weaknesses and unexpected courses
of action within their ranks. The process might identify future leaders of the
family. Trained
financial advisors, such as Certified Financial Planner ™ professionals, can
explain and guide the process. Some planners may be trained to facilitate such
discussion based on the size and goals of the family involved. The general
creation of a family financial mission statement should have four key
touchpoints: estate issues, philanthropy, business direction and family
dynamics. Here are
some questions that should be asked of everyone in preparing the family’s
financial mission statement. They should focus on relationship issues first,
and then move into business and money matters. • What’s most important about our
family? • What do you think our goals should
be? • When do you feel most connected to
the rest of us? • How should we relate to one another? • What are our strengths as a family? • Where do you think we’ll be as
individuals in 5, 10 and 15 years? • In order, what are the five things
you value most in life? • How should we behave toward each
other? • How should we resolve our disputes? • How important is the family business
to you? • What should we be doing differently
with our family money as well as our assets inside the business? • What’s the best way for us to be
building our wealth? • What do you think the role of our
family should be in helping the community? • What should we be doing individually
and as a family with regard to philanthropy? Structurally,
the written mission statement can be whatever you agree it should be – a few
paragraphs or a page or two. And it needn’t be set in stone – a family should
have a meeting every year or two to revise or approve its mission. The family mission statement helps your
family establish its identity and the variety of voices within. It can help set
goals and diffuse tensions later. It can also be used to moderate discussions
that inevitably happen after major changes within the family – death, divorce
or happily, an increase in the number of heirs and participants. As for the
age of the participants, it can start in very basic form with younger children
and the process can mature as they age. It’s actually a good idea to bring
young members into a customized version of the process for youngsters so they
can comfortably adjust to working as adults with the older members of the
family. For a handy
resource on writing a family mission statement, go to this site: http://www.nightingale.com/mission_select.aspx?from=homepage&element=missiontitle November 2007 — This column is
produced by the Financial Planning Association, the membership organization for
the financial planning community, and is provided by David W. Henion, a local
member of FPA. | ||||||||||||||
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