Kids, Family Business and Consequences:
Preparing Successors to Handle Wealth Responsibly
Wealthy parents work hard to create and preserve their wealth, but often fail to prepare the next generation to handle it responsibly. When a family business is part of the equation, no matter how well parents have trained their children to take the reins, if they are not responsible wealth owners, the business and their own financial and emotional health will be at risk. Creating the right environment in which to raise children to be happy, motivated and responsible is key to the success of the family business. This workshop will explore how the financial, intellectual and spiritual/emotional choices parents make as are likely to impact the future success of the business and next-generation owners and leaders.
Business Owners Workshops:
Jayne and Rich offer a customized two- to four-hour workshop to help parents prepare their children to handle the family business and family wealth responsibly. Children of family businesses (and wealthy families) often encounter mixed feelings, mixed messages and mixed blessings. The stakes are high with an ongoing business to run, and because wealth can fuel dysfunction and paralyze people, stripping them of ambition and meaning. Some children suffer feelings of guilt that they have not earned their wealth; others become mired in a toxic brew of entitlement and ennui. Some feel pressured to join the family business and further its success when their skills do not lend themselves to that effort.
This workshop will present case studies, research and tools based on our book, Kids, Wealth & Consequences,giving parents of family businesses the knowledge and skills to help them to raise children with a sense of groundedness and balance, impart a strong work ethic, counter their sense of entitlement, prevent them from remaining dependent, help them separate their identity from their wealth and/or the business, develop confidence in themselves, instill a desire to give back to society, and become good stewards of wealth and the business for future generations.
We will explore the Kids, Wealth & Consequencesmodel of Financial, Intellectual, and Spiritual/Emotional choices:
- Family discussions about what money is for
- No mater how wealthy one is, understand spending limitations and consequences
- Considering lifestyle choices and consequences
- Creating opportunities and experiences to teach life’s lessons
- Helping kids develop healthy relationships
- Being alert for “out of whack” emotions: guilt or entitlement
- Encouraging entrepreneurial, artistic or athletic passions
- Identifying those kids that will succeed in the Family Business
- Redeploy the Financial Capital to match the Intellectual Capital so the family business will thrive for generations
- Creating opportunities for philanthropy (individually and as a family) as a way to impart financial literacy, to help siblings and/or cousins practice making decisions together
- Helping kids deal with failure by letting them experience the consequences