Full Description
The idea that every family business needs a trusted adviser is a popular one. This adviser is often portrayed as an individual who has a close personal relationship with the family and who coordinates the advice that they receive from a range of specialists. However, this model of a single adviser is not always the most effective when trying to build sustainable trust relationships alongside the generational changes that inevitably occur in family businesses.
In an era where every adviser is a specialist, it is necessary to explore an alternative to the individual trusted adviser. This special report describes how family businesses can benefit from a high-performing, inter-disciplinary advisory team for trusted advice, with members sourced from different organisations, and who have demonstrably effective processes for looking after an entire family and their business interests. Members of such a team are committed to helping the family achieve success in terms of both family and business life and, like a true team, this success is dependent on all team members.
High performance advisory teams are used in many areas of commerce, sport, science and the arts and this report demonstrates how the same can be true for advisers who serve family businesses, regardless of their specialism.
Contents
Introduction 7
We need to talk about specialists 13
1. The sedative effect of specialist advice 14
2. The ambidextrous, T-shaped gatekeeper 19
3. Moving forwards by looking backwards 20
Do not trust best practice 23
1. What is best, and worst? 23
2. The best practice fallacy 25
3. The risk of doing damage 27
4. Conventional wisdom 28
5. An alternative approach 31
Soft skills are not enough 33
1. Emotional intelligence 33
2. Economic necessity 35
3. Competency and the effect of regulation 36
4. Trust in organisations 39
5. Marketing trust 40
Who do you trust? 43
1. The in-group attitude 43
2. Limitations of the in-group attitude 45
3. The optimists 46
4. How attitudes affect relationships 47
Trusting a shared purpose 51
1. The risk of assumptions 51
2. Working with a shared purpose 54
3. Who is the client? 61
4. What if there is no shared purpose? 65
(The cult of continuity)
Creating the trusted team 69
1. What type of team? 70
2. Creating an advisory team 72
3. The shared purpose 73
4. Appointment 73
5. Accountability 78
6. Reward 80
7. Leadership 83
8. Family advisers' constitution 83
9. Do advisers want to work as a team? 85
About the author 88
