Lessons From Multi-Billion Dollar Families on Connection and Collaboration with Mark Tepsich, UBS

Even the wealthiest families can be unprepared for their own complexity. Most advisors aren’t trained to handle what matters most: communication, culture, and preparing the next generation for leadership.

In this episode of Visionary Advisor, Alex Kirby (founder of Total Family) is joined by Mark Tepsich, co-author of the UBS Family Enterprise Governance Report. Mark and Alex dive into what governance really looks like for families averaging $2.4 billion in net worth and why many of the biggest lessons apply to families at any asset level. Their conversation goes far beyond documents, highlighting how culture—shared norms and values—shapes both continuity and risk.

They unpack the realities behind family constitutions, non-financial meetings, and family retreats, examining practical ways advisors can help clients strengthen alignment and connection. Mark shares why the highest payoff comes from face-to-face connection, how advisors can get over hesitation to lead these conversations, and why integrating the rising generation early is essential for legacy and trust.

This episode is a guide for advisors ready to see legacy as a lived, evolving process, not just a set of documents. It urges a move from portfolio talk to family engagement and challenges advisors to expand their comfort zone for deeper, longer-lasting relationships.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why the process of creating a family constitution is more valuable than the final document
• How highly intentional families keep governance relevant as family structures shift
• What non-financial family meetings look like—and why most families don’t have them
• Practical approaches for running meetings and retreats that build family connection
• How advisors can facilitate (or encourage) non-financial conversations, even without outside specialists
• The central role of culture, communication, and ongoing review in successful governance
• Why integrating the rising generation early leads to stronger stewardship and trust
• Ways to move beyond “financial capital” to include values, rituals, and family well-being

Notable Quotes from Mark Tepsich

“It all comes down to how are you preparing the next generation to navigate that enterprise. Which is really people-centric.”

“The value add is that process of talking about that stuff, of spending the time and actually memorializing it.”

“You don’t have to have a 400-page family constitution. In fact, I would say you shouldn’t, because you’re not going to know what’s in there.”

“Culture is our shared norms, which is how we do things, and our shared values.”

“If you freeze it, that means you can’t adapt as a family. And there’s one thing about a family since the beginning of

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

If I'm going to be honest, I use the governance report as a Trojan horse almost for culture. When I see people like, oh, we the culture, we we shouldn't touch that. I'm like, well, what are you actually touching? And that's why I also ask the questions about communication, about joint decision making, about accountability and oversight. Are we allowing the next generation, rising generation, to have a seat at the table? Those are the components of culture. So if I'm gonna define it again, it's our shared norms, which is how we do things, and our shared values.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

That's the average net worth of the families who responded to the UBS Family Enterprise Governance Report. And yet, for all that wealth, the real questions sound familiar. How do families stay connected? How do they build culture? How do they prepare the rising generation? And how do they create alignment that lasts? Welcome to Visionary Advisor. I'm your host, Alex Kirby, founder of Total Family. In this episode, I'm joined by Mark Tepsic, one of the authors behind the UBS Family Enterprise Governance Report. We talk about what family governance actually looks like at that level of wealth, from family newsletters and non-financial family meetings to practical ways advisors can help families strengthen culture and connect with the rising generation. If you want a clearer picture of how highly intentional families operate and what advisors can learn from them, this conversation is worth your time. Let's get into it with Mark. Mark Tepsick, welcome to Visionary Advisor.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity. Look forward to the conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

We are talking about the family enterprise and governance report that came out late last year.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Yeah, it was in, I think it was in February. So maybe a month and a half ago or something.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

I mean, there's some staggering numbers in the report. The first one probably is$2.4 billion, I think, was the average net worth of the family. So we're really talking about pretty ultra high net worth.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Yeah, it's it's complex wealth. It is what I would call probably dynastic wealth. And it was, you know, 40, 45% US. The rest came from Asia, Europe, the Middle East, you know, until a lesser extent, Latam, as well as North America outside of US. So, but it's like I said, 40, 45% US.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Okay. So most advisors listening to this might have one or two clients that are, you know, in the billionaire range, but not every single client. So we'll probably take some of this down to the high net worth. But just before we go there, like what is the biggest takeaway for you studying some of the wealthiest families in the world? Any like surprising thing that jumped out to you?

SPEAKER_01 2:53

For one, that 2.4 billion, I mean, that's a big number, but I think the learnings or takeaways would apply to a family with 15 million or 2.4 million as much as it would apply to a family with 2.4 billion or 24 billion. Because it all comes down to how are you preparing the next generation to navigate that enterprise, right? Which is really people-centric. How are you preparing them to navigate it together? What I thought was surprising was I didn't expect, and I want to start this off with a negative. I didn't expect the effectiveness, right, of like joint decision making, preparedness to be as low as it was. It's all under 50%. Yeah. But I look at that as an opportunity because it's it the numbers weren't atrocious. That just means, hey, only 40%, if I'm going to use a number, say they are effective at joint decision making, communication. By the way, it doesn't mean that you are always going to be effective at that. It just overall, so I didn't expect it to be as low as it was, if I'm being enough. Same thing with preparedness, although that didn't quite surprise me.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Let's do family constitutions because I've heard you talk about these, you know, on other other podcasts. I'm just a fan of yours, Mark. I just go around listening to all of your speaking appearances. Family constitutions, I feel like, are a word that people just say. Yeah. What do you know about family constitutions that we should all know?

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Yeah, I think I think that word is heavy, right? Because if you if you're coming at it from a US perspective, it's like the constitution, right? It's like the seminal document.

unknown 4:33

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

I think, and I think you wrote this in an email to me, and I 100% agree. It is the process of putting that in place. So you as a family spent the time to talk about who you are as a family, who you want to be as a family in the future, how you're going to make decisions, how you're going to behave together. And if you go through that process, you could you should be able to throw that document in a filing cabinet and maybe revisit it once every year or every couple of years. But the value add is that process of talking about that stuff, of spending the time and actually memorializing it, right? Because everything is just, hey, we're having a conversation. The larger the family gets, right? The more dispersed. You don't grow up in the same household. You've got cousins that you're co-owning stuff with. So I think that is a value add. The other thing is you don't have to have a 400-page family constitution. In fact, I would say you shouldn't, because you're not going to know what's in there.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

I think the simpler, the more straightforward, the most succinct is better. Even if it's two pages and you just start off with, hey, we're just going to define who we are as a family, where we want to be, how we're going to support each other, how we're going to make decisions and behave together. If it's two to three pages and you're just maybe also defining assets, right? Operating company, great. But don't bite off more than you could chew if you're going through that process. And it's not going to be written in like a day or two days or three days. It's probably going to be a year-long process, if I'm being honest. Right. But don't do more than you need because you could always add to it. And I would say it's going to evolve and it should evolve. Don't calcify it and freeze it. Because if you freeze it, that means you can't adapt as a family. And there's one thing about a family since the beginning of time, you need to adapt to the evolving circumstance of your enterprise or the environment of the world around you. And as you turn on the news anyway, this world could change on a dime. Right. So yeah, that's that's my two cents on family constitutions.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

You don't have to rush to get the document. You don't have to do it in two hours or a year. You can just chip away at this at this document. I think it's really important that people do this work when they have energy to do it. Yeah. Not do it under duress. Yeah. Because it's like sometimes the example I use, Mark, is if you've ever assembled like a piece of IKEA furniture while you're angry, you build your anger into the bookshelf. Yeah. Right. And so I think when you're doing this constant, this any type of governance dynamics work, you want people to be excited about it. And I think it's really hard to sustain that excitement for like, you know, if you said, okay, we're going to do eight hours a day for seven straight days until we get a constitution right. You know, that to me is setting the family up for failure a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

100% agree. I do think there is value in maybe a short sprint, right? If it's a couple days. Yeah. Because otherwise it's like, hey, we're going to have to spend an hour here, an hour there. And if three months goes by, and it's like, what did we talk about three months ago? But I 100% agree with you. And I look at this governance in general as a continuum.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

On the constitution front, just like staying with this for a second, you referenced the constitution of the United States. And we have mechanisms to change that through amendments, but we're not changing it that frequently. It's a pretty big deal when you amend the constitution of the United States. Families are changing constantly through divorce, new people coming in, changes, business, whatever. So, so to me, like, have you seen anything that you liked that allows the document to be more dynamic? Because to me, like the constitution of the US works as a sort of idea, but families are changing substantially more frequently than we are as a country. Yeah. Any thoughts on like how other families have done that effectively?

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Yeah. I mean, I think one is to right, if you're going to have it, you're going to put it in place, revisit it either on an annual basis, not the entire thing, but also at different inflection points. And that's that might not be written into the document, but if you're making it part of sort of a regular, semi-regular practice, you're going to be able to evolve it as you see fit and as it's relevant. But yeah, for a family constitution built for a family of whatever, 12, that's second generation, third generation. And then 15 years later, is it still relevant? Well, if you haven't revisited it in 15 years, it's probably not relevant. Right. Because if you think about the US constitution, like we're going, we're having civics classes as a seventh grade and things like that, various tests. There is one story, and I was there, and I was there to talk about governance, large multi-generational family. You know, there's around a dozen family members in the room between 60 and like 25. And they're like, We have this. The senior generation is like, we have this in place. The next generation, who sort of was clamoring for this constitution. They called it something different, though. They're like, What are you talking about? And the senior generation gets his, you know, gets his backpack and he pulls out a constitution. And people are like, We've never seen that. We have no idea. Like they're probably knocking the dust off. It was bound in leather. You know, I'm joking, but it was irrelevant, which maybe 80% of it was still relevant. But at the same time, the value is in the process of setting it up. So just go through, revisit it, affirm it. But if you want to put that in the document to say, hey, we're gonna like just review this high level once a year or once every couple of years, I think that's a good practice.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

What about the idea that let's say that my family has a constitution? My father created the constitution for me and my siblings. So now we're using this constitution, but then I'm I marry someone and their family has a constitution. How do you think about the split and the evolution and things related to that? I have my own thoughts, but I'm like, I'm sure that you guys have seen this.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Yeah, I mean, so your spouse, right, is that gonna have a different framework, different enterprise than you do, maybe different way of doing things. You are gonna have a different way from her. And I think that's fine because generally speaking, what I see is the in-laws aren't really getting involved. There's usually prenups in place, there's trust and own things, so it's protected in that way, different corporate structures who can own what part of the business. Where I do think it becomes interesting if you were to if you were gonna have children, right? Because they are a product of both of those. But again, it's just contextual at the end of the day. So if you want to participate in this side of this family's enterprise, then you're abiding or living within that constitution or those norms or that culture, likewise on the other side. I don't see an a challenge, but this happens with or without a constitution, so to speak, because you know, your kids are products of two different families. But you see, this is how the family changes, right? So sometimes families have this, it's like, okay, well, I had three kids, everybody that spawns off of those three kids is a lineal descendant and they treat to some guy, you know, 100 years ago. We all have the same mindset. Well, that's not the case because the spouse marrying in mom or dad comes from a different sort of enterprise culture, so to speak, or different family culture. So those kids are different, they grow up in different cities. So it's with or without a family constitution, and that could be good, right? It sort of like diversifies how the family does things and thinks about things. And those I've seen those in-laws really come in, whether it's uh son-in-law or daughter-in-law, in sort of brief new life. You know, the most famous example of this is the royal family in the UK and Britain, where the king married in, you know, however long ago, and he's the one that's like, hey, we got to actually talk to the public. Yeah. But uh, that's like the most famous example of he he evolved and adapted the royal, the royal family to meet the current day.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Yeah. I mean, uh look like looking at your data, it says that the families who have a family constitution in whatever form that is, yeah, over two times more likely to rate themselves as effective communicators, one and a half times effective joint decision making, and one and a half times on effective oversight. Clearly, it's not hurting going through this process. No. What is the downside? Yeah. It doesn't feel like there's a there's a tongue. Do you ever see it not tied to the money? Do you ever see, I think about this with like related to the trust, where it's like, I'd love for you to follow these rules. And actually, if you want the money, you have to follow these rules. Do you ever see the governance split out for the money, or is it always tied together?

SPEAKER_01 13:15

I mean, it's usually that's why you're coming together, right? Because you got shared assets or resources like coming together to create the family constitution. I will say it's probably incorporated most times because the the front matter of that constitution is like, who are we as a family? It's not that, hey, we're real estate developers. Yeah, that that could be there, but it's like, hey, we support each other, we support our communities, we're good stewards of the earth, whatever you want, or the cities we reside in. Yeah. I see it baked in that way and then evolving to a little bit more specific on the assets or the operating company and defining like who can be a shareholder and things like that. So that's how I see that, how that is kind of incorporated.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Let's go to the non-financial meetings. The question is does the family engage in regular non-financial meetings? Yes, was 34%, which really surprised me because to me, there's so much good data, so much good anecdotal stories on the benefits of these non-financial meetings and talking about things that are other than money in these meetings. Yeah. So did that number surprise you? What else should we know about non-financial meetings from the survey?

SPEAKER_01 14:22

The number of families engaging that didn't surprise me, right? Around 34, 35%. It didn't surprise me. And when you think about it, it's it's really not even like, yeah, it's the specific practice. But why I asked it was it's sort of an indicator of culture, right? If like how you do things, how you think about the family, where you're going as a family. It's it's just an artifact almost of culture. And certainly you could get together as a family and have dinner, right, on Sunday or Friday night or whatever. Is that a meeting? I don't know, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:53

Yeah, is that a meeting?

SPEAKER_01 14:55

I mean, I guess you could if if I was getting graded, I would probably check that box. Because again, if you're gonna be a co-owner, right, or share some assets and resources, you can't just show up quarterly and expect to really understand each other, right? So this is sort of an indicator of are you getting together and just being humans together? But that neutral third-party facilitator plays a crucial role because I've seen it work in person with these families where I'm engaging with Heather and Liam and another colleague of mine, Paul, where these families know what they need to talk about. Let's be honest, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

And it's usually not as clean cut as like non-financial, which is usually like non-business or non-investment. It is usually integrated. The two are somewhat interspersed, but having that neutral kind of third-party facilitator so people just don't storm off and go into a room and cry. I'm sorry, you know, that's I'm obviously uh but having that sit-down structure the meeting, somebody to like pierce the silence when it occurs is a super valuable thing to do, even if it's just once a year. But that is again, it's an artifact of are you coming together? Because again, if you think about the business, the people that are talking are usually only owners and or operators. So this allows families members that aren't in those contexts to have quote unquote a seat at the table, right? And to feel valuable, and they are valuable, right? They just have different roles.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

On the non-financial piece of it, you know, Jay Hughes, if we reference Jay's work for a second, financial capital. So when we say non-financial, we're saying non-financial capital. And I think Jay's always pushing the people in his circle that these meetings should talk about the qualitative capitals, the rituals, the culture, the family, the decision making, the history, and the physical and mental well-being of the family or the habits. Does UBS offer guidance to these families on the agendas, on the topics? If a family says, I want to have non-financial, you know, these non-financial meetings, as someone who does this day in and day out, what is your recommendation on some safe or or productive areas for families who are like, well, what else would we talk about besides the money, Mark?

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Yeah, we have we 100% have toolkits. This is not necessarily my area. That's what we call family advisory and philanthropy, but they have toolkits they could deploy for families to bring them together that are that they've done it for a hundred different families. So there's warnings from, but that those toolkits allow you to kind of scale that those exercises. And one is just getting together and talking about your values, right? So you've got they've got these value cards. You, as a family member, you pick two, go around the table. You talk about why you chose it, you go around the table again, you talk about why you chose the other one. And I'm gonna be honest, they can be talking about anything, right? They could be talking about their favorite color, in my opinion. It doesn't necessarily need to be values, values is just a vehicle. The value is getting the other and talking. And it's that's that's sort of an icebreaking exercise to get them to talk about the thing that they want to talk about, which could be philanthropy or the business or something like that. So again, I view it as a continuum of hey, we need to talk about who we are as a family, where we're going, not specifically with the business, but we'll get there. But we can't talk about the business. We can't talk about who we are as a family and where we're going.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Yeah, values. I mean, we consider values to be a common language.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

It's certainly more positive than saying, like, Mark is super insert political, not nice word. Like he's super far right, he's super far left. He's whatever. Like, you can't really say a bad word on values. Yeah. So I think that that like it's like Mark's so loyal, you know, it's like it's kind of hard to make it negative. I think one of the hesitations on if the number is like if it's 34% for these families, I don't know what the number is for high net worth and and below. It's obviously lower. Yeah. And I think a lot of advisors don't or families don't have the resources to bring in that facilitator. Do you feel like a family can do this without a facilitator? And why do you think so many advisors and families struggle to just like get together and have these conversations? Because, like, as you said, on the business side, it's like imagine if you just never had. I know you can have too many meetings in business, and that's probably what happens a lot of times. But like, imagine if you had no meetings ever. That would be hard too. Do you have any thoughts on where the advisor hesitation could come from and who can own it?

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Yeah, the the advisor hesitation. One, I'll I'll talk about the advisor hesitation first, and then I'll talk about just not working, you just doing it, DIYing it as a family. The advisor hesitation is just listen, their profession is investment wealth management, right? And so they feel uncomfortable going outside of that for obvious reasons, right? It's even if you're a physician, you have a specialty and you feel uncomfortable going outside that specialty, as you should. That is the biggest hesitation, right? Like, where does this lead? What does this Pandora's box look like for me? How do I even facilitate this conversation? Yeah. On the DIY side, like 100% the families listen, there are tools out there. I know you know them that families can leverage. Okay. And when you think about it, families have been doing this since the beginning of history. So they don't necessarily need a facilitator. Now, can they benefit from one? 100%. But they could certainly DIY it. What is the harm in that? The harm, I guess, is somebody gets mad and they don't do it again. Well, there's a risk in not having that conversation, too. So I would 100% say DIY it. What is the harm? The bigger harm is not doing it, the bigger risk.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

Agreed. Yeah, on the advisor front, I know I agree it's outside of their specialty, but my counter to them usually is who specializes in this then? Because most families don't have access to the resource that is a true specialty, right? And like I facilitate multi-generational meetings and I'm highly compensated for it. Like most families can't do that. Yep. It's like essentially saying we're better off not doing nothing because the advisor is going to do such a bad job with it. And I just like don't totally believe that. So we're we're always sort of nudging them to expand their specialty into these, into these areas because they don't have to stand up there and be an expert. I think they can just stand up there and be like that neutral party.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Yeah, listen, I mean, if you're an advisor, your skill set is not only, and it might not even be investment management. It is usually because you're good at relationship management, right? So they have a raw skill set there. They just need to feel more comfortable deploying it. It does help to have a plan and a process and an agenda in place and like. Like, hey, what questions are we gonna what subject matter are we gonna talk about? What's crazy questions around that? So if there's a toolkit, right, or a platform that they could leverage, I think it, I think it makes total sense.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

I think my favorite idea that I got out of this was the family newsletter. And I'm mad that I didn't think of it. I know it looks like only 12% of people are doing these family newsletters. What did you learn about them? I mean, it it seems to me like that would be an interesting thing for a family to undertake.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Yeah. I mean, I have, you know, personal experience with this. I've seen it done in practice with families I've worked for, been employed for in the past. Especially this the bigger the family gets, you know, this is why social media somewhat exists. Not that you're gonna use social media for this, but I suppose you could. But it is a way to kind of understand what's going on with the family outside of the business realm, right? So it is just a play on it. The interesting thing about it is when you think about it, I I think it's I think it's very helpful. Remain connected. The thing about it is it's not a face-to-face, it should never be used as like a replacement for anything. Sure. Because when you look in that report, the things that have the highest payoff as far as practices are sort of face-to-face practices. So the newsletter shouldn't replace it, but it could certainly enhance and augment some feelings of whatever being bonded or part of a family unit. But I've seen it where families will have this on the business side. It's like dividends coming. Here's a high-level strategy of the business and what we're doing, but they don't talk about anything else. Like birthdays, somebody's just moving to different cities, somebody's getting married. And maybe it's because family, you know, social media today, it's not, you don't necessarily need it. But again, it's not something specific, branded to the family. Somebody's got to own it, by the way, in the family. I suppose the family office can do it. No. But yeah, it well, I've seen it. No, I no, they can't.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

I guess it depends what's in it.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Yeah. But I do again, this like I put it in there only because I've seen it done up close and personal. I think it's a great value ad, but it should never replace face-to-face communication.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

I agree with that. Let me, yes, let me give you some other quick thoughts on this family newsletter. Okay. Social media can't be the option, it can't be the answer, right? Yeah. No one's selling ads in their family newsletter. And family newsletters aren't like addicting, right? Where it's like, I'm infinitely scrolling through family newsletters. I can't stop reading family newsletters. But, you know, when you get Christmas cards, people have started doing these like updates. Yep. This person went off to college and this happened, and we lost our dog, and and all this kind of stuff. And as someone who's not on social media, I love this because you don't have a chance always to catch up with your, you know, extended people in your life. And you don't really need an update more than once a year sometimes on people in general. Yeah. But on the newsletter, what I wanted to say is that even if no one reads your newsletter, I think it's a good exercise for families. Yeah. Because I have three little kids. Time doesn't fly. I mean, it doesn't feel like it's flying by, but I know it is flying by and I will think that one day. Yeah. And taking the time to write whatever, a page of, hey, this happened, this happened, everyone's okay. This we're doing this, you know, becomes like a record. Yeah. Even if you don't send it to anyone. To me, I think it like is actually helpful to the person who's doing the writing of it all. And so I hope that that's something that UBS will encourage families to do because it's so hard. You have kids, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Yeah. Two small kids.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Two small kids. You look back and on like you're like, I have no idea what just happened in the last five years. Yeah. Right. But taking some time to like write that stuff, I think, is is really cool, even if no one reads that. You you buy into that?

SPEAKER_01 26:09

No, I I I definitely do. That's why I include it in there. You know, you could include pictures in it. It is sort of a rolling thing, right? It once a month, once a quarter. Usually one family member owns it somewhere in the family, right? They like doing it once a year.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Let's let's say once a year, just to so we don't freak anyone out.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Yeah, start easy.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Just to start. Yeah, just to start. If you're if you're loving it, go more frequent.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Yeah. Uh no politics in there, right? It's only family stuff. C choose your thing from earlier. But yeah, again, it's it's what is the harm? There's nothing bad, in my opinion, that could come out of that.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

Yeah, I agree. Family retreats, different than non-financial meetings. Family retreats, as defined by UBS, are like off sites, basically.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Yeah, it could be at you know, a shared family vacation home, or it's like, hey, we're all gonna go to whatever Cabo, you know, first week in January or something. So think of that more as a strategy, meaning like, hey, we're gonna get, we're gonna have five days or seven days, and every June, every first week in June, we know every year that's when it's gonna be. And it's usually a mix. What I've seen is usually a mix of just hanging out, having your kids play with each other, your cousins who you probably only see once a year. And then you also can have some curated meetings on the business or the investments or the philanthropy and things like that, right? So I think it kills a lot of birds with a single stone. There is definitely an art to it. So structuring the agenda. Um, I mean, I know a family office executive who's who took this all on her shoulders. She's an attorney by background and found the place, right? Curates the agenda, gets all the information on the business, gets third parties in there to talk, right? Maybe it's a non-family member who's running the company. So making sure those folks and you got the block of hotel room. So like it could, it could be a lot of work, or it's just like, hey, we're gonna get together and we're gonna have a couple meetings on this, and the rest of the time we're just hanging out.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

I mean, some thoughts on the retreat. Our thoughts would be with our experience is number one, it doesn't have to be a week in Hawaii or whatever. You know, every family at every different income level, it could mean going to a campground for a couple of days, right? I do think we've heard some horror stories from family offices, like what you're describing, catering and food and all that type of stuff. And our guidance there is you have to share the responsibilities with the family. And these are opportunities to like bring someone in and be like, hey, can you do the agenda? Can you do the food? Can you do the booking? Can you do to me? Those are like cool ways to involve people, and you don't want the family office ordering the wrong salad, and then you do all this stuff, and they're like, What you know, Mark, you know, I don't like olives. Yeah. You know, it's the worst retreat ever. And so I think like sharing that responsibility is good. And then the other thing that you said that I love and we we strongly encourage is like just pick a time every year and just tell people this is the time that we're doing this, block this out in your calendar forever. Yeah. Know that the weekend after the fourth of July, you know, is the weekend we always plan on going to the cottage and and that kind of stuff. So I love all I love the fact that the that you're talking about family retreats. And it also sounds like you view family retreat as more of an extended, that would be more of an extended family exercise too, where like it would maybe be open to more people.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Yeah, because it it really is dependent on right, you could have family office staff there for a little part of it, not the whole thing, the non-family member running the business, maybe an advisor, right? You could see somebody like or maybe us coming. And then sometimes I've seen it where they've they'll bring in like a guest speaker that's interesting, right? Just to kind of spice it up a little bit and throw something new in there. You know, family, family, everyone, I guess, really likes learning new things. So I've seen it where they've brought in, you know, somebody that's not in the financial or business world. Um, and it's just something unique that they talk about.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

I couldn't agree more on that too. Like you could bring a magician, you know, you could have people like we just heard of a family bring brought in someone to like educate people around AI and let them like do some AI. These are opportunities to grow together, and it doesn't just have to be through that lens of financial, it could just be like, especially if growth is one of your family values. Like, I think there's a lot of cool ways to do that. Yep, I agree. I want to talk about culture for a second because you use that word throughout this document. How do you define it? I sort of feel a resistance to culture sometimes. Like, I think it's such a hard word to pin down that people are generally resistant to it, but they know it's important. Do you have any any tips around families or advisors thinking about culture?

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Yeah, it does sound amorphous. Um, I don't think it is. I there was somebody, a third-party governance consultant I talked to probably a year ago, and he said, he's like, we don't touch the culture, we only we only touch the structures. And I'm like, Well, aren't you? I'm not saying you gotta you should come in and like overhaul everything, but like if you can't touch the culture, if I'm gonna define culture, it is our shared norms and our shared values, okay, which is how do we do things here? How do we do things in the business?

SPEAKER_00 31:35

That's what I was gonna say. That's exactly how we say it. How do we do things around here?

SPEAKER_01 31:38

It's like an organizational altered and just applied to the family, okay? Yep. And that's why I also asked the questions about communication, about joint decision making, about accountability and oversight, and about preparation, because that is hey, are we communicating and are we collaborative? Are we allowing the next generation, rising generation to have a seat at the table? Those are the components of culture. So if I'm gonna define it again, it's our shared norms, which is how we do things, and our shared values. If I'm gonna be honest, I use the governance report as a Trojan horse almost for culture. This is where I'm going with everything. When I see people like, oh, we the culture, we we shouldn't touch that. I'm like, well, what are you actually touching? Oh, well, the the governance structures. I'm like, you're having a governance structure to basically codify on some level the norms. Okay, you can't just say, all right, seven people are gonna be on the committee. Here is what it's governing. Have a nice day. Because a family isn't like an institution, first and foremost. It is again how do we communicate, collaborate? Are we collaborative or not? Do we communicate it or not? Are we providing opportunities for a next are we preparing the environment for them to be successful, to navigate this future enterprise as an individual and also together? And that is not frankly easy as the family grows and evolves and changes over time, because you may only see each other a couple of times a year. Again, shared as resources, but what is the specific culture within the family as it applies to the business or the wealth, the enterprise, the philanthropy? Culture will outperform, you know, Peter Drucker, whoever said it, culture eats strategy, culture eats governance. Okay. I think culture eats everything. Yeah, it's it's listen, we have laws out there, right? We've got the constitution, but if the norms aren't there, they're frankly meaningless. So you could you could create a counselor, a committee, but if you don't you don't want to sit in the meeting with each other and actually be thoughtful and come prepared, then it's worthless. So culture is really what is setting expectations and things like that. Again, you can formalize it. And I think the bigger the family gets, the more formalization you have to get. But don't think I'm gonna create the structure, it's gonna be a silver bullet. Because I've met so many families that go through that. They come to us six months later and they're like, We did all this, we're feeling really great coming out of it. They're like, what are we supposed to be doing now? And I'm like, Yeah, you're supposed to like be do be doing governance, which is just getting so what we'll create like mock agendas. It sounds easy, but it's really not for the families of it.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

Yeah, yeah. Matthew Wesley wrote a great piece. I think we're gonna talk about on the podcast, but he's it was culture, he'd structure for breakfast, especially for the lawyers. There's comfort in the structure. Yep, it's tangible, but you know, there there's also no such thing as no culture. You can be deliberate or you can be accidental, but like ultimately, whatever rules you put in place, if the culture is not, doesn't want to abide by those, yeah, or people are going a different direction, those rules ultimately aren't going to matter. Yeah. Any guidance for involving the rising gen or just what you think you would tell advisors that are because so many advisors are really struggling to like form these relationships. Yeah. And I think family meetings are a natural place for those relationships to get stronger and to happen. Any thoughts for advisors who are looking to connect more with the rising jet and the inheritors?

SPEAKER_01 35:20

Yeah, I mean, I'll I'll handle that in two parts. One is the family, um, the other one is the advisors. And I'll speak more from like the family office advisor experience, like being in a family office. You will inevitably have family members calling you, right, and saying, look at this startup or look at crypto or look at sustainability or impact. And if you and I'm using the capital, and if you as an family office advisor are like, that's dumb. I'm not gonna look at it and waste my time, and neither should you. That family member will never call you again. Okay, they might give you a second chance, they're not gonna give you a third, because they're gonna say this guy or girl doesn't want to help me out. And by the way, they may not even really want to invest in it, they just are curious. So if you're looking at capital as a tool, you can't say you can't use the tool. Okay. I guess I would look at it from that advisory lens, because that's just my background being in a family office. The other component, so meet the family where they're at. Don't say this is what you should be interested in, this is what you should focus on, because that's really what you're doing if you're saying it's stupid.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

Certainly, you could have an opinion and a viewpoint, but like explain it, okay. Yeah, don't don't stop them as they're floating the idea, be like, Whoa, let me stop you right there. We're not doing anything with crypto.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Don't do that, and I'm and by the way, they're not gonna some of some family office are like, oh, they want to put their whole net worth in crypto. I don't think I've ever met somebody that the whole net worth might be crypto, but it's because they invested in it 20 years ago and it was a you know, but the family side of things, specifically the wealth creator, they built something brick by brick most most of the time. So they're standing on top of the mountain or standing on top of you know the brick house, and they're like, I understand everything about this. And the next generation is standing at the bottom of the mountain, and they're like, I don't know how to get up there, right? And it's like, well, you got to take the first step. There's a lot of fear with wealth creators, is like, am I gonna corrupt the next generation? Right? Am I gonna demotivate them if I'm gonna show them the number on the balance? Everybody's always like, I'm gonna show them the number on the balance sheet. So that's like, I'm just gonna keep them away, I'm gonna keep them in the dark. Or the opposite is not the opposite, but it's like I'm gonna create this golden handcuff structure where they can't make a mistake. And I say, I'll give you a couple examples here. One, invite them to have a seat at the table. It's usually not about the net worth statement. There's a lot of other conversations you can have about how things work and the and don't sit there and like tutor them. Just bring them to an advisor meeting, right? Or make them give them a little bit of money because usually everything's locked up in trust, they don't get to touch it until they're 35. But give them the ability to open up a small account, right? And go start having conversations with advisors. You can't you don't know how to learn use a tool unless you've actually used it, right? You think about when you learned to ride a bike, you had some training wheels. So allow them the opportunities, prepare the environment for them. So if they're gonna make mistakes, it's with a much smaller pool of capital or something like that. Yeah. So when they're actually making decisions, it's not this massive, insurmountable decision that they've got to make and it's stressful and it's a burden. There's a million different ways, just have a seat at the table. The bigger risk is keeping them away because then it looks like you don't trust them and they and they think they have nothing to contribute. And that's what they think you think of them.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

I think those are great ideas. And I've heard the not everyone gets a vote, but everyone gets a voice kind of thing. I I think even before that is just some shadowing too, you know, inviting the rising gen into a meeting and letting them come along on the trip or go in the meeting, and and you don't have to show every single detail of everything that's happening in there. But just like, you know, if you were onboarding an intern at UBS, right, you might be like, hey, why don't you just come in this meeting with me? Yeah. That doesn't mean they're gonna, you know, yeah, run the meeting or talk or something like that. They're they're in there, like literally absorbing what's going on. And then probably when you come out of the meeting, they're like, hey, I have three questions. What was this? What was that? And like, what were you thinking when you said this thing?

SPEAKER_01 39:36

Yeah, osmosis can be really powerful too. 100%. I agree with you. And you think about that over time, they will start contributing and asking their own questions.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:46

I just see families kind of overthinking that it's just too too much fear, right? They don't see the families that are just successful and not having these issues. They only see the stories that are in the tabloids or something like that. So it's like, oh, we got to lock everything up in a trust and throw these terms around it or just keep them in the dark. And that again, it that just really never works.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Mark, thank you for this report. It's a wonderful report. Family enterprise governance report that you can get if you follow Mark on LinkedIn or go to the UBS family office solutions page. Any parting words for the visionary advisors out there? Don't be afraid. And culture is how wealth is controlled. That's so good. Don't be afraid. I love that. That is a great way to end because I'm sure at one point, Mark, you had to facilitate your first meeting, right? And you probably didn't have a lot of confidence the first time that you were leaning into some of these spaces. So I love love that message. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you, Alex. I appreciate it. That's it for Visionary Advisor. Thank you to our guest and to Total Family, whose Family OS software is helping advisors do legacy better. If you're a fan of Visionary Advisor, please subscribe and share it with another top notch wealth advisor like yourself. We'll see you next time.