Nurture, facilitate, plan

What is the issue?

Sustainable wealth transfer involves more than financial and legal structures. Families also need to cultivate non-financial capital, including shared purpose, strong relationships, personal development and social responsibility.

What does it mean for me?

Families are increasingly looking beyond technical planning to approaches that reflect their values, engage all generations and support long-term goals. Trust, communication and collaboration are essential tools.

What can I take away?

Understanding the family as a whole, not just the wealth creator, helps build long-term relationships and deliver lasting value. Strong process, clear communication and shared purpose build cohesion across generations and improve the long-term resilience of wealth structures.

Advising families on their wealth structures requires more than just legal and financial knowledge. It demands a variety of skills and decades of experience. The successful transfer of wealth depends not only on the guidance and support of professional advisors but also on the preparedness of the family.

The advisor’s role in sustainable wealth succession goes far beyond structuring investments or estate plans. It involves helping families define purpose, navigate interpersonal dynamics and build a long-term governance framework that aligns financial capital with shared values and vision.

The broader definition of wealth

There is a misconception that a wealth advisor only manages the investments (the financial capital) of a family. In reality, ‘wealth’ is a much broader concept. It includes the family’s non-financial capital (spiritual, relationship, human and social), as first identified by author Jay Hughes.[1] Professor Dennis Jaffe interprets and illustrates non-financial capital as follows:

• Spiritual capital: By affirming a purpose they deeply care about, a family can harness the energy needed to turn their goals into reality. Working together on a shared task, they can accomplish far more than they could as individuals.
• Relationship capital: By investing in building relationships, they increase their ability to do great things together.
• Human capital: Young family members need to see what the family culture can offer them and learn what it takes to sustain it. However, the more capable they are, the more options they have outside the family; or, they may have their own agendas and want to innovate and change how the family operates.
• Social capital: Another motivation for developing social capital is the family’s desire to support the wellbeing of future generations. They want to contribute to the kind of world they hope their grandchildren will inhabit. The family builds social capital through community service and philanthropy, as well as by adhering to environmental, social and governance (ESG) values and policies in all their financial and business activities.[2]

Actively developing these forms of non-financial capital helps prepare families for the future and ensures their financial capital can sustain future generations. As Jaffe explains:[3]

As [the family] consider the purpose of their financial wealth, family members begin to view it with different eyes. Its absolute value becomes abstract, replaced by a sense of agency and possibility for what it can do. When they think of their family wealth, it is not a financial figure but a portfolio of efforts, activities and achievements.

— Dennis Jaffe

The role of the family’s primary advisor

The advisor’s contribution lies not only in technical expertise but in interpersonal skills, professional experience and patience.

The advisor, or primary advisor, acts as a fulcrum, balancing the needs of the family with the technical processes required to transfer wealth. They should understand both the family’s financial and non-financial capital and have a generalist’s view of estate planning, trust administration, corporate governance requirements, investments and more.

The advisor guides the current generation in crafting plans that are beneficial to both themselves and the rising generation. While the advisor may not be an expert in all aspects of wealth, they lead the broader advisory team, co-ordinating specialists with different specialities and experience to guide the family. They translate the family’s needs into instructions for specialists, oversee implementation and ensure the strategy reflects the family’s long-term goals.

The common thread among the team of advisors is a shared commitment to the successful pursuit of the family’s purpose. This focus forms the basis for a trusted relationship and helps the family continue their journey without interruption.

Building trust and engagement

The main aim of the primary advisor is to understand the family, both collectively and as individuals. This means understanding the purpose behind the wealth and identifying the advice required to support the family in pursuing it. The challenge of the role is to speak to all generations equally.

Trust underpins the relationship between the family and the team of advisors. As litigator Ruth Steverlynck describes, building trust requires consistency and empathy. She explains:

• I do what I say I will do – always.
• I strive for equanimity: I show up ready to get to work, no matter what is going on in my personal life.
• I am the same person in front of the client as I am away from the client.
• I listen and I care.[4]

The importance of process

There is an old saying: ‘it’s not the destination, it’s the journey’. The process we follow often outweighs the outcome. Steverlynck writes:

Families don’t need to be ‘solved’. What might actually benefit them is someone who facilitates a process for them. Good process calms down the system.

— Ruth Steverlynck

When we take multiple generations of a family on a journey, they discover and build new aspects of non-financial capital. They learn from each other and change their collective vision over time. The advisor’s duty is to facilitate, help and guide, not to prescribe the outcome.

Succession planning for advisors

As Poet John Donne[5] reminds us, ‘No man is an island’. An advisor committed to the sustainability of the family’s wealth will curate a team of trusted advisors with complementary skills, from various professional backgrounds and representing various levels of skills and ages. In an ideal world, the team of advisors will mirror the generations of the family, thereby providing each generation with an advisor that understands and appreciates their cultural thinking and background.

Practical lessons for sustainable wealth transfer

Understand the purpose

Knowing the purpose behind the wealth is arguably the single most important aspect of advising families. This includes understanding the wealth creator’s intent, wishes, guidance and thoughts, and balancing it with the ambitions and motivations of the future generation.

This delicate balance helps future generations engage with the family’s wealth. The guidance we offer should encourage engagement across generations.

Understand the client

Advisors often focus on the bill payer to ensure they are satisfied with the work delivered. However, if the goal is sustainable wealth transfer, advice may need to prioritise long-term family outcomes over short-term preferences.

Advisors should create room to include all generations of the family, while continuing to honour the bill payer. As our planning is focused on multiple generations spanning decades, the relationships we build should do the same.

Process habits

As Steverlynck notes, the process itself is vital. Families benefit from facilitation, not prescription. Well-managed processes build relationships, resolve conflicts and help families adapt to change together.

Conclusion

The family wealth advisor must combine excellent technical skills with a high degree of softer skills, to handle conflict and difficult situations. The advisor equips the family to navigate processes that will resolve difficult situations. These journeys through difficult situations strengthen the family’s non-financial capital and position them for a successful and sustainable wealth transfer.