Building a Thriving Family Culture with Andrew Doust

Episode Transcript
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Andrew Doust (00:00):
If you think about the assets that have been
transitioned from one generationto the next, depending on the
report, there's up to $15trillion worth of wealth
transitioning from onegeneration to the next over 10,
15 years into the hands, I wouldsay, mostly of people who are
unprepared for it.
And so, if we think that istrue, that even if it's a

(00:21):
fraction of that transition,what difference could it make
for that wealth to go into handsof people who know how to have
great impact with that wealth?

Marco Blankenburgh (00:29):
and know how to make it sustainable.

It's a massive multiplier effect.
So I feel like even the workwith a few families I do can
have a massive impact on theworld, and so if we can multiply
the number of families we'reworking with, we can multiply
the impact.

Welcome to the Cultural Agility Podcast,
where we explore the stories ofsome of the most advanced
intercultural practitioners fromaround the world to help you
become culturally agile andsucceed in today's culturally
complex world.
I'm your host, marcoBlankenberg, international
Director of KnowledgeWorks,where every day we help
individuals and companiesachieve relational success in
that same complex world.

(01:19):
Welcome everyone again toanother episode of Unlocking
Cultural Agility.
And today I have a dear friendand colleague with me, andrew
Doust, who has quite a uniquejob actually, and it's all about
families and culture.
So I am very happy today thatAndrew has walked into our mini

(01:40):
studio here in the office.
So welcome, andrew.
Thanks for joining us today.
Thanks for having me.
Very happy today that Andrew haswalked into our mini studio
here in the office.
So welcome, andrew.
Thanks for joining us today.
Thanks for having me.
So it is a unique topic, butit's still on the topic of
culture, something that ofcourse, at KnowledgeWorks, we're
very passionate about.
But tell us a little bit moreabout yourself, the mini version
, the short version, and thenwe'll go into the topic of today

(02:03):
.

Well, if it's not clear from my accent, I'm
Australian, but I have lived inDubai for a while.
I came here for three years, 18years ago, like many, I stayed,
and so now I work here, basedhere, but actually work with
families of wealth all aroundthe world.
And so Plenitude Partners, myfirm we work exclusively with
families who have accumulatedsignificant resources and are
now working out how theynavigate and, I guess, work with

(02:26):
their family, with thoseresources.

So that's indeed quite a unique, almost
like a niche in terms ofspecialization maybe.
How did you drift into this.

That's right.
Well, to be clear, I don't workon the money side.
I work on the money side, Iwork on the relationship side,
and my observation was, a fewyears ago, when I was working in
a family office, that I keptmeeting families who were very
successful financially, they'daccumulated a lot of success in
their business and portfolio,but actually they weren't doing
well on the things that reallymatter, things like their

(03:00):
well-being, their happiness,their family relationships.
I thought, well, actually thebusiness and their wealth puts a
lot of pressure on those things.
They have a plan for theirbusiness, they have a plan for
their estate, they have a planfor their tax, they have a plan
for everything else, but not aplan to ensure their family
flourishes and thrives in themidst of their success.
And so I thought I wonder whatit would look like to help those

(03:22):
families.
And so then I created PlenitudePartners and launched now what
I'm doing a process we'll talkabout.

Right, right , it almost sounds like you know
.
It's one thing to advisesomebody on their finances, on
their estate planning, etc.
It's a whole different thingwhen you need to get personal.
Why aren't more people doingthat?
That's a whole different thingwhen you need to get personal.

Why aren't more people doing that?
That's a great question.
Well, I think it's easier togive people the solution around
their money or around theirlegal structure, or around their
estate plan or what they dowith their will or their giving.
In some ways, that's anendpoint.
You say, well, here's a pieceof advice, here's a plan, now go
execute that.
But when it comes torelationships, it's a different

(04:06):
story, isn't it?
And it involves our emotions.
It involves our fears, ouranxieties, our hopes, our dreams
.
It involves hurt and the waywe've treated each other in the
past.
It involves so many things thatare complex and aren't easily
addressed, and certainly usuallynot addressed without some help
from a person like me.
So I think that it's notobvious what people need, but

(04:29):
even when it is, it's not easyto help people through a journey
of really personal growth andfamily growth, and that's really
what this is.
It's a journey, not adestination, and so what I take
people through is not really anend point of a report, but a
process to help them growstronger as a family and as
individuals so they can navigatewhatever their future looks
like.

Yeah, and we've had the privilege now of
working together quite a bit andfrom the beginning, really our
desire to have a meaningful,transformational impact in
people's lives, in therelationships they have,
starting with the relationshipwith themselves, but also the
desire to build healthy families, in your case, or healthy

(05:08):
cultures, because a family has aculture, even if they've never
thought about it or haven'tintentionally worked on it.
So we'll talk more about howthat synergy is growing.
But why is building a healthyfamily culture?
Why is it so important?

Well, maybe, if I just start with two stories that
give an insight into this world, that then bridges into culture
.
I usually ask two questions offamilies when I begin working
with them and even to decidewhether I'll work with them.
The first is what do you reallywant more of?
What do you really want more of?
And for these families I'mworking with it's not more
wealth, they have plenty of it Ireally want more of.

(05:45):
And for these families I'mworking with, it's not more
wealth, they have plenty of it.
I mean, they obviously areworking to create more, but it's
not what they really want moreof.
And then, what do you most fear?
What do you most fear?
What are you anxious about?
And so, in answering those twoquestions, I get to the heart of
what really matters to them andwhat they feel like they need
more of, and what they're mostanxious to avoid.
I remember one gentleman, when Iasked him what he really wanted
more of, with tears in his eyes, he said I really want my

(06:06):
family to love each other more.
He was, so you know, sitting onhis lovely yacht, but it was
clear that what he most longedfor was that he had missed that
in his family.
He was missing that in hisfamily.
Another family said we reallywant the brokenness to stop.
They had had broken marriagesthrough their family.

(06:27):
They were running a verysignificant business and they
were finding that it was brokenin relationships.
And so I guess the bridge toculture is this that many of the
families that have builtsomething significant together
have done so on the back of hardwork, of resilience and
tenacity and all those sort ofthings that go into building
success.
But along the way they've lostsomething.

(06:49):
They've often lost something,and that is some sense of who
they are, a sense of the lovethey long to have in their
family.
The drive to succeed often arenot the things that sustain our
family.
Those things are often lost,and so I think culture helps us

(07:12):
be intentional about shaping whowe want to be as a family, not
just what we want to do and whatwe want to achieve as a family.
And that cultural element hasto be called out and has to be
intentional, and families haveto want that as much the culture
of love, trust, forgiveness,respect.
They need to want that evenmore than the success of their

(07:33):
business, Otherwise what's thepoint?

Sounds like, at least at a high level.
You're almost.
You said the families I want towork with, so there's a process
of back and forth there, butit's also taking people back to
more of an inside-out approach.
Would that be a fair thing tosay?

Absolutely.
I think that's a really goodway to put it.
When I speak to families, I'llsay listen, this is going to be
an extraordinarily difficultprocess.
It's going to take time andit's going to be painful time
and it's going to be painful.
And I need you to know that,unless you're willing to do some
inner work and not just yourchildren, but you as a founder
or a father, mother or couplesyou actually need to be prepared

(08:17):
to do the work oftransformation yourself, because
if you won't transform, thefamily won't be different as a
result of this work.
It needs to come from within.
So, yeah, very much a personaltransformation journey.
Another reason why I think alot of people don't do this work
, wow.

So at a macro level, then take us
through sort of the mainstations along the way.
What does it look like?
What does a process or ajourney like that look like?

Yeah, so when people engage Plenitude partners
, we take them on a journey andthe journey begins with the
individual.
So we have a four-stage processwhich, of course, you know,
flexes a little bit for familiesdepending on where they're at,
but effectively the process isme, we where, how, me, we where,
how, okay, okay.
So the how work is I'll startthere briefly, because the how

(09:03):
work involves things like doingour estate plan, working out our
investment plan, maybe doingour charitable plan, which is
what other people typically doAbsolutely.
Most of this industry revolvesaround those things, and that's
where people do most of the work.
But the problem is that if youdo that how work without
understanding what the familywants to achieve, it won't

(09:30):
really work.
And so the good advisors inthat space will certainly work
with the family and say what doyou want to achieve?
But most of it's done inisolation, so the estate planner
may not necessarily be talkingto the chief investment officer
and his or her responsibilitiesin that space, and so there's
not alignment in all of the howwork.
But even if you have a clearvision from a family about what
they want to achieve, if thefamily is not functioning well,
they're not gonna go anywhere.

(09:50):
That totally makes sense.
But if the family can't functionwell, if the individuals in the
family aren't confident inthemselves and have a sense of
their own purpose and well-being.
And so what we do is begin atthe beginning, which is the me.
We do a lot of work with theindividual.
We help them with someprofiling, we get them to know

(10:12):
themselves better, growingconfidence and maybe become more
self-aware, so that when theycome to the we table the
conversations with the family,they can actually do that with
confidence and we can hear everyvoice.
And the we conversations arereally about building trust and
communication and defining thevalues and culture of the family
, how it's going to operatetogether.
Once they've got that, they canthen look forward and say where
do we want to go, what do wewant to achieve together?

(10:33):
But it's also collective andindividual.
We need the family collectivelyto think about that.
But if the family collectivelyisn't also honoring the
individual, then that doesn'twork.
So we need to help theindividuals work out their
future and the family work outits collective future and even
whether there will be acollective future.
It's not always the best thingto have a collective future, at

(10:54):
least financially.
And then finally, once that'sclear, it becomes a lot easier
to do.
All the how work, the how workfalls out of that and you can
brief your advisors more clearly.
You can actually get alignmenton all those things.
That's kind of the overview ofthe process, yeah fantastic.

So you alluded already that in most
cases multiple generations areinvolved.
That also means thesegenerations have lived a very
different life.
They might have a verydifferent relationship to the
wealth of the family.
What are some of the challengesthat you?

(11:31):
See either across thegenerations or, in general,
amongst the families you workwith.

Well, the families are forged in the battle to
survive, in the battle to createsomething, usually their
business of financial worth.
But having established that andwon that battle, these families
are not likely to be pooranytime soon.
The next battle is to ensurethat the comfort that that
provides doesn't destroy theingredients of the success, and

(11:54):
so that is one of the challengesthat actually, for the founder
maybe if I say, if I use theword G, it's generation,
generation one and two, forexample they know what it took,
the sacrifice that took to buildsomething and for them,
building that thing, thatbusiness, was more important
than anything, often than family, and that has its own
challenges.
But actually, when they see thenext generation coming, say

(12:18):
generation three and four, forwhom that isn't their reality,
they think well, why don't youlove my baby as much as I love
my baby?
Why aren't you willing to, youknow, sacrifice everything for
its existence, like I am?
And the reason is because, bythe third generation they're
saying well, the business andthe fruit of the business, and
by now it's probably a portfolioof businesses or investments,

(12:41):
it's more than just one thing.
By the third and fourthgeneration they're saying well,
your purpose was to build it,and so you were sort of serving
the business, the family wasserving the business.
Now we want the assets built toserve us.
We want to actually use theseassets as a tool for what we

(13:02):
want to achieve ourselves.
And, of course, the nextgeneration have different dreams
and aspirations.
It's not necessarily the samedream and aspiration as the
founder, and so that clash isreally significant, this desire
for more meaningful contributionmyself, as a generation three
or four, to do something I'mproud of, to create my own thing

(13:22):
, not just inherit somebodyelse's.
Imagine if you're raised in oneof these families and say
congratulations, your job is tobasically continue my job, and
you say well, I don't want yourjob, I wanted to make my own job
, I wanted to make my ownsuccess.
Thanks very much.
And so that tension you canimagine plays out in lots of
different ways.

Yeah, and in performance management, one of
the things we always see is thatgood people want to be measured
, and if there's nothing tomeasure you by, then you see a
lot of uh, easy riders in themovies, for instance.
You know, born into wealth andjust run, you know, enjoy it,

(14:10):
yeah, yeah, um.
But then you see others, youknow, on, maybe on the other
side of the spectrum, who whomight say I don't want to have
anything to do with it, I wantto make my own way or you know,
make my own mark?
what do you see amongst you knowthose, those generations that
follow?

yeah, I mean a really wide spectrum, and it
depends in part on the cultureof the family.
You know, in some families andone I'm particularly thinking of
, the the expectation was thatthe children would follow in the
father's footsteps and would dowhat he did and give everything
to the business until it wasdecided that those children were
not necessary anymore and theywere effectively discarded from

(14:47):
the business, having thoughtthat their life would be all
about a role in the business.
At one point they were just puton the bench and said not
needed anymore.
And so you can imagine themliving their later life thinking
I'm a spare.
I'm not even a spare, I wasjust put on the bench and
forgotten about.
That's crushing.
And so there's that sense of Ifailed because I couldn't make

(15:07):
it where I was most expected to.
That can be very debilitating,and sometimes people are put
into roles where they shouldn'tbe given that responsibility
because they're not capable orsuited for it.
They have other passions andgifts.
And then you'll of course haveothers who see their future as
completely secure becausethey've got all the financial
resources they could ever dreamof.

(15:29):
I think the stereotype is thatwe have these spoiled kids who
just live off the fat of thepast.
There is certainly some of that.
Not usually in the families Iwork with, because I think it's
self-selecting Families I workwith don't seem to have that as
part of their culture.
Most families are concernedabout that.
Most kids actually, I think,want to prove themselves.

(15:49):
Most kids want to actually makesomething of themselves.
The battle they face is thatthey're always in the shadow of
the achievements of the past.
So whatever I do is not goingto match up to what grandpa did
or grandma did, because theirswas such significant
achievements, at least in onesense, financially.
What can I ever do?
So you can see, for many theystart life feeling like whatever

(16:13):
path they pursue, they're goingto fail because it won't match
up.

Next to the ones that have come before them
and it's fascinating justlistening to you that you know,
we often think of oh yeah, ifonly I had a little bit more
money, if, if you're, you don'thave it.
But then, listening to you,it's like once people have it it
, it comes with a whole bunch ofproblems and challenges.
How does that then impact thefamily culture?

(16:39):
What starts happening when,when these people start?
you know pulling in differentdirections and in their
relationship with wealth andrelationship with one another.
How does that play out in anegative way?

yeah.
So, uh, I'll just comment,before I answer that, the
comment on the complexities ofwealth, because I think it's
important to understand that.
Yes, for most of us who don'thave what these families have,
it looks like our lives wouldmuch better better with more.
If only we, if only, yeah.
And so if only-ism is a realthing, isn't it?
If only I had this, then Iwould be happier.

(17:11):
And so what I want to encouragefamilies to lean into is the
idea of contentment which is notcircumstantial, contentment
which is based on the science offlourishing, which says
actually good relationships,which is based on the science of
flourishing, which saysactually good relationships,
enough, but not too much, income, the opportunity to strive and

(17:32):
do something for myself, and totaste achievement these are all
things that Harvard and otherschools have researched on to
talk about what flourishinglooks like.
So we want to understand theidea of what flourishing looks
like first, and then, if weactually understand that, then
we'll be less obsessed by howmuch I have or how much other
people have.
But in the context of family,inevitably people are comparing

(17:53):
how much does my sibling have ormy cousin have, or why did they
get that opportunity and Ididn't?
And I think what happens isthat the money or the
opportunities to be in thebusiness or to play a part in
the family, that is really aproxy for love.
Am I really loved?
Am I really accepted?
Do I have to perform to earn myplace?

(18:14):
And so that idea of performancethat people feel in order to be
accepted drives so much of, Ithink, the unhealthy cultures in
these families, where they arewondering whether they are good
enough, whether they'll ever bereally accepted enough, and also
, if somebody has more, that'sbecause they are loved more.
So, yes, there are some veryunhealthy dynamics that run

(18:37):
through families like this, whenyou have this abundance and
you'd think, well, the abundanceis all they want.
But actually it's thecomparison that starts robbing
the family of some of the joythey could have.
There's a great phrase, you mayhave heard it the comparison is
the thief of joy.
The thief of joy.
Most of the families have morethan enough.
In fact, all of the ones I workwith do.

(18:58):
But if somebody has more than Iand the reason to me looks like
because you were favored and Iwasn't that's pretty, yeah, yeah
, yeah.

I'm reminded as you speak of, uh, something
that my mentor from singaporeused to say.
He's 84, 85 years old now.
He used to say you know, doesit add value to you or do you
add value to it?
And he was always saying if ithas to add value to me, maybe

(19:29):
money or a car or a yacht orwhatever else, we have an
unhealthy relationship with it.

Yeah.

So we talked about some of the challenges.
About some of the challenges,Do you have a story of sort of a
turnaround where that unhealthyenvironment of family said we
don't want this anymore?
You?
Even started with that today.
What does it look like whenthat gets turned around?

Well, a couple of stories I'll share.
One is with a family I workedwith, where the siblings
approached me to ask for somehelp, and when they described
their father, who's in his 70sand they had a fairly large
business to do I thought I'm notsure if their father is going
to want to do this work.
It was one of those situationswhere I thought the kids will

(20:17):
benefit, but the father probablywon't want to engage.
And so we agreed and the fatheractually agreed that I would
work with the kids.
The kids are in their 30s, andso I was working with them for
about three months and I said,listen, I think at the beginning
of this, if we do this job well, the father is going to look at
the changes in you and he'll beintrigued and maybe want to get

(20:37):
involved.
And so, sure enough, in threemonths time I get a call from
the father saying what have youdone to my kids?
They're talking to me.
They're listening to me, they'rerespecting me and they're
respecting each other.
There's a change in energy,there's a change in their manner
that I'm intrigued by.
Can I get involved?
Wow, which is great.

(20:57):
And then so then I worked withthe father for about three to
four months on the similarthings that I'd been doing with
the kids, and towards the end ofthat period I get a call from
the kids saying what have youdone to our dad?
He's not who he was.
He actually listens better, hewants to know our opinion, he's
willing to be receptive to ourideas.

(21:18):
It's not what it was, and so Iworked with that family for a
couple of years and still do onand off, but it was a really
clear turnaround in theirrelationships that then had a
profound impact on their role asowners together, and so, even
though no family is perfect, ofcourse, they continue to have a
much better relationship and amuch better functioning family

(21:40):
unit that then can own and runtheir business more effectively.
One other brief story I wasrunning a family retreat in
London a few years ago, and itwas the end of it was a
culmination of about a year anda half work with this family who
own a very significant businessand the patriarch before the
workshop and this was a wholefamily workshop, so three

(22:01):
generations were together hetook me aside before the
workshop at the hotel I ownedand he said listen, I need to
tell you that this has beenperhaps the most painful and
invasive and difficult processesI've ever experienced.
Nobody has asked the questionsyou've confronted me with.

(22:22):
It has been at times, reallydistasteful.
It's not a great start to theworkshop.
And then came the but.
And he said but it wasabsolutely essential for us to
be where we are today.
If it wasn't for this, wecouldn't have this meeting as a
family.
And he said thank you, andactually he did that in private,

(22:42):
but actually, even moresignificantly, in the workshop
he repeated that sentiment tothe whole family, which was to
me a really great evidence ofthe turnaround in that family.
Again, every family needs tokeep working on this.
It's not like you go to the gym, get fit and then stop.
You have to keep working on itand the families that do, they
succeed.

Well, you know, in our work we see that no
matter who you connect with,you're always building culture.
And the question is are youintentionally doing that in a
positive way?
And the same goes for familiesEvery time they meet, they're
building culture.

And so they're the disciplines of culture, aren't
they?
Because the ingredients, thebehavior that got people to
where they were successful, as Imentioned earlier, is not the
behavior that will sustainfamilies, and what wealth
enables is greater isolation,greater independence, greater
separation from each other.
They're the enemies of creatingculture.
How can a family create culture?
If they never see each other,or if they are so independent

(23:39):
they don't need each otheranymore, and so if we want to
build family culture, we have torediscover and actually be
intentional about creating thosethings that build culture.

That's pretty profound, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I know it's alwaysdangerous to ask can you repeat
those?
But yeah, the enemies ofculture.
Yeah, independence,self-sufficiency, no need to ask
for help.

No need to ask for help.
I'm self-contained.
And, of course, culture is allabout being effective
collectively, more effectivecollectively than we can ever be
individually.
And I like to describe, too,culture as kind of the invisible
hand that guides our decisionsand our actions and also helps
us withhold the harmful impulseswe might have towards each
other, the harmful impulses wemight have towards each other.

(24:26):
So in families where they'rereally intentional about culture
, instead of me hearing from yousomething that triggers me and
think well, you know, you're thefavorite sibling, so of course
you'd think that I withhold thatand say is that going to be
helpful to build you up and tobuild us stronger together?
And may I actually pause atthat point and say can you help

(24:46):
me understand a little bit moreabout why you feel that way?
That's building culture,because it's saying I care more
about understanding you than Ido about judging you.
I care more about helping youand having empathy for you in
your circumstances than I doabout winning.
That's culture.

Yeah, there's one tool that we use in
our perception managementtoolbox.
You're actually describing itin the examples you give.
So you know, often we getemotionally triggered because of
something somebody said.
Yeah, sometimes what they sayis is a conclusion that they
drew too early.
Yeah, they don't have enoughinformation available, but but

(25:26):
then if that emotional triggercomes, I want to punch back, you
know, or I'll disengage andwalk away.
But this whole idea of we talkabout DIR, describing first,
then only concluding andinterpreting and then connecting
that to an emotion, how do youfeel about what we just
discussed?
How do you?
feel about what we justdiscussed, and we often find

(25:48):
that exactly what you just said,going back and hey, can you
explain where you're coming from, or can you tell me more about
how you ended up thinking thisway and not being triggered or
driven by the emotions that thatmight unleash, especially if
there is?

some baggage where there is a repeat of that same
pattern.

Yeah, undoing, that really requires us
to go back to you know.
Tell me the backstory.
Where did this come from?

and filling in the descriptive details?

yeah, so that we both get a fuller
picture of, of, uh,understanding from your
perspective and from myperspective.

Well, I, I confess , because we've worked together,
dir is actually part of thetoolkit I use with families.
That's been so powerful becauseit has done exactly that.
It's stopped people rushing tojudgment and a triggered
response that has built up overgenerations.
And remember, in organizationsyou'll get a lot of turnover.
You might be in an organizationfor five years, but in families
you're there for life and theseuh patterns of behavior take a

(26:49):
long time to undo.
And providing tools like dirand I use the emotional
intelligence profiling thatknowledge works, provides and
helps me with, and they're allsuch good tools to help people
grow in self-awareness and helpthem see that actually I need to
look at myself, do the innerwork, if I want us to grow
stronger together as a family.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great.
Now you've already touched on anumber of more sort of
technical steps that you take,and it also sounds like every
family is different.
But what are some typical stepsthat you take in those four
macro level steps that you've?

(27:27):
You've already explained at thebeginning yeah, what does it
look like?

yeah, so at the beginning of the journey the me,
the me phase, for example I'llstart the process with an intake
assessment, a family strengthassessment.
It's about 70 questions basedthat I've refined over the last
three or four years.
That helped me get anunderstanding of where the
family is strong and where theymay need to develop, and every
individual completes that.
And then what we can do is lookat the individuals and see

(27:51):
where they might be needing togrow, and then we look at the
family overall where they needto grow.
The power of that tool is thatit's them critiquing themselves
rather than me as the expertsaying here's what's wrong, and
so it then creates thiswonderful conversation when we
come to the we, about how theydeal with those things.
There's things to do withpeople's character and identity
in there.
There's things to do with ourrelational strength, things to

(28:13):
do with our governance as welland our succession planning.
They're more, more technicalareas, but they're important.
That's an intake assessment, ifyou like, and provides a
baseline.
I then also do, as I mentioned,the, the agile eq assessments
to help people develop their ownsense of understanding and
awareness.
That includes debriefs withevery individual in the family.
So if it's a large family of,say, 20, I'm now meeting with 20

(28:35):
people, usually three or fourtimes in that me phase, and
we'll do love languages.
That's a helpful tool as well.
Sometimes strength finders,different tools that help people
just grow in their insights andunderstanding.
I'll also just get thebackstory of every person and
under, and partly my goal is tomake sure I know the individuals
better than anybody else does,because when I get into the we

(28:58):
phase, which is about bringingthe family together, yeah, I
need to know all the pieces thatmight actually come out and
also need to know the thingsthat do need to be brought out.
And so in the we so theindividual, the me work is much
more individual conversationsand tools.
The we is much more aroundgetting the family together, and
sometimes it begins with a lookback when have we got to?

(29:20):
What are the narratives thatare really painful in our family
that we've always brushed underthe carpet?
Inevitably, there are thingsthat people have formed
assumptions about one anotherand their responses to each
other are based on sometimesfaulty information or
information that's 10 years old,and they haven't allowed one
another to grow and becomedifferent people as we all do

(29:40):
through our life, and so a lotof it is about looking back,
sometimes going through aforgiveness journey, saying,
actually, is there things youneed to forgive and let go of?
That's hard and that can bringabout a lot of emotional anxiety
and challenges, and sometimesthat's where other providers,
experts, might be involvedsometimes psychologists and
counselors who can providespecialist expertise where

(30:01):
that's needed.
But the we work is really abouthaving the family come together,
build trust and understanding.
We practice things like DIR.
We practice things likereflective listening, which
helps us grow better at how weunderstand each other.
We rehearse that.
We practice it.
We do it every time we meet.
We also work on who do we wantto be as a family, which is
really the essence of culture.

(30:22):
Who do we want to be, not whatdo we want to do, who do we want
to do, who do we want to become, and we think about those
cultural developments orattributes that we want to
characterize our family.
So we do that work in the wework yeah.

so it's interesting you, you mentioned
four different assessments onethat the intake assessment
you've developed yourself, andthen even some psychometric
tools, which is quite a widevariety, so all the way from
emotional intelligence tostrength finders to even love
languages.
I'm just curious why did youland on that cocktail?

(30:54):
Because I'm familiar with lovelanguages.
I've even used it in our family, but to use it professionally
in an environment like yours?
Tell me a bit more about that.

Well, I mean part of the insights to these tools
obviously came through myrelationship with you and my
understanding of knowledge,works and the things you provide
that help conversations ofsubstance.
But I was also thinking thatbecause my clients are family
units where they have so manyother dimensions that are
emotional, that need to beunpacked, and I needed to have

(31:25):
tools that could help triggerand have those conversations.
And so you know, the diskprofile is great, but the agile
EQ is a sort of a more focus onthe emotional responses and that
was helpful in a family context.
Love languages likewise,although in some ways I'm a
little tool agnostic, althoughthey're all helpful because the

(31:45):
goal of the tool is to createthe conversation, the insights
and the conversation.
And if I've got common languagecreated through the tools, it's
so much easier and people havea sense of, oh, that's me and I
can be okay about me.
So when people, for example, dothe Agile EQ, they often say is
this okay?
Where am I?
Am I okay?
Is that good, is it bad?
Because you are where you are.

(32:06):
That's that's you embrace it.
Now let's help you embrace thatand bring that to the
conversations with the family,knowing that actually, if you
only stay in that dot, thatplace.
You may not be able to bridgeinto other conversations if
necessary.
Yeah, so it's really aboutgetting people to grow in
empathy and appreciation ofothers.
So that's it is a cocktail, and, but sometimes people are

(32:28):
struggling with the sense that Ijust don't know what I'm good
at.
So that's why strength finderscan be helpful and other tools
as well.

Yeah, and I think also what I see time and
again tools like that are, youknow, helping people also with a
neutral language, and and it itshows them you mentioned it
already that it's not a it's notabout how high I score or where
I should be.
It's where I am and this iswhat I need to embrace, as you

(32:54):
just mentioned, and and thatcreates that freedom to just
engage to be yourself and toengage yeah so you use an
upfront assessment.
You might use some psychometrictools as you move into the
journey.
You already shared a fewstories.
What else have you seen?
Because you mentioned the dadversus the kids.

(33:17):
I assume sometimes you evenwork with more than two
generations.
So I'm curious, as you workwith families around the world,
right?
So how are some of thosestories potentially different?
Um, so I'm curious, as you workwith families around the world,
right?
So, um, how is it?
Uh, how are some of thosestories potentially different?

okay.
So here's one out of, uh, outof the uk again, a family that
went through and still uh, sortof working through the journey.
But when we got, we did the meand the we work, and what that
revealed is that the individualso that the mom and dad, and
then some kids the kids are intheir 30s.
When I did the individual workwith the kids in their branches

(33:54):
because some of them are marriedit was very clear that what
they wanted for their future wasdifferent.
This really comes to the wherework, so me, we, where and as I
looked at what each individualbranch wanted from their family
for themselves, they weredifferent, and so we were able

(34:15):
to have a really goodconversation about hey, do these
different desires oraspirations?
How will they work if we keepthem all together?
And the answer was actually itmay not work.
So do we want to keep it alltogether or do we want to think
about an independent future?
So they've gone through theprocess of actually demerging
their business and their assets.
The children have taken theirportion and are now building

(34:37):
their own things, and theparents still have a residual, a
significant residual, whichthey'll need to work out what to
do with through their estate.
But it was an acknowledgementthat actually we don't want to
run together or own togethereverything that's been built,
because that may not be best forour relationships and we've got
our own things we want to do.

(34:57):
So it's freeing for them tothink we don't have to have this
collective future.
Not every family is free to dothat, because some families are
structured in a way that's justnot possible.
But what it did allow us to dois actually have the
conversation of what reallymatters to you where are you
going and how can we help you dothat, Because the greatest goal
of the family isn't taking careof its wealth, it's taking care
of each other, and so if thewealth stops us doing that, we

(35:19):
need to find another way, and soin this way it was possible to
do, if you like a demerger, andso in this way it was possible
to do if you like a demerger.
That doesn't stop them beingcollective as a family.
They can still do shared familyservices, which they're doing.
They can still have familygatherings and they can have
some family social activitiesand even giving activities and
other things.
It just means their maineconomic activities are now

(35:40):
separate.
So that's a good example ofwhether where, when you look at
the collective and theindividual, really makes sense.

Yeah, so in other words, there isn't a
formula.

And I think that's the risk, isn't it?
Because so much of the industrysays you must keep a dynastic
future for your family becauseif you don't, you're robbing
them.
Well, my argument is you're notreally robbing your kids.
You've given them a greatfoundation to build the best
things we do in life.
We build ourselves or buildwith others.
Yeah, it's much more fun tobuild something than to receive

(36:11):
something in their caretaker.
So how about you give your kidssome building blocks to go and
build their future and see whatthey can do with it?
Yeah, that's great.
Yeah, that's a much, much morefun journey than than just
taking care of the assetssomebody else's bill it's really
interesting.

And which and which continents have you
had a chance to work on?
Is it every continent exceptfor Antarctica?

Yeah, almost so.
I do work in Europe and the UKand the US.
Here in Dubai I'm working withfamilies from the region, some
from India and Pakistan and evenfamilies from parts of Africa.
So it is a wide range.
So I have had the chance tolook at the sort of
cross-section of the waydifferent families do things.

That's great .
That's great.
Now, the generationaldifferences.
We quickly touched on that.
But what are you seeing?
Are there global trends thatyou see amongst families?
Shifts in the way they think,shifts in the way maybe the
younger generation thinks.
Anything you could share aboutthat?

Yeah, I think some of the families from this part
of the world, and maybe in Asia,are much more collective in
their thinking.
So we'll just talk briefly,generationally.
And then there is much morecollective future obligation.
It's's, it's a communal focus,yeah, and so when kids go off
and get educated in usuallyamerica or uk or elsewhere, they

(37:37):
come back with much moreindividualistic mindsets, which
is, hey, you are your future,it's in your hands, you do what
you want, um, and so that can bea wrestle.
The parents saying, well, well,you have some responsibilities.
And they're saying, well,thanks, but I want to do my own
thing.
So that tension I think a trendwould be that because families
of wealth who have maybetraditionally been

(37:59):
community-oriented,tribal-oriented, and now seeing
their kids come back with a moreindividualistic mindset,
wrestling to know what thatmeans for how they transition
their wealth into the nextgeneration, because the kids
come back and say, well, this isa great foundation, but I want
to do my own thing.
Thanks very much.
I don't want to feel stifled bythe family's expectations of me

(38:20):
.
So part of the tension I helpfamilies navigate is this that
in this difference between myown aspirations and the family's
, um, you know, communal vision,yeah, collective vision.
I want to fuel people's desireand aspiration for their own
thing.
That's important, yeah.
If they don't feel I had that,they just feel stifled and I'll
just be compliant with thefamily but ultimately resent

(38:43):
that, yeah.
On the other hand, we don'twant them to neglect the
responsibilities they have theirparents and to the family and
to the assets that have beencreated.
So just helping them navigatethat tension is key.
I think the other thing that Iwould say is that kids are
coming out of university nowwith a greater desire not just
to accumulate more wealth, butto actually be more impactful
with that wealth, and so theirmeaning, their drive for meaning

(39:04):
and purpose is greater, I think, than their parents was.
And that's hard for parents whoare saying, well, we built our
business on coal.
Kids are saying, well, thanks,but that's not aligned with my
beliefs, that's not aligned withmy values, we can't continue
doing that.
Parents are saying, well,that's what we've always done.
So I think that sense of socialimpact and the need for meaning

(39:29):
and purpose in what I do is anincreasing driver that's
changing the shape of portfoliosin families.
As this next generation takethe reins of those portfolios,
they'll be asking, as theyalready are, their portfolio
managers.
Show us how this is making adifference of the things I care
about, meaning returns, if youlike, more than just financial
returns.

When you describe that, you're actually
saying that you see that as atrend across the continents.

Absolutely yeah, I've seen it with every
generation and every continent.

Fascinating.
Yeah, Two weeks ago I met agentleman who is right in the
middle of that tension.
That's the oldest son and hedescribed to me how he felt that
there was no room to have thatconversation and, as a result,
he's in a commitment now to thebusiness and to the family and I

(40:21):
asked him so when do you thinkyour family would be willing to
have that conversation again?
He said, well, I need to be infor five years now.
Yeah, wow, and he had sort ofmade peace of peace with it.
Yeah, but it was also.
It wouldn't have been his firstchoice well, it's common.

That is a story of , uh, some business here or in
the region with some of theirkids who are saying to their
father hey, uh, why are wegrowing so much?
Why, what are you trying toachieve?
You know you're close to yourretirement age.
What's the point of all this?
They're asking what's the point, and I don't think he knows the

(41:01):
point other than the only wayhe and this is true for many the
only way they need to know tovalue their life's work and to
feel like they are makingprogress is through the growth
of their assets or theirbusiness.
And so if you say, hey, that'snot success, and kids are saying
that's not success for us, thenthat really rips out their

(41:22):
foundations of what is so.
I think it's a very, very um.
Well, it's a conversation Inavigate a lot, trying to
understand the drivers of theparents, often the parents who
are saying growth, growth,growth.
And the kids are saying what'sthe point?
What's it all for?
Yeah, what's the purpose ofthis world If it's not to
achieve the things we care aboutin the world?
What's the point?
Yeah, if we're just making moneywhich we maybe just then give

(41:45):
away.
Well, that's great, butactually we want to make money
that in a way that makes adifference to the things we care
about Much more integrated.

So is that more moving away from hardcore
enterprise to more socialenterprise?
Maybe?

I think it is, and I think when you see family
members who have access toprivate equity funds or venture
capital funds in their families,as many now do, what ventures
they're giving birth to are muchmore socially driven.
I can think of at least threeor four where the kids say you
know, obviously we want this tobe a financial success, but the
reason we're doing it is becausewe want to, you know, restore

(42:21):
health and well-being to thiscommunity, or we want to, you
know, do these things that willactually protect and preserve
some of the environment thatwe're concerned about.
So there's always a socialstory, not just a business story
.
yeah, um, now some of them havethe luxury of capital they would
probably never have if they hadto go and compete for it in the
open market sure so there isthat and some of the parents
will say, well, it's great,they've got their cause and

(42:43):
their impact, but this has gotto make money, and it's true it
does.
I mean these things they needto actually be self-sustaining.
It can't just be project, butnonetheless it is interesting to
see when, given the opportunityto create something, they're
creating things that areimpactful and in ways that
matter to them.

It's really hopeful to hear that I think so
too.
Yeah.
So they do have a lot that theyare responsible for and should
be, but also, you know, in thebigger scheme of things, be held
accountable for.
So it's great to hear thatthose trends into, into
transformation and impact that'shappening as you're sharing the

(43:22):
stories.
You know you've alluded alreadyto this idea of am I
accountable to the family, tothe community, or can I be
accountable to myself and wherepeople get educated, what they
get exposed to?
So that's one of our 12dimensions on the cultural
mapping inventory.
There's another one that I wasthinking about is that whole
idea of how you become.

(43:43):
You become by achievingsomething or you become because
it's been ascribed to you.
You know you have the samedilemma with uh, in a much
different way, but if you're theson of the soccer coach, you
are ascribed to be the son ofthe soccer coach, if you're the

(44:04):
child of the religious leader,if you are the son of the king,
et cetera.
But in these families thatsounds like there's that same
dilemma.
Yeah, so we talked a little bitabout you know they want to go
and achieve for themselves.
Talk a little bit more aboutthis.
This, the pressure of beingascribed to be the child off

(44:26):
yeah what does that do to peopleand how do they deal with that?

yeah.
So I have these conversationsoften in families.
Parents who have gone to greatlengths to give their children
freedom say you know, you're adifferent person to me, you
don't have to be me, go and beyou, which is a wonderful thing,
and many parents I work withbelieve that and I do want their
children to do that.
The trouble is the kids don'tfeel it Because they feel a

(44:52):
pressure to be like theirparents.
They feel the pressure fromeverybody else.
They feel, gee, I thought you'dbe more than you are, given the
family you've come from andthat sense of I just don't feel
like I'm enough.
Given all that has beeninvested in me, I should be more
than I am.
That is so common and socrushing.
And it's, um, the narrative offailure that runs through so

(45:15):
many.
I think the narrative even thatI have to well, feeling like an
imposter, I don't belong here,I'm not worthy of what I've
received, and, um, what that isreally crushing.
So I think for helping parentsrealize how crushing it is, or
potentially crushing it is, notbecause of what they've said,
necessarily the narrative theyhave themselves and also what
they might hear from theirfriends.

(45:35):
So you're always living in theshadow of the achievements of
others and what I want to helppeople say is hey look, success
isn't the scale of what has beencreated before.
Success has been faithful tocreate impact with whatever
you've been given to createimpact with and enjoy that.
It may be that you're a teacherand you get to impact 25 kids a

(45:55):
year and see them grow overthat year.
Enjoy that and take great pridein that impact because you're
using your gifts to actuallyhelp others do better in life,
but you're also, you know, putthe finger on something
fundamental is that identity isnot in what you have.

It's knowing who you are and knowing how you
can bring that to bear on theworld, and I think also the
narrative.
You talked about that multipletimes in our conversation today,
that what narratives arerunning through the family what
conversations are parents havingwith their children, how that
shapes identity as opposed to ohyou're the son of or the

(46:38):
daughter of.
So yeah, how to get from justbeing ascribed to actually
having a firm identity thatmight exist even if the wealth
wasn't there.

Yeah, that's the key, isn't it?
I am.
I think you've highlightedexactly the work I try and do
with next gen and families andwe've done together actually,
and some of the work we've donetogether.
But that's so key because if I,if I, rely on my ascribed
identity, I'll always doubtmyself and I'll always feel like
I'm only safe in the tribe andI'll always feel resentful
because I, you know, I'm stilldependent on, on, on the tribe,

(47:12):
and I'll always feel resentfulbecause I'm still dependent on
the tribe, if you like.
But if I actually have thechance to grow my confidence and
that's why I do a lot of thisintake work if I get a chance to
say, hey, I'm uniquely made,I've got great gifts, I want to
actually help people with thosegifts and if I do that, that'll
be satisfying and rewarding.
And if I can see that assuccess rather than accumulation

(47:35):
of success, then actuallythat's my measuring stick.
I can feel good about that.
You know, what I want thefamilies to do is say let's
change the narrative of what wecelebrate.
So when family gatheringshappen, typically it's a, it's a
review of the family's um, youknow portfolio and things have
gone up and that's great, sowe're celebrating that.
The trouble is, what it says isthat's success?

(47:56):
And so what I encouragefamilies to do is say no, when
you get together, it's importantto have a business update, but
let's do that after we've donethe personal updates.
Let's hear what people havebeen doing in their lives, the
sort of wins they've been having.
If somebody's gotten through adifficult time, or somebody's
taken on a new job or somebody'sseen success in whatever field
or vocation they've chosen,let's talk and celebrate those

(48:18):
things and make that the focus,and really a byproduct or a
secondary element should be thebusiness, because, remember, the
fruit of the business is simplya tool.
The profits we generate shouldbe considered a tool to achieve
all those other things thatmatter, rather than a goal in
itself.

yeah, it's not a good goal it's sort of
shifting away from the doing tothe being.

Yeah, the who I we've used this phrase together
before, but the who before thedo, yeah, so give people really
think about who they are and whothey want to become one of.
When I'm getting families intheir where work to work that
out, I get them to think aboutwhere.
In a few ways, I get them tothink about who they want to
become as a family.
I say, hey, look fast forward10 years with your kids.

(49:05):
What would you like to be ableto say about your family?
Yeah, you know.
Oh, we still talk to each other, we love each other, we're
always there for each other.
Well, think about what you'rewanting to become as a family
and now think about theingredients that will get you
there.
You've got to share dinnerstogether, care for each other,
all those sort of ingredientsand habits.
But the who piece dominates.
Who do you want to become as aperson?
Who do you want your childrento become?

(49:33):
Many families want their kids tokind of be able to be resilient
and able to make it in theworld.
But actually they raise them ina zoo and they provide them all
the comforts they need so thatall the risk is taken out.
And so they're surprised whenthe who the kids are is ones who
are dependent and not able tomake it on their own.
So starting with the who wewant to become is the
fundamental question for all ofthis.

(49:53):
It's a much.
It's really a question ofcharacter.
Yeah, character, the family,which is really culture.
Character, the individual,which is their identity and
sense of purpose, and what theydo raising them in the zoo.

the uh the.
You know that we use the, thethree colors of worldview.
Yes, it's one of the tools weuse, and this whole idea behind
it is that you create cultureswhere all three worldview
drivers can become present.
So, instead of you know, superprotective yeah, which actually,

(50:26):
in what you just described,becomes disempowering to people,
it becomes inhibiting.
as opposed to that, to how do wecreate a culture that's
empowering and that's lifegiving to its members?
How do we honor the individuals, the family, what has been
entrusted to us, how do we doright by one another from a, you

(50:46):
know, governance policy,procedure, estate planning, etc.
Point of so, this litmus testthat we call this idea of behind
the three colors worldview,creating cultures where you do
right by people, you honorpeople and you're empowering the
way you engage with one another, the way you make decisions.

(51:08):
If you take that sort of as asummary of the cultures to
create, can you talk more aboutthat?
How have you seen people shiftto doing right by each other, to
honoring the individual, thefamily, the estate, the bigger
cause to become empowering asopposed to?

you know the deliberating to disempower yeah,
now let me share a negativestory first and then maybe turn
it into a positive or at leastfind a positive story.
But this is not an uncommonsituation where a strong founder
who has built a significantbusiness and has kept a tight
control over everything in thebusiness and everything in the

(51:45):
family.
So the rules he's used or she'sused to build their business
and their fortune, they bringthose into the family and it's
very directed and it's verycontrolling and it's very power
and fear based.
If I step out of line, maybeI'll be pushed out of the family
or I won't get what everybodyelse gets.
Massive imbalance of power infamilies of wealth like these,

(52:09):
because so much of they feellike their future depends on
what the founder decides, and sothat's an unhealthy culture
that is too focused on power andeverything.
Everything goes up, yeah, um,and everybody feels like their
future is entirely dependent onthat person who holds all the
power.
Yeah, and, and so in thefamilies where I get to work

(52:31):
over a long time, I get to say,hey, your future isn't dependent
on what he or she decides foryou, because if you've got and
discovered now your own sense ofpurpose and your own sense of
identity and you are buildingyour own economic future that
isn't just dependent on handoutsfrom the family, then actually
you can actually approach yourfather or mother or parents as a

(52:52):
peer or a partner instead of aparent.
And so many families operate,even with kids in their 60s and
40s and 60s, as a hierarchicalfamily model, and it shouldn't
be that way.
What should happen is it shouldbecome a partner and a peer
model Sure, they're still yourparents, you'll honor them.
A partner and a peer model Sure, they're still your parents,

(53:13):
you'll honor them.
But instead of the power allresiding in that one branch, the
generation above it ought to bea power sharing model, and so
helping families through thatand I've seen that's a pretty
hard battle actually is to shiftthat perspective.
But where I have seen that thefamily I mentioned earlier about
the kids, where they say whatdid you do with my father?
I think they've actuallymanaged that.

(53:34):
I think they've managed tocreate a partnership model for
the way they run their familynow that actually appropriately
uses power.
It honors the individual butrecognizes there is authority in
the father, and I think they'vedone it in a really, really
healthy way.
But that, to me, is wherefamilies ought to move towards.

And I think that's also something you can
pass on to the next generationand the next generation, because
that super hierarchical allpower resides with the person at
the top eventuallydisintegrates.
Yeah.

Well, especially if you then move to a
multi-branch model.
It can't be so.
You've got to kind of.
There's one thing I'm workingwith and I was talking about
these issues and the need for atransition from the sort of
hierarchical model to much moreof a peer and partner model.
And I said, look, while you arealive you can help bring that
about, because we need the kidsto work that way.

(54:26):
And he said, to use the cricketanalogy, you mean we need to
bat in a few overs before theinnings begins.
That's to you know, for thosewho don't know cricket.

We'll cricket you for being an
Australian.

But the reality was that he needed to have his
kids practicing a partnershipmodel with him as a partner, not
the director before he died.
Now, four days after thatconversation, he died Wow,
before he died.
Now, four days after thatconversation, he died.
And so we're now having topiece together a partnership
model.
They've never had experience ofit, they've never known it

(55:00):
because he's always been thepower figure, and so bringing
that power, healthy use of powerand honoring the individual,
but also recognizing authority,that's the tension.
I guess another one would bearound honor and shame and right
and wrong A situation where afather was needing to move his

(55:20):
son out of a role in thebusiness because he was not
appropriate to run it anymore.
Now, a lot of shame associatedwith that.
So, anyway, a deal was done, ifyou like, that enabled that to
happen, but in the process ofthe deal, so that son's out of
that role, in the process of thedeal, he was provided a bonus

(55:42):
that was probably well in excessof what would be commercially
realistic or explainable.
And so now that one sibling haslost his job there's some shame
has a bonus and now the rightand wrong perspective of other
siblings saying that's not fair.

(56:03):
What about me?
So you can see here thechallenge of trying to honor
somebody, but then do it in away that creates another problem
, which is that doesn't seemfair.
Yeah, it's not doing right.
Everybody exactly, and so youknow the conversations with
other family members.
Hey, listen, uh, you need tounderstand the, or try and
understand the perspective ofyour father and what he was

(56:24):
trying to achieve.
It may not feel fair to you,but in a sense it doesn't matter
, does it?
Because you have more thanenough and it's not like you're
going to be deprived because hewas provided more.
Um, so let's just think aboutit from a from an honor
perspective.
It was a way to honor the son,even though it doesn't feel fair

(56:46):
to you.
You're not really losing out onanything, yeah, um, but, but it
might feel like it's um.
Well, I mean, let's say, looksome, some peels feel bitter to
swallow.
Just swallow it and get on withit, because there's no point
letting that ruin your familyfuture.

Yeah, yeah, yeah wow, I really appreciate
the examples, the stories you'veshared.
We've had the privilege ofworking together and as you do
the work with the families, ofcourse you get to know their
businesses and that's become thecrossover.
So not just providingassessments for the family work,

(57:24):
but then also working withbusinesses that these families
own and vice versa.
So it's been our privilege towork with companies that are
family owned and then, of course, once family members are to
confide in us, we start to heara little bit of of the
challenges behind behind closeddoors.
And being able to introduce youas a trusted partner has been

(57:48):
has been a lot of joy and andit's been really powerful to
sort of cross-pollinate andsynergize together that way.
So hopefully we'll keep ondoing that into the future.

But what does the future hold?
Well, just on that.
I mean, I think thatpartnership we have with those
families where there is abusiness is so powerful because,
actually, the family challengesare often brought about through
seasons of transition knowthey're exposed in seasons and
transition when kids gettingolder and think about what's
next for my life, what's nextfor my parents, what they're
gonna do with a business, we'regonna do it the world, all that

(58:21):
sort of stuff, yeah.
But it's also true usually andoften for the founder, they're
in a season of transition andwondering what's next.
And so the way where they'verun their organization, which is
often very, very dependent on afounder or founding team, it
needs to go through a transitionto building strong leadership,
taking leadership which iscentralized into one which is
more collaborative and that'swhat KnowledgeWorks does so well

(58:41):
and then helping go frompersonality driven to culture in
the organization.
So I'm really excited thatwe've had the chance, and'll
continue to have the chance, todo that.

Yeah, and the other thing that really gets
me excited is this whole ideathat you're busy building the
family culture.
But it's not always the casethat that family culture is
either clear to the people whorun their businesses, sometimes
not even clear to the familythemselves, and then the
business is run in such aradically different way than

(59:12):
what the family believes in orwants to stand for.
And building that connectbetween clear understanding of
the family culture but then alsoallowing that to flow into the
way their businesses are run orthe way they do philanthropy,
etc.
I think that creates also amuch more sustainable future.
I think that creates also amuch more sustainable future,

(59:32):
but also it gives the familysomething to be proud of when
that culture of their familystarts to show up in their
business, starts to show up inthe philanthropy, the way they
make decisions, the way theyallocate their resources.

So how do you see that?
Going to the future?
Yeah, I mean, I think what thiswork has proven to me is
there's an extraordinary needfor this type of approach to
work with families of wealth.
So my hope and dream would bethat every family of wealth
actually every family, but everyfamily of wealth alongside of
developing their investmentstrategy, their philanthropic
plan and their estate planstrategy, their philanthropic
plan and their estate plan theyactually see an even greater
importance the need to createwhat I'd call a well-being and

(01:00:18):
transition strategy for thefamily, where they actually
intentionally do this type ofwork, but not just as a once-off
.
They embed it into their familyoperating system and so, just
as they would always reviewtheir other parts of their
business, for example, they dothe same with their family in
that sort of intention, withthat sort of intentionality.
I'd love that to become the normfor every family.

(01:00:39):
Now, how do we do that?
I mean, there's not many peopledoing this work around the
world, I've discovered.
I thought there would be,there's just not, and so what
I'd love to see is more peopledoing this work.
I'd love to see these toolsthat have been created being
used by many more people.
Obviously, I can't do all ofthat work.
I don't want to.
I want others to do the work,and I'd love to see people
coming beside me and saying, hey, how can we do more of this

(01:01:02):
together and how can I take whatyou've done and deliver that in
my context, wherever it mightbe?

Marco Blankenburgh (01:01:08):
So I think there's a great opportunity and
a great need yeah, as you're, asyou're explaining that, I can
see your facial expression.
For you, it's not just a job,no, not at all.

Andrew Doust (01:01:17):
It's a vocation, really it's a.
It's a, it's a passion to, toreally see and multiply impact.
So I'm driven by impact.
I know you are too, yeah, andwhen you see impact it's so
rewarding.
Now I mean impact withfinancial returns is obviously
uh, important, but but I'm moreexcited by impact than I am by
financial returns.
And so when I get to seefamilies transformed.

(01:01:39):
If you think about the assetsthat have been transitioned from
one generation to the nextdepending on the report, there's
up to $15 trillion worth ofwealth transitioning from one
generation to the next over the10, 15 years, into the hands, I
would say, mostly of people whoare unprepared for it.
And so if we think that is true, that even if it's a fraction

(01:02:01):
of that transition, whatdifference could it make for
that wealth to go into hands ofpeople who know how to have
great impact with that wealth?

and know how to make it sustainable.

It's a massive multiplier effect.
So I feel like even the workwith a few families I do can
have a massive impact on on theworld, and so if we can multiply
the number of families we'reworking with, we can multiply
the impact fantastic.

Well, thank you so much for this
conversation.
It's a really inspiring and awork that's needed in this world
, so thank you you for steppinginto that.
So how do people get in contactwith you, either if they want
to come alongside you or if theyare one of those families and
say I want to talk to Andrew.

Sure, I mean I'd love to hear from anybody, but
probably the easiest is on mywebsite, plenitudepartnerscom.
It's actually getting updatedat the moment so that people can
still find details on there andget in touch that way.
Or, of course, if they know youand want to reach out directly,
they're welcome to do so.

And we'll, as always, we'll share the
details in the notes that comewith the podcast release, so
we'll share your email address,the website and, yeah, I look
forward to ongoing partnershipwith Plenitude Partners.
With you, andrew.
It's been a joy.
It's been a lot of fun.
We've had a lot of amazing.

We really have, and a lot of locations, too
great locations.
But thank you, marco, thank youfor the work of KnowledgeWorks.
It actually helps my work in somany other ways and obviously
our partnership too.
It's been a real joy, so I lookforward to that continuing.
Thank you so much, thanks for.

Thank you so much for joining us for this
episode of the Cultural AgilityPodcast.
If you enjoyed today's episode,share it with someone.
The best way to help us out isby leaving a review on your
favorite podcast app or channel,or forward and recommend this
podcast to people around you.
As always, if any of the topicswe discussed today intrigue you

(01:03:56):
, you will find links toarticles discussing them in
greater depth in the podcastnotes.
If you would like to learn moreabout intercultural
intelligence and how you canbecome more culturally agile,
you can find more informationand hundreds of articles at
knowledgeworkscom.
A special thanks to JasonCarter for composing the music
on this podcast and to the wholeKnowledgeworks team for making

(01:04:18):
this podcast a success.
Thank you, nita Rodriguez, araAzizbakian, rajitha Raj, and
thanks to Vip and George foraudio production, rosalind Raj
for scheduling and Caleb Straussfor marketing and helping
produce this podcast.

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