The mentality of “if you aren’t the best, you are the worst because its you” can help serve as an Occam’s Razor for families as they evaluate various paths of action.

We look at the three hardest things for family enterprises to do and why the study of complex adaptive systems gives us insight into them.

“The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.”
– Socrates

Because of all the constituents in a family business, there are often times so many dimensions at play in any matter that dissecting what is actually occurring is incredibly challenging. Instead, models like the Three Circles, Four Rooms and Five Capitals arm us with a set of lens by which one can interpret the circumstances presented.

The locales that families build their wealth in are often times closely intertwined with the family’s identity and narrative. Yet like all considerations for a family office, the choice of geography is an important one, and importantly the ‘default’ answer should not be immediately adopted simply because it is the default.

We conclude our 3 part series looking at the basics of family offices

An in-depth discussion on the role and place of governance in the family enterprise

What family offices actually do to serve families.

On a call last week, a family business executive I was speaking with asked a simple, yet profound question. “What is a family office” or What do you mean when you say family office?