It was several years ago now. I was then an estate planning attorney and found myself sitting across from one of my wealthy baby boomer clients. The question of “legacy” came up in the context of talking about a generation skipping trust. What had been a good conversation ground to a screeching halt. I watched my client’s eyes glaze over as he visibly disengaged from the conversation. With his voice noticeably flatter and his body a bit stiffer, he said “I have no interest in creating a dynasty.” “Absolutely no interest.” he reiterated, to punctuate the point just in case I didn’t hear him the first time or perhaps to reinforce it for himself. It was as if he had dropped into a trance for a second or two. As the conversation quickly came back to life, he went on to say that he did not want to control his children from beyond the grave and that he wanted them to be free to do what they wanted to do. If they made poor choices, it was their right to do so and he did not want to protect them from themselves.
I realized, of course, that I had touched a deep nerve in him, but I also realized that that his thoughts echoed the dominant thinking of a generation.
My generation – the baby boomers – is not particularly concerned with legacy. Legacy is a word that resonated for generations before, and will perhaps work for later generations – but not for most of us. So, in that room with that client, I found myself flummoxed as to how to begin to address not only his personal antipathy to the word “legacy” but the broader cultural aversion and the images of straight-jacketed control, authority and domination that the term legacy elicits.
I have seen a similar reaction in baby boomers to the “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves” conversation. Most of the people I talk with, while they would, on balance, prefer to avoid that paradigm, they don’t really think about it all that much and, truth be told, they are often basically willing to let the chips fall where they will. Creating structures through estate planning and family governance to preserve legacy smacks too much of blatant egotism and naked power to sit well with the generation that was raised in a world shaped by Dr. Spock and where the right to question authority and the freedom to find one’s bliss are the dominant cultural imperatives. As a result of that interaction with my client and many others like it, I now rarely talk about legacy – the word is simply too loaded for many to be useful. Today, however, is a happy exception.
Over the years, the stark reaction of my client did its work in me. I have ruminated consciously and subconsciously on the “L” word and, for what it may be worth, here are some tentative reflections at this point in the odyssey.
My sense of things is that perhaps the baby boomers have thrown some important babies out with a lot of bathwater. Very few families, it turns out become what Jay Hughes has called “great families” – or true dynasties. Most fortunes disappear quite quickly in generational transitions. By Jay’s definition great families are families that have found ways to coherently govern themselves for five generations.
It turns out that the core competencies that allow these families to endure are such things as open and transparent communication, collaboration within and between generations, strong individuation with real commitments to the family’s common good, philanthropic work, educating the next generation, and holding a vision beyond merely sustaining the family itself which includes creating a better world. These families put significant time, talent, treasure and thought into the development of the human, cultural and social capital of the family. They raise children with strong values who also have the freedom to find their own way in the world.
In short, what is required to create a legacy family – a great family – are competencies that baby boomers are truly passionate about. Freedom. Communication. Collaboration. Education. Vision. Caring.
The myth out there is that dynastic families are authoritarian. Most start that way, but none endure past the second generation without moving to models of collaboration and shared agreements to support the common good. These families are not beds of roses and family is, after all, family – but the commitments that tie these families together have served as silver ladders for the children in each generation to find their own path forward.
I still don’t use the word legacy very much; only when I have the time to deconstruct the word much as I have here and in ways that will reframe the conversation in good dialog. But I have found that talking about the core values and competencies required to create legacy land well with clients. I have found that while baby boomers don’t want to create “legacy” for the sake of legacy, what they do want, and sometimes quite desperately, are the very qualities required to create legacy.
You might or might not want to follow my example of expunging the word legacy from your conversations with clients. Either way, you might consider inviting your clients to talk freely about the kinds of opportunities they want to be available or their children’s children – not in terms of money, but in terms of their personal development and life experiences. If you do that – and then bring their children into that conversation in meaningful ways – you can begin to plan a true legacy – were the money serves a constellation of broader human purposes. Your clients may never attach the “L” word to the work they are doing, but you will smile to yourself quietly in the knowledge that you have begun to help them shape a truly meaningful legacy.
— March 25, 2013