The Wesley Group helps successful individuals build successful families.
The Problem:
Most families are radically underprepared for significant transitions – we know that only 2% of families are able to sustain success for more than three generations. This means that family leaders face a staggering 98% probability that their core financial and personal legacies will not endure. The high rate of botched transitions results in fractured families, wasted human potential and squandered fortunes. In cases where there is a family business, transitions often cripple or destroy that enterprise. The low success rate and the catastrophic consequences of failure often motivate family leaders to ask what can be done.
The Exceptions:
Fortunately, there are notable exceptions to this pattern of decline. As it turns out that the rare families that beat the odds have predictable characteristics. These families have generation after generation of independent, capable children who add to the family legacy both financially and through the contributions they make to society as a whole. There are “open secrets” as to how these families succeed both in helping children avoid a sense of entitlement and to foster particular kinds of sustained contribution, healthy communication and cross-generational engagement. Families have tended to uncover these more by accident than design.
Becoming Exceptional:
So what does separate the very few successful families from those that do not endure? It turns out that some of the differences are fundamentally based on families working together and developing some core competencies as a family. There are obvious things such as ensuring healthy communication and deep values alignment across the entire family. Of course, these obvious pieces are often easier to identify than to enact and we have found that many families have no idea how to even start a process that makes sense for their family. It is often difficult to get a family to ‘work together” on these key issues. Other aspects of cross-generational success have required patient study to uncover. We know a lot more than we did even a few decades ago. This knowledge allows families to intentionally identify relevant outcomes and then learn to act in ways that can make these outcomes a reality. However, it is not easy to come by these principles of success.
How we help:
Based on this uncommon wisdom, The Wesley Group can help families learn to replicate that success for themselves by developing the core competencies that distinguish successful families. At the Wesley Group, we bring real capabilities and understanding to both the self-evident and hidden aspects of this work. Through developing a close partnership with the family, we bring a multidisciplinary approach that creates shared purpose and vision, opens communication, develops alignment and supports the development of human, cultural, social and financial capital of all members of the family.
Contact Us:
Phone: 425.647.6066
Email: matt@thewesleygroup.com