Our experience is that these fears are greatly exaggerated. As advisors, we are in a unique position to help clients see that a well-crafted plan is only the beginning of a successful strategy for multi-generational estate planning.

So How Can You Help?
It is an entirely fair critique of this article that an experienced estate planning attorney develops an intuitive feel for advising a client about when, what and how to communicate estate planning intentions to family members. Such intuition is part of the artistry of an estate planning practice and a direct reflection of the diverse intellectual and emotional skills that the career choice requires. Nonetheless, the unique perspective of a multi-family office, whose advice is certainly more general and less technical than that of the attorney, can provide some useful perspectives which might helpfully inform the attorney's approach to these issues. Specifically, we have found that it is often useful for the client and advisory team to take a collective breath and a deliberate step back in order to view the communication issue as part of a much broader analysis of the client family's non-financial makeup. The detailed questions in the accompanying chart are designed to help the client uncover, and critically consider what messages they are passing on to their heirs, consciously or otherwise, and whether some of those should be revisited.  The objective is to learn from the past both what has worked and what the client wants to do differently.

Inevitably, clients who pursue this exercise and see the importance of communicating more directly with their family members will ask, when, what and how to communicate.

When:  Quite simply, the best time to encourage clients to talk to their families about their estate plans is "now."  Ideally, this communication is a process, rather than a onetime event, and it needs time to unfold. The most effective approach is to start with an introduction of basic financial concepts when children are young and then introduce more sophisticated topics, such as trusts and taxes, at appropriate ages. Obviously the nature of the various family relationships will affect what is said at any time, but some additional communication is usually helpful at any stage of the client's life. The tax and financial topics are often unfamiliar to at least some family members, and take time to sink in. The emotional issues that underlie the entire topic often need to be identified and fully expressed before the content can truly be absorbed.

And, overcoming the misconceptions left by the powerful negative messages about wealth delivered by society and extended family may require consistency and repetition.  The most successful families view the communication process as iterative and learn from the reactions of family members at each stage of the process.

What:  Clients who center the communication around shared family values have the best experiences.  The "money history" discussed above is a good place to start, since it is impossible to help a client communicate his or her values around wealth until those values are first fully understood. Productive discussions about shared values include those that reveal the meaning of money to each family member and celebrate the history of both the family and the wealth, with a special focus on the hard work and accomplishments of those who created the family fortune.  Children who understand the family's history and values can more readily see the estate plan as a manifestation and continuation of those values.

They can accept the plan more authentically and are more likely to adopt the family values in their own subsequent planning. According to author and family governance expert Jay Hughes:  "To successfully preserve its wealth, a family must form a social compact among its members reflecting its shared values, and each successive generation must reaffirm and readopt that social compact."  

How:  Once the client agrees to communicate early and often, and to center the discussion on shared values, a few helpful guidelines can facilitate the process.  It often works best to start with the overall flow of the plan, rather than the details, in order to give everyone an opportunity to react, perhaps first emotionally, but ultimately more thoughtfully, to its overall themes. Clients should share details with children as they mature and as they demonstrate, as part of the ongoing dialogue, that they can handle the information responsibly. We recommend that the conversation be formal and structured, since the issues often involve technical, seemingly inaccessible concepts that can be glossed over in more casual conversation. Formality also reinforces that the family's history and values are important to the client. At all stages, it is critical to emphasize that the current plan can, and likely will, change and that any expectations formed from the plan's description could produce later disappointment.  Nonetheless, the conversation should be very open and the client should encourage the family to offer its authentic reactions and ask uncomfortable questions. Finally, and not surprisingly, it often helps to have the client's advisors present for at least some of the conversation. This again reinforces the seriousness of the discussion, permits real-time clarification of technical issues and allows the heirs to form their own relationships with the advisors.

Summary
Successful wealth transfer is a long-term process that does not end with a well-crafted, technically effective estate plan-it begins there. Clients who are willing to engage in thoughtful communication of their estate planning intentions to their family can better understand their own underlying attitudes about wealth, consider how their intentions might affect their family and provide explanations or make changes, if appropriate. At best, the communication can strengthen family relationships and facilitate the perpetuation of the clients' values into future generations.  Advisors who assist clients with the process can broaden and deepen their relationships with clients, form relationships with multiple generations of client families and, most importantly, better help clients achieve objectives that they may not even be able to express in a more conventional estate planning conversation.

Influences From the Past
How was money used in your family? (e.g., for control, to buy love, as rewards, etc.)
What do you remember your father / mother saying about money?
How did the money attitudes of your parents differ?
When you were growing up, who made the financial decisions in your family?
At what age did you begin to have some money?
What lessons in money management did you receive at home?
Did you have to work for your money?