After her parents passed on, Carolyn Friend carefully sorted through their personal effects as she cleaned out their home-a challenging task for anyone. Along the way, she began to recognize the value of missed conversations and moments never to be recaptured.

Carolyn and her husband, James Weiner, used that experience, and the expertise that came from being doctors of psychology, to recalculate their careers, write a book and start a new venture.

The couple created Inheriting Wisdom, a specialty consulting firm for high-net-worth families, in 2003. Wealth creates complexity, and when families start the discussion of how to create a meaningful legacy, no one in the family wants to feel marginalized or undervalued. Inheriting Wisdom is designed to give a voice to the individual and provide a method for working collectively as a family.

What Friend and Weiner try to convey in their sessions with family members is that wealth creates opportunities.
"Connected families work actively with their trusted advisor," Weiner says. "In a commoditized industry, high-touch and strong relationships differentiate advisors from their competition.  Knowing what matters to the family, and where the challenges exist impacts planning for the financial and philanthropic aspirations of the family."

Their book, The Legacy Conversation: The Missing Gem In Wealth Planning, is designed to convey the central concept behind their thinking:  Sustainability of the family legacy requires planning that goes beyond thinking about what to do with the "stuff."

"Families that cultivate the centrality of family create true wealth, while passing on guiding principles," Weiner says. "They build enduring relationships and create a meaningful legacy, leaving their mark on the world. They seek advisors who support them in this effort."

Legacy planning, the service Inheriting Wisdom embodies, was conceived by Weiner and Friend to help wealthy families make it through difficult transitions, such as the transfer of wealth or succession of a family enterprise, without it tearing them apart or leaving future generations wealthy, but adrift and aimless. It focuses on what the family's values are and what its members want to accomplish with their money and talents, rather than on the money itself. It also helps uncover and preserve the family history.

"Over time, we came to understand that families seldom have an intentional, purposeful conversation about what sustains them as a family," says Friend. "Ninety-eight percent of the time is spent planning deals with tangible things, when what is important and guides decisions are the intangibles."

The couple started in Chicago as psychologists-Weiner started in the late 1980s and Friend started her practice in 1991-to wealthy clients who confronted normal life problems, made more complicated because of the money involved.  One wealthy client led to referrals to others and that is where their new business began.

Families often become disengaged and apathetic, they say. The first step to meaningful legacy planning is to assure that everyone has a voice and to understand what can bind the family together and what can tear it apart.  When Weiner and Friend take on a family as clients, they engage them in discovery, a structured experience, asking them to put aside discussions about money and their current business challenges.  This discovery phase is necessary to prepare them for the action phase, to create or recreate a plan with their advisors.

The process of defining a legacy varies with each family, but the discovery and action phases usually have some things in common, according to Friend. After an initial meeting with the head of the family, the discovery phase begins.

The process can involve two-day sessions and is designed to give each family member a voice and to find the strengths in the family. The program is designed to accommodate the family's schedule and could even involve a weekend retreat. The activities allow Weiner and Friend to get to know the family. Who attends the sessions depends on which family members will be involved in the legacy planning and often it will include participants from several generations.
The second, or action phase, is customized to each family's needs and includes the development of a long-term plan and a strategy for achieving it. Meetings are scheduled as needed and can be spread out over any time frame the family desires, with the potential that some relationships could continue for years, according to Friend.

Families that end up at their doorstep can have anywhere from over a billion dollars in assets to $10 million.  What their clients have in common is the belief that they have more than they can spend during their lifetime. Inheriting Wisdom charges $20,000 for the discovery phase when a family is less than 15 people and adjusts accordingly, by the number of people and the complexity of the circumstances.  The action phase is customized based on the objectives and complexity of the issues of the family.  Families who engage in both processes can anticipate spending about $80,000.

"During our time together, participants are surprised at how engaging and fun discovery can be. This is not therapy," Weiner says. "The discovery phase is interactive and exploratory. It can be incorporated into a family meeting or as a family gathering." 

Friend and Weiner have designed what they call a "Legacy Wheel," which has a prominent place in their book. It deals with tangibles, including philanthropy and cherished possessions, and intangibles, such as family traditions and accomplishments. The wheel is designed to spark conversations that might not otherwise be approachable.  Inheriting Wisdom is about developing an intentional legacy through the creation of a holistic plan, according to the couple.

Some families will want to start very slowly, with a single project such as building a Habitat for Humanity home. Or they may want to move forward rapidly on several fronts at once on things that are important to everyone or to individuals. Friend and Weiner work with the family's financial advisor, as well as any other professional who needs or wants to be brought into the discussion.

But the entire process, which can involve many meetings, is also meant to be fun and a deck of cards called "Conversation Starters" is part of the process. The cards ask questions that are meant to elicit personal feelings and information that other family members may not know. "When did you first compare your friends' possessions to yours?"  and "A scholarship in your honor would be created in what field?" are examples.

"Many financial advisors shy away from these ideas because they are not comfortable dealing with family dynamics," says Weiner. "From an advisor's point of view, these are some of the things that are hardest to figure out because they focus on the intangibles, the integration of one's guiding principles and beliefs, family culture and traditions and life experiences.  Advisors can focus on growing and preserving the family's wealth, leaving us to focus on the family dynamics."

Every family has obstacles, dubbed "dragons" by the couple. They include jealousy, greed, envy and other emotions that can get in the way of real planning. Why does one brother deserve more than another; how do you divide precious family possessions; who takes the lead in the family business?

Like Friend and Weiner, Tim and Judy Barg of Wheaton, Ill., came to the realization that they could use guidance in legacy planning when a grandmother died and they started cleaning out the family home.

"We uncovered a lot that we did not know growing up," Tim Barg says. "Either they did not think it was important to tell us or we were not listening. I did not know I had been raised on land that was homesteaded by my grandfather until I came across a deed."

The Bargs decided they wanted help in passing along the things that were important to their six children, ages 10 to 22.

"It is hard to describe how Jamie [Weiner] and Carolyn do it. It is not just a conversation about what is important to us, it was a process of sharing that transformed our thinking about what is valuable," Tim Barg says. "We did not want our family to get upset about what might or might not be coming to them. That is part of the discussion."

The Bargs have only done the legacy planning process with themselves and their children so far, but they say they want to bring in their siblings eventually.

Likewise, financial advisors say they feel they need assistance in this abstract part of their clients' lives.

"The other side of estate planning is legacy planning," says Brent Novoselsky, vice president of GCG Financial in Chicago.

"As a financial planner, we were challenged to extend beyond the legal and financial details of a family," adds Ron Bernstein, a financial planner at GCG Financial. "We found Jamie and Carolyn's abilities to articulate the generational transfer of life experiences important for our clients."

"There is frequently an inherent conflict between the generations, and Jamie and Carolyn can help us work through these issues," says Novoselsky. "The idea of passing on knowledge and ideals is that you can't pass on the garden but you can pass on the seeds if you identify them."

The legacy planning sessions give the principals at GCG a chance to sit with their clients with guidance and work through these issues and the obstacles that can crop up over a long period of time, rather than just highlighting the ideas in one session, the advisors say.

Legacy planning is not all "pie in the sky" thinking-it involves solid plans with outcomes, note Friend and Weiner.
"What we are trying to do for the advisor is to prepare the family so that legacy planning can be incorporated in wealth planning or family governance," Weiner explains.

Legacy planning also allows family members to pursue their own goals as well as bring value back to the family as a whole, according to the couple. That could involve entrepreneurial pursuits or philanthropic work.  Or it could allow individuals to pursue an art or music career, or engage in research.  Family wealth provides family members with time and freedom of choice.

"We want to encourage the value of the individual, while making use of the collective strength, the 'we,' of the family," Friend says.  "Then the family legacy can be intentional, articulated and passed on."