By Jessica McGawley, founder of Dallington.
The philosopher Alan Watts once observed that we adults have a strange way of greeting the newest members of the human race. Instead of telling a child plainly what game we are all playing and how the rules work, we keep them on probation, with full membership always just around the corner. Watts called the child “a candidate for humanity.”
I have spent nearly twenty years working with the rising generation – often, though not always, the teenagers and twenty-somethings of enterprising UHNW families – and I would suggest that many of them are treated in much the same way: on constant probation.
They go from school to university, to the master’s, to the business programme. There’s the financial literacy course, the beneficiary education course, the annual next-gen offsite, a peer retreat here, some coaching there, and so on and so forth. But at what point does the preparing end and the arriving begin? When do we decide that the rising generation has, in fact, risen?
In my experience, the rising-generation members with the greatest sense of self-efficacy – the belief that they can do what needs to be done – are not necessarily the ones with the best qualifications or the most impressive academic records. They are the ones who have had the most exposure to what they stand to inherit, whatever form that may take.
You can see this most clearly in who gets chosen to lead. In my work, it is still very often the eldest son who is seen as the natural successor. When I dig into why – and I always do – the answer is rarely that he is the most suited, or even the most passionate about the industry, compared with his siblings and cousins. It’s that he has had the most exposure: to the business, the numbers, the foundation, the agreements, the language, the people, the boardroom, the advisers – the whole ecosystem around the wealth.
Anyone reading this who has sat professional exams, whether financial, legal or therapeutic, knows that passing the exams and practising the profession are two quite different things. So much of the real learning happens afterwards, in the room, day in and day out. That is exposure. It’s no accident that experience and experiment share a Latin root, experiri: to try, to test, to learn through trial.
If exposure is what builds capability, and I would argue it does, it is far too important to be left to birth order and chance. It needs to be built into the preparation of the rising generation: earlier, more deliberately and more fairly.
So, my question to whoever holds the keys - be that the parents, grandparents, the family office, advisers - is this: are you prepared to provide that exposure and, in some ways, to be exposed yourself? Invite the rising generation in, and they may well see parts of the business they don’t like or don’t agree with. They may have questions or doubts. That should be welcomed. Get it out, get it all on the table, and work through it together.
Our work at Dallington covers a great many aspects of preparing and empowering the rising generation. There is just one thing we cannot provide: exposure to what they themselves stand to inherit. We can show them how other families and their wealth work, but only you can let them into yours. That is why part of our process is always to help those at the helm open the door.
My colleagues and I have just published a guide, Preparing the People for the Wealth, on choosing the right kind of support for the rising generation. Since we offer some of those services ourselves, do feel free to turn its questions on us.
To come back to Watts: he thought we should simply tell children the rules of the game. I would add that we should let them in to watch it being played, challenge the rules so they can understand why they exist, and ultimately – get on the pitch. In my experience, given the chance, most of them rise to the occasion.
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Jessica McGawley is a psychological consultant and mediator who has worked with parents and the rising generation for nearly two decades. In 2016 she founded Dallington to focus exclusively on the opportunities and challenges that wealth brings to families. The firm designs and delivers development programmes for families of wealth and family enterprises, working on both the practical and the psychological sides of preparing for wealth.
