发布时间：2023-10-09
传承宝典｜财富对家族关系的影响：期望管理（上）
导语
每个家族在养育子女时都会面临各种挑战，而大量财富的存在又会使这些挑战变得更加复杂。财富可以带来巨大优势，让我们在人生中获得各种机会，但有时也会对个人发展、家庭关系，甚至整个家族产生破坏性影响。
对财富对家族关系的影响进行深思熟虑，并进行期望管理至关重要：这包括在家族成员的职业期望、传承期望、家族领导人期望等方面建立结构合理、正式的沟通机制，同时制定家族宪章，以传达清晰一致的信息，建立家族成员共识。
本文内容由雷梭勒家族办公室根据Stonehage Fleming文章编译整理，版权归原作者所有。
每个家族在养育子女时都会面临各种挑战，而大量财富的存在又会使这些挑战变得更加复杂。财富可以带来巨大优势，让我们在人生中获得各种机会，但有时也会对个人发展、家庭关系，甚至整个家族产生破坏性影响。
对一些人而言，这些负面影响可能包括让他们具有优越感并且丧失动力，从而限制了个人抱负和发展。另一些人则由于在成功而富有的父母的阴影下长大而缺乏自信；他们可能会发现，自己很难证明个人价值，也很难找到实现个人价值的路。在很多情况下，这些人直到父母去世才会完全独立。
在家族层面，兄弟姐妹之间不和确实有可能导致领导权的分裂和对家族财产的争夺。这种分歧会对家族财富的管理产生破坏性影响，最坏的情况是会导致具有破坏性的长期纠纷。
许多这类问题都源于一些未能实现的期望。我们每个人在成长过程中都会被父母寄予期望，也会对自己有所期望；这些期望会根据我们的经历、新信息的获取以及他人的反馈而逐渐调整和形成。
不幸的是，我们可能会因为误导性的信息或不准确的反馈而产生不当的期望，这类信息和反馈经常来自那些出于错误的原因而与我们结交的人。我们中的大多数人偶尔都会犯这样的错误：我们听到的是自己想听到的，而不是真正说过的话语，于是我们就有可能逐渐扭曲事实以满足自己的愿望。
如果错误的期望得不到控制，也许持续多年，就会变得越来越不切实际。这就是为什么在一些家族里，家族成员之间的理解会有鸿沟，而且这种鸿沟会越积越深，越久越难以弥合。
期望的挑战
家族成员的主要期望围绕着家族传承以及个人在家族中的未来角色和地位而展开。可以说，有继承权的人主要有四种选择：
1.在有家族企业或家族基业的情况下，继承父母的领导职务；
2.追求正常的职业生涯，基本上不受家业影响；
3.利用家族财富发展自己的抱负和兴趣，而不必完全依靠个人力量对家族提供经济支持；
4.利用随时可得的财富维持自己的生活方式，不工作也不从事任何有目的的活动，可能会在一段时间后耗尽钱财。
第一种选择带来的期望压力会给继承者个人的心理造成沉重的负担，从而深深地影响到他们塑造自己未来的能力，他们往往会发现自己在几件事之间左右为难：不知是应该遵从直觉，还是应该取悦父母，并履行他们所认为的家族义务。
对于受到影响的人而言，这种压力可能会使本已困难重重的职业道路选择变得更加复杂。父母很容易说他们对子女选择的所有道路都持完全开放的态度，但要子女相信他们是真心实意的，则是另一回事了。同样，如果家族几代人都已经成功地领导了家族企业或经营了家族产业，那么让自己成为第一代不愿意或不能够继承这一传统的人可能会很难。
另一方面，有些人期望继承家族领导人的地位，但其他人却认为他们不具备必要的能力或“权利”。这可能会导致家族关系不和，最终导致家族资产管理不善。
第四种选择是大多数家长都希望避免看到的。不过，什么都不做的决定很少是有意识作出的，而在期望混乱的情况下，子女则会明显地缺乏动力或工作理念。在极端情况下，子女还可能会因为害怕父母的反对，以至于难以作出任何决定——英国广播公司（BBC）播出的关于著名石油大亨保罗·盖蒂一家的电视剧《信任》（Trust）就有力地诠释了家族里的这种情况。
盖蒂家族的情况可能比较极端，但成功的企业家到了八十多岁还在做家族里所有决定的情况并不罕见。因此，“孩子们”在接手企业之前，可能自己也已接近退休年龄。从理论上讲，企业家把一些决策权交给“孩子”，但继续提出质疑、挑战和批评，以至于打击“孩子”的信心，这种情况也并不罕见。每个人都需要适当的空间来发展成为独立的成年人，这样才能在机会轮到自己时承担起领导责任。
如果同样是这些人，他们可以获得家族里的金钱，却没有开创自己的事业，也没有在家族里被赋予责任或得到尊重，那么他们选择用钱财“购买”外人的尊重，因交友不慎而受到不良影响，也就不足为奇了。
如前所述，富裕家族还有一个非常复杂的问题，就是兄弟姐妹甚至表兄弟姐妹之间可能发生争斗。出现这种情况，一部分是家族成员之间的财富分配决策导致的，另一个原因是，家族如果有企业需要经营或有其他资产需要管理，就需要任命领导人。
该怎么办：期望管理
长期以来，许多富裕家族都试图把子女当作“普通人”来培养，向他们隐瞒自己的真实财富，并确保他们只能获得有限的资金。在许多情况下，他们会受到与不太富有的同龄人一样的限制和约束。
然而在当今世界，财富越来越难以隐藏，因此必须假定子女及其朋友至少在某种程度上知道财富的存在。与其让孩子们逃避现实，不如帮助他们从小就接受现实，确保他们了解财富的正面和负面力量，以及他们自己的家族如何处理财富。这应该有助于他们理解，他们需要一种使命感，用自己的生命和财富做些有用的事情，而不是被动地成为先辈们劳动成果的受益者。
对一些家族而言，这仅仅意味着“正确”地抚养子女，传承一套价值观和家族文化；但另一些家族已经认识到，在一个瞬息万变的世界里，如果不进行结构更为合理的沟通和培训，期望管理将会是一项重大挑战。我们的目标必须是确保所有正确的信息都得到一致的接收和理解，并有一定的讨论和辩论机会。因此，家族会议、研讨会、视频和社交媒体平台越来越受欢迎，因为这些方式提供了更为正式和更好理解的程序来作出家族决策，包括为下一代挑选家族领导人。（未完待续）
Original English Text
The impact of wealth on family relationships: managing expectation
The challenges every family faces in bringing up their children can be further complicated by the presence of substantial wealth. Wealth brings great advantages in terms of access to life’s opportunities but can sometimes have a disruptive impact on the development of individuals, on family relationships and on the family as a whole.
The potentially negative consequences, for some individuals include a sense of entitlement and loss of incentive, which can restrict ambition. On the other hand, some children lack self-confidence because they have grown up in the shadow of their successful and wealthy parents; they may find it difficult to prove themselves and to identify their own route to personal fulfilment. In too many cases they don’t become fully independent until their parents have died.
At a family level, there is a real danger of sibling rivalry leading to divided leadership and competing claims on their family’s assets. Such differences can have a damaging effect on the management of family wealth and, at worst, can lead to prolonged and destructive disputes.
Many of these problems arise from unfulfilled expectations. We all grow up with expectations that have been placed upon us by our parents and then ourselves; these expectations are gradually adjusted and shaped by our experiences, by access to new information and by feedback from others.
Unfortunately we may develop false expectations based on misleading information or inaccurate feedback, especially from those who seek our friendship for the wrong reasons. Most of us are occasionally guilty of hearing what we want to hear, rather than what has actually been said, perhaps gradually bending the facts to suit our own desires.
When false expectations go unchecked, perhaps for many years, they become more and more unrealistic. This is why, in some families, there can be a gulf of understanding between family members, which becomes more deeply embedded and increasingly difficult to bridge, the longer it has to fester.
THE CHALLENGES OF EXPECTATION
The main expectations surround inheritance and the future role and status of the individual in the family. It can be argued that someone who stands to inherit has four main options:
1.Where there is a family business or family estate, to follow their parents into a leadership role;
2.Pursue a normal career, largely unaffected by any inheritance;
3.Use the wealth to develop their own ambitions and interests, without having to rely entirely on their own endeavours to financially support their family;
4.Use the readily accessible wealth to support their lifestyle, without pursuing a career or any other purposeful activity, perhaps with the possibility of running out of money in due course.
The pressure of expectation to take the first option can weigh heavily on the mind of the individual, so that it deeply affects their ability to shape their future, often finding themselves torn between following their own instincts and seeking to please their parents, whilst fulfilling their perceived obligations to the family.
For those affected, this pressure may complicate an already difficult choice of career path. It is easy for a parent to say they are completely open to whatever course the child chooses, but quite another for the child to believe they really mean it. Equally, if several generations of the family have successfully led the family business or run the family estate, it can be difficult to be the first generation unwilling or unable to continue this tradition.
On the other hand, there are individuals who expect to succeed into a role of family leadership, but are not perceived by others to have the necessary abilities or indeed the‘right’ to do so. This may lead to uncomfortable family relationships and ultimately poor management of the family assets.
The fourth option is what most parents would wish to avoid. However, the decision to do nothing is rarely made as a conscious choice and confused expectations often contribute to an apparent lack of drive or absence of work ethic. At the extreme, the child can be so fearful of parental disapproval that he or she finds it difficult to make any decision at all– a family dynamic which was illustrated so effectively in ‘Trust’, the BBC drama series about the Getty family.
The Getty case may be extreme, but it is not unusual for successful entrepreneurs to be still making all the family decisions well into their eighties. As a result, the‘children’ may themselves be nearing retirement age before they take over the reins. It is also not unusual to hand over some element of decision making in theory, but to continue to question, challenge and criticise to the point which undermines the ‘child’s’ confidence. Everyone needs the appropriate space to develop as an independent adult, if they are going to shoulder leadership responsibilities when their turn comes.
If those same individuals have access to family money, but have not forged their own career, nor been given responsibility and respect within the family, it should not be a surprise if they use their money to‘buy’ the respect of outsiders and come under the influence of unsuitable friends.
There is one further serious complication in wealthy families which, as mentioned earlier, is the potential for rivalry between siblings or even cousins. This arises partly from decisions on the distribution of wealth between family members, but also the need for a family to appoint leaders where there are businesses to be run or other assets to be managed.
SO WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT: THE MANAGEMENT OF EXPECTATIONS
It has long been the case that many wealthy families try to bring up their children as‘ordinary people’, often hiding from them the true extent of their wealth and ensuring they have limited access to funds. In many cases they are subject to the same limitations and disciplines as their less wealthy peers.
In today’s world however, it is increasingly difficult to hide wealth from view, so it must be presumed that the children and their friends will be aware of its existence, at least to some extent. Rather than shielding the children from the reality, it may be best to help them come to terms with it from a relatively early age, to ensure they understand both the positive and negative power of wealth, and how their own family has decided to deal with it. This should help them understand that they need a sense of purpose to do something useful with their lives and their money, rather than being passive beneficiaries of the work of their ancestors.
For some families this just means bringing up the children‘properly’ and passing on a set of values and family culture, but others have recognised that in a fast changing world, it is a major challenge to manage expectations without resort to more structured communication and training. The objective must be to ensure all the right messages have been consistently received and understood, with proper opportunity for discussion and debate. Family meetings, seminars, videos and social media platforms are thus increasingly popular, with more formal and better understood processes for making family decisions, which will include selecting leaders for the next generation. (to be continued)
本文转载自瑞士雷梭勒家族办公室，如有侵权，敬请告知删除。
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