The Process of Family Qualitative Capital Management™
Wise Counsel Research’s Family Qualitative Capital Management is a comprehensive, disciplined, multi-year process that responds to the continual changes the lives of families with significant wealth while engaging the voices of each generation.
On an annual basis, this process involves six steps:
Measurement: At the beginning of each year of an engagement, we invite client family members to complete the Family Balance Sheet®, a survey we designed to measure the five forms of Qualitative Capital.
Analysis: Using each family’s individual and aggregate scores from the Family Balance Sheet, we create a Family Qualitative Capital Report that identifies strengths and areas of opportunity, benchmarks results against our proprietary database of hundreds of other families with significant wealth, and includes relevant, meaningful, and actionable recommendations for each family member as well as for the family as a whole.
Agreement: Wise Counsel Research meets first with family leadership to review the draft Family Qualitative Capital Report. (This is one of several touch-points with family leaders throughout the twelve-month process.) We then convene the family to present the Family Qualitative Capital Report and facilitate agreement among members on a Family Qualitative Capital Action Plan. This Plan may include specific objectives such as enhancing cross-generational communication, engaging and educating rising generation family members, and creating effective governance structures. The Family Qualitative Capital Action Plan ensures that the family proceeds always forward in a thoughtful, deliberate manner, that responds to its true needs, and makes the most of family members’ engagement and the resources committed to these efforts.
Implementation: Family members pursue their agreed-upon Qualitative Action Plan in concert with appropriate specialists. These may include family office staff, attorneys, individual or family counselors, or governance specialists. Wise Counsel may work with family members around specific tasks such as learning more about the roles of trustees and beneficiaries, selecting wise trustees, or practicing effective communication across generations.
Evaluation: After six months, Wise Counsel Research reconvenes the family leadership and then the entire family to evaluate progress towards the agreed-upon objectives and make any needed adjustments to the Family Qualitative Capital Action Plan.
Summary: In the final month of each annual engagement, Wise Counsel Research meets once more with family leaders to summarize progress, identify changes in the family system, update the Family Qualitative Action Plan, and discuss overarching goals for the next year of the family’s journey in Family Qualitative Capital Management.