3 Tips to Navigate Family Conflict for Advisors

When conflict arises around financial decisions, it can be exhausting for advisors to navigate. very difficult for advisors to allow space for every member of the family to speak while also tending to the financial matters at hand. It can be exhausting and anxiety inducing to try to balance emotions that show up in Often times families end up in conflict due to miscommunication, which in itself can take many forms (unexpressed needs, inflexibility, misunderstanding, inconsistent messaging…etc). The following list articulates a few tips advisors can keep in mind when meeting with high conflict families.

1. Clarify Roles- Each member of the family has a role they play. Often times conflict can arise when there is lack of clarity around the roles each family member is expected to play and the roles they are actually playing.

   Further, as an advisor, you have a unique role within the family. Of course, there’s the professional role of providing financial advice, but often with long term clients, you have a close connection to your clients. It is important to keep in mind the role you play as a professional and the relationship you have with the family to ensure you do not overstep as a professional and fuel the existing conflict within the family by taking sides, placing blame, or fueling conflict in any other way.
   
   Family therapists place clarity around roles and rules at the forefront of family systems work. According to structural family therapists, family conflict occurs when roles, rules, and boundaries are unclear, leaving each member of the family to try to get their needs met in whatever way they can. Family therapists often use family maps to get a clear understanding of a family’s structure and patterns and better understand where conflict is coming from. For advisors, it can be helpful to have initial conversations with client families about roles and expectations from each family member to have a clear understanding before conflict arises in the advising process.

2. Get Comfortable with Conflict- Conflict in itself is not inherently indicative of poor familial relationships. Though it may be uncomfortable to witness, and you may feel helpless as an advisor when family conflict arises, its important to remember that conflict shows that each family member cares enough to express themselves and their needs, even when they may be at odds with other family members.

   It reminds me of Elie Weisel’s popular quote “the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” As a family therapist, I worry most when families or couples say “we don’t fight”, because often that is connected to a level of apathy in the relationship that comes after years of avoided conflict.
   Conflict during family governance work is often an expression of the passion each member has for the success of the family business. It can also be indicative of the level of comfort members feel to express differing opinions and work through them. As an advisor, it can be helpful to ease your own discomfort around conflict by reframing it as something that can be productive if navigated correctly.

3. Learn, then interrupt, the patterns- When advising a family for a while, you notice when things may get a little tense. There often is a pattern to behaviors within a family that can be picked up on. For example, Wealth Creator gets upset when the topic of his daughter’s fiancé comes up in the wealth transfer conversation. The pattern looks a little like this: he raises his voice at her, she goes silent, you intervene and change the subject, and the conversation is never resolved. As an advisor, it can be helpful to interrupt that pattern by noticing when the conversation is escalating and asking each involved member to take a moment to cool down. Literally stepping outside and taking a walk can be helpful, going to a different room, or just taking a moment away from the conversation can help dissipate the emotions that are elevated and allow the members to come back to the conversation emotionally regulated and ready to discuss the matter from a rational place.

   Researcher and clinician Dan Siegel often discusses the concept of “flipping [one’s] lid” in his child psychology work. I’m going to try not to nerd out too much, but the concept is an explanation of the physiological phenomenon of the prefrontal cortex going “offline” in times of high stress or emotional arousal. What that means is that when our emotions are in a significantly heightened state, the front part of our brains (the part in control of logic and reasoning), are less accessible, leaving us to behave and respond from our emotions rather than rationally. When conflict arises in families and emotions are high, it’s possible for family members to act out of emotions rather than facts. Taking some time away from the emotionally stressful conversation can give the members time for their prefrontal cortices to come back “online” and for them to make decisions from a rational, rather than emotional place.

Bonus tip: Delegate! - You don’t have to navigate these tense moments alone. Internal finance and family dynamics consultants are excellent partners to help advisors provide exemplary services to their clients and help clients remove some of those relational and emotional barriers to achieving their financial goals!