Comparing human beings to citrus fruit may not seem relevant to family coaching. But it’s an analogy the founder and CEO of Veritage uses to great effect when describing the “emotional governance work” his firm does for wealthy families in Canada and around the world.
“When you squeeze an orange you get orange juice, and when you squeeze any human being through significant events such as the death of a loved one, or gaining great wealth, the same fundamental emotions come out,” Francesco Lombardo says.
Since 2008, the British Columbia-born author of four books and host of a podcast called Safe Space has led Veritage in offering coaching sessions and workshops that “build a family’s capacity to thrive emotionally and financially” by helping them communicate with clarity and honesty.
One of Lombardo’s choice workshops is “When Rules Need to be Broken,” designed to explore and challenge unspoken rules in personal relationships. Then there’s “If Not You, Then Who?” which aims to build trust among family members to ensure that the loss or absence of a key figure in a family business does not harm its legacy.
Now living in Bermuda, Lombardo recently spent time with Canadian Family Offices discussing how his global coaching firm navigates the emotional challenges of managing wealth, creates behavioural structures for conflict resolution, and provides safe spaces for clients to discuss their emotional experiences.
How is Veritage different from other family advisory firms in Canada?
First of all, it’s important to make the distinction that I’m a coach and not a therapist, counsellor or psychologist. What we do at Veritage, basically, is give clients the tools to understand why they make the choices they make so they can do things differently. I believe every one of us has the capacity to make the right choices in life.
If my narrative is that everyone is out to get me, for example, I’m never going to trust anyone or allow them to get close, and that narrative will manage how I interact in relationships.
You have the Family Enterprise Advisor (FEA) designation, and you were an investment advisor earlier in your career. What shaped your attitudes and approaches to wealth and family dynamics?
In the 1990s and 2000s, I was in wealth management and earning a very good living. But at one point, I realized that the more money I was making, the more self-centred and egotistical I was becoming. And I thought to myself, this doesn’t feel right, this is not who I am.
So I began working with a coach whom I continue to work with to this day, and he helped me realize that because of my conditioning, and what happened to me as a child, I had created a narrative that I didn’t feel valuable, and that all the money I was making wasn’t giving me the value I was seeking.
As a result of those conversations, I became interested in the emotional side of wealth and the impact it has on relationships.
How has your practice changed since those early days?
Over time, I started to see patterns. I wrote a book called Great White Elephant: Why Rich Kids Hate Their Parents, which unpacks much of the anger in wealthier families. As I kept doing the work, I started to notice another pattern around entitlement. So I wrote Entitled Brat or Contributing Leader?, which focuses on the greatest roadblock to succession planning and wealth transition. I realized that every one of us feels entitled to our thoughts, beliefs, judgments and prejudices, and we hang on to those.
How do you start to unpack some of these issues and deal with them?
Our secret sauce is called the Awareness Tool. It helps individuals hit pause when a triggering event occurs and allows them to choose how to respond versus the automatic response. It starts with a level of self-awareness and being able to realize that we are not our beliefs, we’re not our behaviours. Those are just coping mechanisms.
Most people think they’re in control of their lives, but in reality, we have a mechanism called our frame of reference that drives our automatic reactions to people, events and circumstances. The behaviour chooses us.
How does coaching a wealthy client differ from coaching others?
The only difference is that wealth magnifies the issues. Our process is really about helping individuals to give themselves permission to feel what they need to feel and say what they need to say in a safe environment. That’s it.
Fundamentally, our clients come to us because they’re looking to learn how to trust, respect and include family members in decision-making. When a founder builds a business, they trust, respect and include themselves. But when you have siblings, sons and daughters making joint decisions, it’s drastically more difficult, and not just because there may be huge amounts of money at stake. They’re also carrying the baggage of past familial challenges. So we help them understand their “unspoken rules” from a behavioural perspective and the biases that could impact decision-making. We do this by taking them through our workshops designed to specifically support this work.
Many of your clients come to you by way of referrals from financial advisors and family offices. What do the outcomes of a family’s engagement with Veritage look like?
I tell clients upfront that we are not here to help them continue what they are doing, because they know it’s not working. We are here to show them an alternative way to live and work together, one that will transform their entire family business system to a place of openness, safety, trust and respect.
Typically, clients come to us because they’re in conflict or they can’t reach an agreement. What they have often failed to do is invest in the family so they can stay together to manage the wealth together. We ensure that the family stays together, that they trust and respect each other, and include each other so they can manage what they’ve earned.
What are the most common interpersonal themes you encounter in your work?
From the founder’s perspective, the No. 1 theme is becoming irrelevant. Our greatest addiction as human beings is to our identity, and losing control is a huge fear that many founders aren’t able to articulate. So they stall and make excuses.
From the next generation’s perspective, a huge appreciation for wealth is mixed with a lot of fear and guilt. The thinking is that they shouldn’t be having issues because they are super-wealthy, but the reality is, the pressure of wealth is squeezing them.
Are families becoming more proactive about emotional governance?
There’s an enormous amount of wealth transitioning from one generation to the next, and attached to that is the emotional tsunami of COVID-19 that we haven’t properly considered. At the same time, social media is disconnecting us from our feelings.
A lot of families and advisors think that governance – or shareholders’ agreements, or investment policy statements – can manage feelings, but they can’t. That’s why Veritage’s business revolves around managing the behavioural structures and the emotional governance of individuals and families.
Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
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