Board Bookshelf: Sharing the Wealth, Investing Wisdom with Next Generation (Part 1)

The Business of Family. How to Stay Rich for Generations.By Linda Davis Taylor.  Palgrave MacMillan 2015

How do families build and maintain their wealth for generations? Linda Davis Taylor provides a blueprint for lasting family prosperity in her 2015 book. Davis Taylor, who serves on a fund board, has decades of experience as investment counsel and speaker on family governance, wealth transition and philanthropy.  In her book, she lays out how families can imprint a mindset of prudent money management for generations by careful planning, cultivating values, and recruiting all family members to participate – strategies not dissimilar from sound governance principles. “Understanding how to run a successful business isn’t all that different from running a successful family,” Davis Taylor writes. She advises families that are ready to enact her plan to conduct a family survey to determine each person’s strengths and weaknesses, an honest assessment of the family’s values, and their vision for the family’s future. She also suggests designing a family constitution where values and vision are recorded and memorialized. A family retreat would allow members to connect and implement the family’s strategy or if further along in the process assess performance and progress. Davis Taylor stresses that each family member must embrace and take seriously their role in achieving the family’s goals.  The sections on long-term planning and succession were particularly helpful – and could apply to a board context. Davis Taylor also provides a helpful primer on family generosity and giving back. While families of serious means already have armies of advisers providing them with these resources, Davis Taylor’s book could make a great gift for younger families who are just starting out on their journey of wealth building.