James Hughes’ Family Wealth is exceptionally practical. With Hughes’ book, I felt all the recommendations Williams and Preisser made took on real, actionable qualities. I sensed I knew what our family needed to do and how we could move forward positively for (literally) generations into the future.

In sum: the way a family can move forward positively for generations is to establish a family government. Read the rest of this entry »

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Based on the very strong negative feedback from our kids and Sarita’s request, I called InKnowVision late Friday afternoon to see if they could suggest other facilitators besides G____.

Scott Hamilton, the president, promised to call me Saturday morning at 9 to discuss the matter. Well, he did call, and we spoke for an hour and 20 minutes. I was exceptionally impressed, first, that he would be willing to speak with me on a Saturday morning; second, that he would take as much time with me; and, third, the quality of his questions. Very deep, probing, insightful. Read the rest of this entry »

Sarita took careful notes of what occurred at yesterday’s family meeting. I’m not going to walk through all the details. But I think a summary might be helpful. We actually covered a lot of territory. But what has happened in the last 24 hours since the meeting is perhaps the most surprising–shocking–result of all.

Now where will we head? Read the rest of this entry »

I sent a letter this morning to our attorney and our CPA with copies to all the members of our immediate family . . . plus G_____, our legacy planner.

B____ & L____ (with G____ “looking on”):

Outline of this email:

• Background: Legacy Planning
• Meeting Purpose
• Proposed Meeting Agenda

Read the rest of this entry »

I listed my values (as brought up through this legacy planning process). Looking back and thinking about our discussion at the Family Meeting, I realize that simply talking about these things is a significant, positive, useful step as we attempt to draw together as a family toward some kind of shared vision for the future.

It’s tough, too, however, to engage in these kinds of discussions! Read the rest of this entry »

I quoted our “final” (actually, preliminary, first-draft-final) “Family Vision” statement as hammered out with the kids. I thought it might be interesting to look back on the “Family Vision” statement Sarita and I came up with on our own (with a lot of help, primarily from T_____) back on March 12th. Read the rest of this entry »

Having come to (what seemed to me to be) an astonishing consensus about “who we are” and “what we value” as a family, Greg and Terry asked us to draft what we thought a vision statement for our family might look like.

Each of us took maybe 10 minutes to draft our own versions. Then we wrote them up on large sheets of paper and hung them around the room. . . . And then set about to come to a consensus statement.

What an amazing process!

Our final statement (for Saturday, March 31, 2007! –It is subject, of course, to revision):

We, the Holzmann family, understand that what we have been given allows us to personally and corporately influence others worldwide. Therefore, we seek to change our world–with God’s help and for His glory–by training and equipping others to most effectively fulfill their God-given purposes.

We aspire to family harmony, consensual decion-making, and living life with integrity, prayer, and purposeful action.

Wow! I’m looking forward to future meetings. We have agreed to meet again the week after Justin returns from college in mid- to late May. We want to discuss the family “business”: where are we financially? What resources do we have as a family . . . to impact the world . . . and to help each other?

For me, the highlight of our first family legacy planning meeting came relatively late in the day but just before we hammered out a consensus vision statement.

We had all talked a bit about our top values (both “Most” and “Least”). I don’t know that anyone felt that was particularly revelatory. Interesting. But only mildly so.

What blew me away was the next question we talked about (this was not in the Legacy Planning book): “Define what it means to be a ‘Holzmann.’ What defines you as compared to those around you?”

Whew! Talk about putting you (i.e., the family, all of us) on the spot! What would the kids say? Is there anything that we could agree on that more or less “defines” us as a family? Read the rest of this entry »