The Unique Struggles of Prominent Families

Russ Haworth
Founder of The Family Business Partnership
Family Business Advisor

Russ is a specialist family business adviser based in the UK but working with businesses all over the World. He has been working with families in business for over 15 years, initially in a financial planning and wealth management role but now as a family business consultant.  

Russ is a well-respected family business adviser and has been awarded the Advanced Certificate in Family Business Advising, from the Family Firm Institute. This is recognized globally as one of the leading qualifications for those providing advice to family-owned businesses. 

As well as being a specialist adviser to families in business, he is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences. He is also the host of the widely acclaimed The Family Business Podcast, one of the world’s leading resources for families in business. The podcast is supported by the Institute for Family Business (www.ifb.org.uk).   

He is the Co-Director of “The Quest for Legitimacy,” a groundbreaking model for successfully navigating the unique struggle of growing up in a prominent family. Starting as a global longitudinal study that looked at the impact of growing up around significance has had on the Rising Generation, this program will reshape how we work with these individuals to help reduce their isolation, achieve agency, and discover the true contribution they can make in the world.  

He is a member of the Faculty and the Advisory Board of The Ultra High Net Worth Institute. The UHNW Institute is a non-profit and independent "Think Tank" - A publisher and curator of exceptional thought leadership and content relating to UHNW families, family offices, their advisors, and the industry. 

For more information on the groundbreaking model, The Quest for Legitimacy, visit www.questforlegitimacy.com

Cindy Radu

Welcome to the Tamarind Learning podcast. I'm your host, Cindy Radu, Chief Learning Officer for Tamarind Learning Canada. Tamarind Learning is an online wealth education platform that develops practical foundational learning programs for beneficiaries and their advisors to help them prepare for the responsible stewardship of wealth. As part of the Tamarind Learning platform, I have the privilege to speak with experts on topics relevant to families of wealth and family offices. It is my pleasure today to introduce Russ Haworth, a specialist family business advisor based in the United Kingdom. Russ helps proactive families gain clarity and alignment around their family business. He is an advisory board member and faculty member with the Ultra High Net Worth Institute and has an advanced certificate in family business advising from the Family Firm Institute. Russ is sought after as a speaker and hosts the widely acclaimed family business podcast for which he was recently inducted into the family business United Family Business Hall of Fame. Russ, congratulations on that. So, a particular note for our topic today, Russ is the co-director of the Quest for Legitimacy, which is a groundbreaking model for successfully navigating the unique struggle of growing up in a prominent family. So, Russ, I thought what we could do is start with really there is no better example of this unique struggle with the recent ascension of King Charles to the throne. And arguably, of course, the royal family is one of the most successful global family businesses. So, what kind of thoughts do you have about what's going on in the UK right now in this idea of succession?

Russ Haworth

Yeah, so I think it's fascinating and very timely, given the release of the book and the work that we've been doing in terms of the quest for legitimacy, because we refer to those people. For the project, we spoke to the Rising Generation rather than the Next Generation because the Next Generation tends to paint pictures of age brackets, whereas we would place Prince Charles as he was in that Rising Generation, and at the age of 73. He then gets the succession to the throne to become king, something that he's been preparing for his entire life. And yet I can imagine, although I'm in the UK, I don't know the royal family personally, but I can imagine the feeling of preparing for something all your life and the reality of it can seem very different.  And particularly I think we have to remember the human element of this is that his mother has passed away and a very strong, prominent presence in his life is no longer there. And so, the kind of requirements for him in his role as king, he's also now the patriarch of the family and the kind of focal point for that family as well, which is a big step for anybody to take. So, it's fascinating in terms of seeing how it transpires, and it feels kind of a bit depersonalized to look at it in that sense. But I think it's important we do because it is a public example of what can happen in many family enterprises and family businesses.

Cindy Radu

It's interesting to note there he is at the age of 73, moving into this role. And there's historically, I think, been some speculation about whether it would just bypass and go directly to William, but it hasn't. And it's interesting from this side of the pond to watch how detailed the succession is, even things like what way his face is going to face on your coins now, and probably our coins here in Canada, for that matter. I don't know what they're going to do, but this whole idea of the term Prince Charles Syndrome that we used to talk about. I guess we probably still do, in this context. I think we'll hear more and more people talking about this now that the succession has happened. But maybe you can share your thoughts on what Prince Charles Syndrome is and how we've talked about that as advisors in this space.

Russ Haworth

Yeah, one of the points of interest, I think, around this is whether we continue to call it Prince Charles Syndrome, or does that title now pass to becoming Prince William syndrome because he's going to be in a similar position? If we look at it just from a longevity perspective, Charles is 73 and his mother passed away at 94, I think she was. And so, if he were to pass away at the same age as his mother, that's still 20 years for Prince William to wait, by which time he'll be in his 60s. So again, the sort of process repeats in that sense. But if we go way back to when Charles was born, he didn't know at that stage, he was a prince. He didn't know what he'd been born into. And then throughout his childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, he has been preparing to take on the role of a giant in his life in the form of his mother, who is also the monarch of the country that he lives in and beyond in terms of the Commonwealth. And so that kind of syndrome of having to wait until somebody passes away to step into a role that you have been prepared for, I can only imagine how complex it must feel for him as an individual because he’s been preparing for something your entire life.

Russ Haworth

And as I say, I think it possibly felt different on day one to how he thought it was going to feel, because I think inherently, as humans, we're terrible at understanding how we're going to feel about a certain thing in the future. But one of the things that our research found, particularly for those who grow up in the shadow of prominence, is how isolating an experience it can be and how lonely it can feel. And if you imagine, if you take the monarchy out of it and put it into, say, a family business or a family enterprise context, we would have friends that we could talk to and we'd have peers that we could talk to about it and perhaps siblings and other family members. As a prince, there aren't a huge number of peer groups that are set up to help discuss the kind of roles and responsibilities that come and the impact of that. And so, again, I imagine, I don't know this, but I imagine the experience for him was also quite an isolating one, quite a difficult one to navigate because it's a unique set of circumstances for him to have to grow up in.  He had no choice. He didn't apply. It was because of the birth.

Cindy Radu

So, his situation would be arguably very different on many levels. But many families don't have a succession plan per se, whereas, in the royal family, it seems to be highly set out what that succession plan looks like with limited options to opt-out. So, what parallels or differences do you see between, again, what's happening there with that sort of detailed succession and what you saw in the interviews that you did in your book, A Quest for Legitimacy?

Russ Haworth

It was called Operation London Bridge here. So, it was something that was planned out over many, many years in anticipation of the inevitable scenario of the Queen passing away. What's interesting to note, and as far as I understand it, we have to take these things with a pinch of salt if they're coming from the press because we don't know whether that's factually true or not. But my understanding is a lot of the elements around how Operation London Bridge was implemented had to be adjusted because of the time of day that the Queen passed away. So, she passed away in the afternoon. It's announced at 6:00 p.m. I think, here in the UK. And because of that, what would normally be day zero, which is the day that it’s announced. They had to move on a day because 6:00 p.m. wasn't the right time. Now, considering how many years they've had in terms of planning this, it's worth recognizing that they had to adapt right at the very point that the plan first came into place. It's still far better to have that plan than not.

Russ Haworth

You can't imagine what it would be with no organization, considering how significant her role was, but also the ability to adapt I think is an important element. What we found through the research, particularly around growing up in the land of giants (as we termed). So, what is it like to grow up in the land of giants? And nobody that we spoke to said, I don't know what you mean by a giant. They could all recognize that phraseology as, yeah, I've grown up around this prominent character or prominent achievements, and a lot of it is, how am I going to measure up? How am I going to compare? Am I enough to be able to step out of the shadow of the giant in my life? And that's where I think the isolation comes from, is the fact that you're questioning because of the achievements of others, your own sort of validity and agency in terms of making your own contribution to the world. And that, I think, is all very well having a plan for what happens to share ownership or the ownership of assets or decision making and control, and that's all very important.

Russ Haworth

But what we found was that those individuals had a desire to have their own legitimacy, to be able to have agency and control over their own lives. And I think that's the area where our work can really complement the other work that's been done in that space because you have to prepare for the eventualities of succession. It's equally as important to prepare those individuals to be able to step into that role with confidence.

Cindy Radu

I really like that shift, that kind of mindset. Not a shift, an expansion. I think it's an expansion of the thought processes that we need to go through as advisors and as families, this awareness. And there was an interesting term that came up in, or word, I guess, that came up in The Quest for Legitimacy called liminality. And when I was reading that and sort of thinking about our time together today, it occurred to me, and I'm very interested in your thoughts, number one, if you can share with us what liminality means. But to me, Prince Harry is a very interesting model in the public eye of this idea.

S, to give an overview- the feeling of liminality is you're a bit lost, you're feeling a bit betwixt and between. It can be confused or associated with a kind of depression. Jamie, who wrote the book and led the research, is a psychologist. So, he has a very clear definition of depression from his work of doing that. So, liminality is much more of an accurate description of that feeling of being a little bit lost and bewildered by events that have happened in life without having a clinical diagnosis of depression. But the impact of it is real. It's how people feel. And part of what we're trying to do is to help people realize that the opportunities for growth come out of these times when you're feeling a bit lost or feeling betwixt and in between.

Russ Haworth

So, in periods of reality, it might be tempting to try and avoid those, and it might be tempting for parents to try and protect their children from those feelings of being a bit lost. As I say, betwixt in between is kind of the best description I think we can have of that feeling. But what we found from the research is that's where the opportunity for growth comes from. That's where resilience is built. That's where there are four phases to the quest for legitimacy. And that's where the final phase comes from, is the ownership phase. And we're not talking of ownership of assets, but ownership of one's life comes from those moments of growth that follow liminality. I can think of a global example as well. I know we're talking about specifics around the royal family, but a global experience of it is what we've experienced with COVID. So again, we link liminality to what we've called breaking points in the book. I keep saying we. Jamie wrote the book and he's done fantastic.

Cindy Radu

 We should just say it's Jamie Weiner. I don't think we've acknowledged him yet.

Russ Haworth

Yeah, so Jamie Weiner wrote the book, and he uses the stories from the people that we spoke with to really highlight how these breaking points occurred. A global example is Covid. Something came along that we weren't really expecting and anticipating. It knocked us back a little bit. And then that feeling of betwixt and between and lost, I think we're seeing played out in what's being termed as the great resignation, is that search where a lot of people have had the time to think. Actually, I want more than my nine-to-five. I want to find something that has more purpose and more meaning to it, and therefore, they're shifting their behaviors around as a result of that. So, if you imagine that on an individual basis, these breaking moments that happen in people's lives, leading to these periods of liminality, the growth that comes out of that, resulting in taking far greater ownership of your life, that, in essence, leads to that feeling of legitimacy. I have agency. I can give back. The academics that we work with would refer to it as an institution. So, the family is an institution. So, if the desire is to give back, I've got the confidence to be able to do that. As a result of this, if the institution is a family enterprise, then there's the ability to do that. But the quest is kind of independent of whether that's a role within the family business, family office, or family enterprise. It's universal.

Cindy Radu

So can you share maybe an example from the book of a family that really exemplifies this? There are many examples, but can you share one of your favorite examples?

Russ Haworth

Yeah, I think the clearest example of what we start with is the awareness phase.  One of my favorite stories about the awareness phase is the point in your life where you become aware that something is a little bit different in terms of how you grow up compared to how your friends or other people might be growing up. So, Prince Charles would know.  We live in a palace. Not all of my friends at school live in a palace. So, there are very obvious ones. One of my favorite stories from the research is about somebody who grew up in a diamond family, and her father taught her to count using diamonds. And she then went to school and realized not everybody learns to count using diamonds. But it's just normal, right? In her life, that's not what normality looks like, but it's different from how others would be. So that awareness starts to creep in, and that leads to a tug-of-war phase. And that's where you're kind of drawn to the outside world, but you're still being pulled by the world you’re growing up in. So, it can create some funny examples where kids go to school and they come back with a story that somebody's told, and the parents are like, oh, that's cute. And then as they get older, the kids come back and have perhaps other experiences or other learnings from other people that aren't so cute. And that can cause tension within the family around that side of it. But that tug of war happens.

Russ Haworth

Going beyond that into the exploration phase is where you have, again, a really good example from the book. We refer to her as our Queen of Exploration, but she went and took on lots of different experiences that exposed her to lots of different cultures. Now, as a result of her father's family business failing and going bankrupt, and as part of the kind of feeling that she had she wanted to go and explore and take in other cultures. So, her mom helped her design a way that she could travel around the world and experience all of these things. And that is what we would term as an exploration phase.

Russ Haworth

It sounds strange to have a favorite story. I'll tell the story and you'll understand why it sounds strange to call it a favorite. But one of the people we spoke with is a Canadian guy called Rishi, and he was on holiday after the World Cup in Brazil. He received an email from his parents basically saying, you don't have a job in the family business anymore. And he'd been instrumental in setting up some support functions behind all the business that was key to a number of enterprises operating well. He was effectively fired by email by his parents on holiday. And so that for him was a big breaking moment. He went off and did some exploration. He got an MBA and became very accomplished in his own right. He didn't speak to his parents for two and a half, three years, but the step of taking ownership for him was him walking down his parent's driveway to knock on the door. His father opened the door and was able to say with a lump in his throat, thank you to his son for reaching out, because it's not something his father felt he could do. And so for Rishi, that was taking ownership of his life, being able to rebuild that bridge and have the agency and confidence to be able to go and do that. So, it has a happy ending, that story, but in terms of it, that's why I said about it being one of the favorites. I think it's a very good example of taking ownership and the result that can come from going on your quest. But obviously it was very painful for those who were involved. So, I don't want to suggest that as a way forward for people. But highlights the areas of the quest.

Cindy Radu

So you mentioned four phases and I think we've covered three. Is there another one?

Russ Haworth

So, awareness is the first phase, then there's a tug of war, then that exploration phase, and then the ownership phase to complete it. The important element around it is it's nonlinear. So, it's not a case of saying, right, let's follow stage 1234. You get your certificate, and you are legitimate in that sense. There can be repeats of moments of awareness. There can be elements where that help to trigger more exploration and the need to take more ownership. Jamie Weiner wrote the book because of his own quest for legitimacy. In the stories and experiences that he heard, he was able to relate to his own life, and that triggered more awareness and more exploration and ownership for himself as well. So, it's a lifelong quest rather than it being something where you can kind of, as I say, go through stages 1234 and never have to deal with it again.

Cindy Radu

This has been absolutely fascinating, and we could probably talk for another hour or two or more just on this topic. I'm sure many people who are listening will be intrigued to learn more. We know about the book, The Quest for Legitimacy, but are there other resources or websites that people might want to go to just as a follow-up to our conversation today?

Russ Haworth

Yeah. So, the best place for people to head to find out more is the Quest for Legitimacy website, which is www.questforlegitimacy.com. There are details on the research, the book articles, and blogs that Jamie has written around that, and you can join our mailing list there as well. So that's the best place for people to head to.

Cindy Radu

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for that. And thank you for being with us from the other side of the pond and the other side of the microphone today. We'll look forward to hopefully having a follow-up podcast in the future. Thanks very much for your time, Russ.

Russ Haworth

Sounds great. Thanks very much for having me. Thank you.