“Being good is easy — What is difficult is being just.” ~ Victor Hugo
The worst business succession plans that I have ever seen were created by good people who were trying to treat their children equally.
Unfortunately, “equal” does not necessarily mean “fair.”
In an earlier article in our series, Murray Gottheil quoted these words from Leo Tolstoy: “all happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
The sad truth is that there is unhappiness in all families, and many families do not like to share their secrets. Working with these families on business succession requires professionals to be trusted, and, as Arthur Ashe said, “Trust has to be earned, and should come only after the passage of time.”
One upon a time, I had a client named Jack, whose mother had granted him a Power of Attorney (“POA”). Some years later, Mom’s capacity became questionable. Jack’s sister, Jill, wanted to have Mom create a new POA in her favour that would terminate Jack’s POA. The future of a family business hung in the balance. Someone was likely to come tumbling down the hill. The dispute made quite a few family members unhappy, and quite a few lawyers a lot of money.