Changing the Guard - Inheriting advice
- Robert Carson
- Oct 28
- 3 min read
Every generation inherits its predecessors’ advisers. The brave ones decide which of them still fit the future.
Listen to Robert read this post...
It usually starts quietly. A son or daughter steps into the room that once belonged to their parents and realises the faces around the table have not changed in twenty years. The family accountant knows every dividend ever declared. The lawyer remembers the first trust deed. There is loyalty here, and gratitude. But there is also a feeling that the conversations have stopped evolving.
For the next generation, this is a hard truth to sit with. Firing a parent's professional adviser feels personal, almost disrespectful. These are people who have been there for every milestone, births, sales, losses. But time does not pause for sentiment. The family's world changes: new ventures, global exposure, different ways of thinking about risk, purpose and wealth. And sometimes the advisers who helped build the foundation are not the ones to carry it forward.
This is not a story about disloyalty. It is about stewardship. Choosing who sits around the family's table is one of the most important acts of governance there is. It is where history meets intention. The next generation must decide whether they are choosing continuity or convenience.
In business, this process would be called a tender. Job descriptions, evaluations, interviews, performance measures. Families rarely use that language, but they feel the same tension, how to honour the past without being held back by it. The difference is that in a family, relationships run deeper than contracts. You cannot simply offboard someone who has known your parents longer than you have been alive.
That is where a family enterprise adviser steps in. Their role is not to take sides but to hold the process steady and to translate emotion into clarity. They help the next generation frame the conversation not as rejection, but renewal. The task is to identify what the family now needs: agility, a different technical depth, or perhaps advisers who can bridge the gap between commercial logic and family dynamics.
The process can still draw on corporate rigour. Define the brief. Seek diversity of thought. Ask how each adviser understands family governance and the interplay of wealth, relationships and legacy. But it should be grounded in humanity. The aim is not to test loyalty, but to ensure fit, for where the family is heading, not just where it has been.
When the next generation takes this seriously, it becomes a rite of passage. They move from inheriting decisions to making them. The selection process becomes a mirror, asking what kind of family they want to be. Transactional, or intentional. Bound by habit, or guided by purpose.
And once the new team is chosen, the family enterprise adviser’s work continues. They help the old and new advisers align, ensuring continuity of knowledge without clinging to control. They translate between generations, between ways of working, between what is being said and what is meant. They make sure the wisdom of the past is not lost, even as the family writes a new chapter.
Handled well, this shift does not fracture relationships; it matures them. The best families find a way to say thank you to those who served them, while making space for those who now will. They show that governance is not about rules; it is about rhythm. The courage to adapt while staying anchored to purpose.
The next generation does not owe their parents’ advisers a lifetime of work. They owe them respect, and gratitude, and then the freedom to move on. Because choosing your own team is how stewardship becomes yours.
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