Today we're going to talk about how to better understand the ultra-high-net-worth space. I'm talking about $250 million and up in assets. What really matters to most of them is not about investment returns or saving them taxes; it's about the humanness and particularly the humanness of their kids.

When you think of the founder of a family business, or the leader of a family business, there's three roles that they have: the role of shareholder; the role of CEO with chairman; and the role of father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt. Typically the focus is on the role of owner, director, CEO, chairman. That's where all the business stuff is. It's where all the ownership stuff is. They don't focus that much on the familial stuff because the human stuff gets in the way of your plans and your strategies.

I have a client I've been serving for 14 years, a very prominent family in Canada. One day dad comes to me and says, “You know, I'm thinking of making my three sons shareholders in the outfit.” It's a billion-and-a-half dollar enterprise. I said, "You know, Ronnie, that's a great idea, but have you ever considered what it is going to be like to have your sons playing in your sandbox with your toys?" What if your boys don't like your toys? He said, "Yeah, maybe we should have the conversation with the boys and see what happens."

After a year of working with the sons and with him, the oldest son came to the conclusion that he, "would rather go fishing with his brothers when he was 70 than have a business relationship with them and end up with the relationship that his father has with his uncle, which is zero relationship."

When that young man shared that with his father and his brothers at a retreat, his father had tears down his eyes. Because as he said, "Franco, that was the best money I've ever invested with you because my son became a man that day. He chose what was right for him. He didn't choose the golden handcuffs." That young man walked away from $480 million. He's successful in his own right. He got a nice little business going, but it was more important to him to be in relationship.

The role that ran that conversation was not chairman, it was not CEO, it was father. Are you connecting deeper with the humans in your files than the file itself? Underneath that file, underneath all those numbers and strategies are human beings. If we don't get the human piece right, the transaction will not close.

I had the privilege of meeting a young man in New York City five years ago. He is a 16th generation family member from Scotland. He says, "It's very difficult being in my demographic." His demographic means high profile, ultra-high-net-worth. Because he says, "Who do I talk to? I've got a lot of friends but I can't talk about how it's hard being worth $250 million. There's a lot of pressure. I'm really scared about taking over these roles.” You can't talk to your average friend about that. Because wealth alienates, wealth separates, particularly this magnitude of wealth. So he asked me to prepare a program exclusively for his demographic, which are next-generation descendants of wealth, to help them understand the emotional responsibility of wealth.

We ended up doing that, and we hosted a program at his parents' home. A place called Scone Palace. You may want to Google that place. It's in Perth, Scotland. We had 21 next-generation members talking about the emotional issues they were facing. And they all revolved around these four things.

The first one is fair versus equal. How many times have you heard a parent say, "I want to treat all the kids the same; can we just split the estate up in four?" It's easy if you have $100 million cash: $25 million apiece. But what if $90 million of that is a family business? How do you split that up? Oh, the solution is you buy insurance, right? And then the cash, you split that up.

But it's not that easy. Because one of the fair versus equal conversation is, let's say I've got four lovely children here, and I want to treat them all the same and I want to make sure they all work in the family business. So they all get different roles, they all get paid the same because I want to treat them fairly and equally. You think that'll cause conflict in the long-term? Yes.

The next one, enabling versus empowering. How many of you guys have seen the movie “The Godfather?” Every family has a Fredo. They're the weak one so they get special attention. Moms will want to enable this individual instead of empowering them.

When we enable, we create entitlement. I get brought on a lot by families saying, "You know what, my kids are spoiled. They're entitled little brats." And I'm like, "Yeah, I know." And then once they get paid, I say, "By the way, dad, did you know that you created that?" Because that's what happens.

We spend all of our time creating this business because we want to look after our family, and then when we create the wealth we go, "Gee, I was away from them so I want to make it up to them," and the easiest way is by writing a check.

Entitlement versus creating contribution. Leadership is about investing in the growth of others, and sometimes that means saying, no, no, no more. We may not be popular. They may not like us. If your kids haven't told you they hate you by the time they're 6, you're not doing a good enough job as a parent. Then you know you're grooming responsible adults. That's what preparing is.

Burden versus responsibility. This is a big one because the kids get told from an early age, “One day, this will all be yours.” I have a young man, a seventh-generation family member from a very successful UK-based family. We did a program in Kenya where we took kids where the Masai was and talked about fears.

He shared a story that when he would go to the shop, there was this wall of big pictures on the wall. The staff would go, "Will, when's your face going to be up there?" Since he was 8 years old. You think that's a little bit of pressure? For the longest time, he didn't want to take over the reins of the family business because for him it was a burden.

So this young man realized that he had to find the courage to sit on the throne in the family business because that was his divine right, but he was afraid of all the pressure that was put in front of him because of all these other leaders. And he didn't have a great relationship with his father.

I recently had a session with them in London in July, and the words that dad used to describe the relationship are not the words you're going to hear from most men. They were “My relationship is now tender and precious with my son.”

We're equipping them to have the difficult conversations or what it means to transition. That's the stuff that matters the most to the families you serve. If you want to play in the big leagues, which is $250 million and up, those are the issues.

Franco Lombardo is the founder of Veritage, whose mission is to serve business families by promoting the culture of safe space and supporting clients in their development of a living family wealth constitution (FWC). Intended to support governance in action, a FWC holds all individual family members accountable to a set of guiding principles established by the family for the family regarding their relationships and their wealth.