Why Structure Alone Isn’t Enough: Centering the Family in Family Offices

It’s happened many times before: a carefully constructed family office, built to reflect the family needs at the time, begins to falter. The governance framework remains solid. The investment strategies are sound. And yet, something doesn’t hold. 

What might need addressing is not any flaw in the structure, but more attention to the relational fabric surrounding it. 

In our recent article for Trusts & Estates, we explore the often overlooked, but essential ingredient in long-term family office success: the family itself. Not just as stakeholders or beneficiaries, but as a dynamic system of relationships, histories, expectations, and aspirations that shape how decisions are made, trust is sustained, and legacy is lived.

The Shared DNA of Family Offices and Family Businesses

It’s tempting to separate family businesses and family offices into two distinct categories - one focused on operations and entrepreneurship, the other on investment management and wealth administration. But beneath the surface, both are rooted in the same source: the family’s shared DNA.

This shared identity is more than just lineage. It’s expressed in values, beliefs, communication patterns, and expectations - some spoken, many not. When families share assets, they also share an emotional economy. And like any economy, its health depends on how its members engage with one another, especially across generations.

The Patterns in Family Dynamics

Systems thinking provides a framework for understanding family interactions by suggesting an additional lens that considers not just individuals or the collective, but the connections between and among them. In a family system, every decision reverberates. When a family office is structured without considering these connections, advisors may find that even the most well-designed structures don’t address the needs as expected.

A trust may distribute funds equitably, but if one sibling feels consistently left out of key decisions, the sense of fairness may be undermined. A family office may hold regular meetings, but if the topics avoid underlying tensions, participation wanes and the tensions build. These are not signs of dysfunction. They’re signals that the structural architecture is not reflecting or evolving with the relational fabric.

Beginning With the Right Questions

Our work with families has shown that understanding begins not with the right answers, but with the right questions.

Questions like:
“What does success look like to you, both personally and professionally?”
“What roadblocks do you think I’ll come up against in the family?”
“How has your family learned to work together?

These are the kinds of questions that unlock insight - not only for advisors, but for the families themselves. They help shift the narrative from judgment to curiosity, from assumptions to shared exploration.

To support this deeper inquiry, we’ve developed tools such as the Family Intelligence Quotient™ (FQ) and the Family Diagram, which help families and advisors visualize patterns, name dynamics and navigate the spaces where values, governance and relationships intersect.

The Opportunity for Advisors

If you advise family offices or family enterprises, you may already realize how embedded your role is. You are a part of the system. And that’s a powerful position that calls for a high degree of relational literacy even if you envision your role as primarily technical.

That means casting a wide net - speaking not only to the head of the family but to the constellation of individuals within it. It means understanding not just where the assets are held, but how decisions are made, who feels heard and how alignment is cultivated or undermined.

Because when we shift from focusing on structure to recognizing the importance of the system of human relationships that underpins it, we unlock something more lasting: a family enterprise that reflects the family’s strategic priorities, and an enterprise that can adapt and endure for the benefit of current and future generations.

Read the full article, The Power and Impact of Shared DNA, published in the March 2025 issue of Trusts & Estates.