Financial DNA - Discovering Your Unique Financial Personality for a Quality Life

When one looks at business, it is easy to miss or not appreciate the importance of private businesses and entrepreneurship. How often do you look to the larger public companies for opportunities, marketing and jobs? Probably a lot. This is what many first think of doing.

I have just read KPMG's Swiss Financial Services Newsletter for August 2008. The newsletter provides very sharp insights into the increasingly complex international needs of high net worth individuals. The outcome is that the consulting team will need to have a greater global outlook and more sophisticated approach to the technical and human issues impacting the HNWI client.

In recent months I have written a few blogs about corporate governance and business risk management. I have expressed the view that many of the corporate problems we have today are related to ineffective board governance. It has been interesting being in Europe for the past 2 weeks where this subject has come up in many discussions with business leaders and in the press. Clearly, the topic of corporate governance is high on the agenda. It needs to be because this is the source of so much corporate damage.

Back in March of this year, I wrote a blog about managing the human risks in your business. This issue has not gone off the radar screen. Identifying the human behavior risks in your business is critical to success. Every person has natural "blind-spots" which, if they go unchecked, can lead to individual performance failures, team failures, leadership failures and ultimately significant business problems. Regardless of the size of your business, the behavior of your people will influence the result. The influence will be higher the more senior the person is in the business. Look at why some major companies have failed in recent years - it is not the poor economy or financial markets, rather they have exposed the fundamental issues, particularly the behavior of leaders.

At the moment, more than ever, the whole notion of trust in every aspect of our lives is important. For many, trust is very low, if not shattered, with our leaders, advisors, partners and family members. Furthermore, trust in ourselves is low, which is the core of the issue. If your business and personal relationships are not working as well as you would like, or your performance could improve, see whether it is because your trust is low. “Relationships of trust depend on our willingness to look not only to our own interests but also to the interests of others.” – Peter Farquharson

My starting point with trust is always to ask 3 questions: How much do you trust others? Do you feel others trust you? Importantly, do you trust yourself?

In the past few weeks we have had a number of people contact us who are starting some form of business partnership together. Most of the time their request has been to find out more about their differences. Some of the typical issues they are seeking to understand are:

1. What are our different talents?

2. What should our role in the business be?

3. What areas do we have to watch out for?

4. Do we have shared values and purpose?

In recent years there has been a lot written about how wealth created by the first generation (the entrepreneur) is lost by the third generation. Often the second generation has also added to the wealth. Then the third generation has lost it through being irresponsible, idle or simply making poor decisions.

Research from a range of sources is consistently showing that this is happening in over 70% of family wealth transfers.

A significant aspect of intergenerational wealth loss is related to the fact that the financial and estate plans do not adequately take into account the human issues involved.

Today, I listened to a great presentation by Tal Ben-Shahar who teaches positive psychology at Harvard University. Interestingly, his 2 courses have been rated the most popular in the university. No wonder, he is so motivating.

The primary foundations of Financial DNA are "Know Thyself" and Know Thy Client". However, what I have not spoken up much before about is "Know Thy Investments". For both the advisor and the client this is absolutely critical to successful investing. Who at some point has been caught in an investment they did not fully understand and lost money?

The current financial crisis is bringing to light a huge workplace shift. For many baby boomers, they only had one career or expected to have one career. The thinking of this generation was that upon getting your qualifications you had one career - working up the ranks often in the same company. Today, it is expected that the Gen Y's will have 10 or more careers. They will job hop. Although, this may be more difficult to do in the current circumstances.