I have spoken to a number of estate and financial planning audiences on the topic of family wealth counseling. My work is primarily on the relationship side or the psychological side of the client relationship.  I'm always in awe of the technical expertise needed to work with individuals and families and yet keenly aware that it takes our combined expertise to successfully work with these families.

A potential weakness in the estate and financial services field is the lacking model that captures both sides of our work with families.  A model that is encompassing enough to house the complexity, guides us in our collaboration and thought process, is a sure win. Without a model to organize our thinking our families suffer, left to our individual pieces instead of the successful workings of the highly effective team.

Ken Wilber's Integral Theory provides such a model.  It is well conceived, well researched, applicable and created by one of the best minds of our time.  Of Wilber's many books on the subject, A Theory of Everything is his most concise.  In the book he postulates that an integral vision attempts to include matter, body, mind, soul and spirit as they appear in self, culture, and nature; a vision that attempts to be comprehensive balanced and inclusive.

An integral model states that there are four aspects to all beings and situations.  This is characterized by a four quadrant model: the model divides all experiences into internal, external, personal and cultural forces.  The left side of the axis is the interior; the right side is the exterior.  The top of the quadrant is personal, while the bottom is cultural.  The four-quadrant model allows advisors to look at all aspects of the client and the planning process with equal weight given to each quadrant. 

       Individual

                        “I”                                                                   “It”

            Interior of the individual                                  Exterior of the individual

Interior  _________________________________________________

                        Exterior                                                                                          

                        “We”                                                               “Its”

            Interior Community                                         Exterior Community

        Community

The upper left quadrant is the psychology of the individual; the client's emotions, values and beliefs.  Because this quadrant is personal it should be viewed as subjective.  This is the part of our clients that we sense or feel yet it is difficult to measure, it has a significant influence on the effectiveness of our work.

The lower left quadrant is the interior collective.  It is the “We” of a community and captures their interior beliefs.    This quadrant is also subjective and reflects the shared vision and values of the community.  It also is where the felt relationship exists between advisor and client.  The majority of the time this is the quadrant where the client will determine if the professional relationship is “working.”  This is also where there can be a collision of values between the advisor and client.

The upper right quadrant refers to the external aspect of the individual.  This is where you will see the external manifestations of the client; behavior, appearance, abilities, etc.  Since this side of a client can be measured the quadrant is objective.  This quadrant is the primary focus of a traditional advisory relationship.  It is where the tools of the profession are used to address the interior and exterior context.

The lower right quadrant refers to the exterior of the community and is described as “its”.  This quadrant describes social systems, legislation, business priorities.  This quadrant is objective but on a macro level and can also be measured.  This is the larger cultural context.

Often in the financial or estate planning process the focus is on the exterior.  Data is collected and quantified.  Tools and techniques are applied to address the data.  An integral model states that this is incomplete because the interior of the individual and the planning process itself is being neglected.  The advisory community largely understands that there is more to people than the exterior or quantifiable but we have been left with vague notions of what to do with interior issues, relegating them to the pejorative, “soft issues.”  A number of advisors respond by saying it's not my job to pry into the personal lives of my clients.  This model obviously suggests that you aren't successfully doing your job unless you have an accurate understanding of your client's basic psychology.  Doe this suggest that all advisors should get a social work degree?  Not really.  If you are uncomfortable in this terrain you have two basic choices.  Get training in dealing with interior issues or just acknowledge that it is not an area of expertise and consult/team with advisors trained in dealing with the interior.

There is a human tendency to focus on problems that can be seen.  Many of our clients experience similar conflicts.  They use money, an exterior concept, to address needs or deficiencies that are interior.  For example, buying “it” a vacation home to address an interior “I” conflict.  The unknown hope in this example may be that if the vacation home is purchased it will bring the family closer together.  A person's interior state, their emotions, values and beliefs, play a primary role in what is being observed from the outside. 

This model can help guide an advisor in understanding the underlying complexity of their clients as manifested from their “I” as well an opportunity for the advisor to assist their clients in separating unexamined assessments from their financial choices.  We all have self assessments that we have carried for most of our lives that are unexamined and they live as a statement of fact.  For example, “my husband handles all of our finances because I'm not good with money.” “I just inherited this money, it's not really mine.”  I'm not smart, creative, enough etc.  These types of self limiting assessments cause us to either take or not take action based on the validity of the belief.  If unchallenged by the advisor they will make professional decisions based on a faulty assessment.  As an advisor you can offer significant value from this perspective by helping your client to shed light on their negative self assessments. 

Let me walk us through an example.  I was work with a family where both of the parents are professionals; they have three children, one in college the other two have graduated from a well respected college in the last few years.  The parents have asked their financial planner and estate planner to set up trusts for the children based on the assumption that none of the children are competent to handle their finances.  The parents are very articulate and well meaning.  Since I knew the family the advisors began to express their discomfort to me, they had a vague notion that something was amiss but they weren't sure what.  As we explored their unease it was determined that the source of their discomfort was their work (upper right) had largely been based on the fact that the children were incompetent.  What we determined was this “fact” was based on an assessment (upper left) of the children that quite simply wasn't true.  While the children needed training about the rights and responsibilities of heirs they were bright, well educated and had displayed no evidence of financial incompetency.

In this example it was determined that I needed to work with the mother who was the primary source of the assessment.  While she acknowledged there was no evidence for her assessment it was emotionally generated by her desire to be a good mother.  In her mind being a good mother meant keeping her children close and dependent.  So from that perspective a trust seemed like a good idea.  This is also an example of the power of collaboration.  The three of us needed the expertise of each skill set in order to successfully work with this family.

We are more than a composite of individual consciousness.  We live within a context of our culture.  In the lower left quadrant are the cultural influences of which include money and what it means to be successful.  This quadrant is important in the planning process because it also contains the inter-subjective experience between client and advisor.  We would all agree that the relationship between the client and advisor is crucial but until now we had no placeholder for the significance of the relationship.  In the example above you can see that there was a lot of necessary exploration and interaction (lower left) between the advisors and clients and the answer came through the collaboration between the team of advisors.

The lower right quadrant reflects the collective exterior, for example, our social systems and economic theories.  We can clearly see the influence of this quadrant during these tough economic times.  Many of our clients are experiencing a failure in this quadrant and aren't sure what to trust.  Financial advisors are also struggling in this quadrant exploring questions like, “Do my economic theories still make sense?”  We expect stability in this quadrant and in these uncertain times we are questioning our money systems.

An example: returning to the purchase of a vacation home.  If I buy a vacation home it will bring my family closer together (upper left).  I purchase a second home (upper right).  My wife will be thrilled (lower left). I conducted a thorough search of the right location and had to chose the proper financing (lower right).  I'm not suggesting that it is right or wrong to purchase a second home in this example but that it is imperative that you and your clients understand (I and We) their underlying motives for the significant financial decisions of their lives.  Without this understanding your work (It) could be based on faulty logic.  So it is important to ask your client's, what is your purpose as related to this purchase or decision?

Now consider that this was a relatively easy example but it gives us a more complete understanding of all that goes into the decisions of our clients.  When we as advisors just focus on the exterior we are missing all of the underlying motives and relationships.  It helps to see that the interior issues are what most often prevent the client from signing the documents or successfully following through with agreements.

This model does not limit advisors to viewing their clients from simply an interior or exterior perspective; it opens the door to a more complete understanding of who the client is in such a way that it allows us to gain access to the whole person.

Richard Wagner the author of Inside Money applies an Integral model to money in his paper, Integral Finance 201: Wading Into Integral Money.  He looks at the impact of money on each of the quadrants and creates a chart showing how money issues exist in each of the quadrants.

Experiences connected to money                                    Behaviors connected to $                           

Emotions: Joy, anxiety, fear,                                       spending, saving, paying taxes,

Excitement, psychology, impulse                                  budgeting, financial planning,

Buying, spending guilt, personal                                   estate planning, paying the mortgage,

Values, existential concerns,                                       accounting, investing

Perceptions, beliefs, feelings,

Memories and identity

Cultures connected to money                                           Systems connected to $

Agreements, community beliefs,                                   Educational institutions, laws,

Underlying political and economic philosophies,               job market, local economy, public

Cultural values, norms and                                          budgets, taxes, banks, money

Customs around money, religious uses of money,            systems, exploitation of nature,

Philosophical grounding and agreements                        debt and credit systems, currency,

Regarding social institutions,                                       stock market, welfare, physical

Notions of philanthropy,                                             infrastructure, defense

Wilber's integral model is a map that eloquently describes the terrain of our client's lives and what they need from advisors.  Advisors can use the map to evaluate where the client is, what influences are impacting the client and the working relationship.  For example, a client is not returning your phone calls or is slow following through with commitments which are holding up your work. Use the map as a diagnostic.  Are they stuck in something emotional (I), is there a communication breakdown between you and your client (We), are they struggling with something specific related to the estate plan (It) ?

This integral map can also guide us in pulling together the right people for the client team and help us to value the unique contribution of each team member.  I have an enduring belief that as an individual we are limited in what we can do for our clients but as a team we can make a significant difference in the lives of our clients and our communities.

Courtney Pullen

Pullen Consulting Group

(303)420-2908

courtney@pullenconsulting.com

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