If the family “firm” is run like a business, succession planning is essential. Every HNW sovereign needs to get out of the way sooner or later.
Harry and Meghan have now burned the bridge that once could have led them back to the royal family. Oprah and 17 million first-day viewers made sure of that.
The prime minister has decided it’s important enough to officially refuse to comment.
Royalists have closed ranks, claiming that Meghan was terrible to the palace staff and mulling whether this kind of “confessional” interview will destroy a central institution of British life.
It definitely hurts the family’s more-than-human reputation. However, I suspect the problem isn’t so much the revelations of how victimized Meghan felt as the fact that the grievances were aired in public at all.
For a certain type of dynastic organization, any confession whatsoever is treated like a threat. And this in itself is the real problem with the British monarchy that this interview exposed.
Yes, people brought into the “family firm” got a chilly reception and left. Call it culture shock.
But when that culture shock extends to the person who was at one time fourth in the line of family succession, the system is clearly broken.
Every UHNW family with multi-generational ambitions needs to look at the crown crisis very closely, if not watch “The Crown” and take notes.
After all, the world can move fast in a single lifetime. If the founder wants to transmit dynastic values intact into the future, tradition needs to accommodate innovation.
Or to say it a little more simply, if you can’t handle a little fresh air, the dead hand is probably getting too brittle to hold up under historical stress.
The Royal “Firm”
The royals apparently think of the dynastic structure as the equivalent of the family business.
Assets inherited from the past need to be managed and income streams need to be maintained. It’s like working in a major corporation, only instead of being hired, you’re born into the job.
Every entrepreneur who tries to keep the business in the family can sympathize. The kids may not have any aptitude or inclination to carry on, but their last name slots them into a career path as a default.
The queen evidently works hard to keep the business running. She’s effectively been CEO and chair for close to seven decades now, and before that her childhood was spent in management training.
Charles is her more-or-less reluctant understudy. In a corporate setting, he’d be looking toward retirement if not already done with working life.
Whether he ever had any aptitude or inclination to call the shots in a largely ceremonial world is an open question. Behind him, William is lined up and now for all practical purposes his kids have cut Harry out of the succession.
In theory, the family could cycle through candidates until finding someone who can handle the crown and the job. But that’s how corporations work. Families are different.
For one thing, aptitude and inclination aren’t really hereditary. A dynastic founder can work hard to teach the kids the skills they’ll need to take over the business, but the best successor often ends up coming from outside anyway.
And all too often, all the kids refuse to carry on. They want to make their own lives. That’s more or less what Harry is doing.
If the “firm” were an actual company, he could have simply resigned and moved on. No hard feelings. No stress. The company moves on and so does he.
Unfortunately, when the company is also your family, it’s a lot harder to make the best rational decision.
Harry just managed to alienate his grandmother at exactly the moment when his grandfather is hospitalized. Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he does. Either way, it’s done.
Likewise, the family didn’t bargain on him and Meghan going to Oprah. An estranged employee can be soothed and forgotten. A relative remains on the family tree.
Harry and Meghan are now a problem for Charles, William and everyone else left inside the organization who needs to at least privately take sides.
That’s the real crisis for the monarchy here. If the values the ex-royals rejected are truly set in the family culture, they’ll get back to work sooner or later.
Succession Means Adaptation
Otherwise, the queen isn’t going to leave much posterity behind. And for all we know at this point, the values Harry and Meghan say they’re rejecting don’t even reflect her sense of what the dynasty offers the future.
She’s a company woman to the core. The company she inherited has resisted a lot of social change. I think we can attribute that to her management.
But the thing about life is that it defeats all efforts to resist change. Dynastic succession plans ultimately fail to anticipate every twist in history.
The best plans are flexible and can adapt to unforeseen circumstances. Others are more brittle and break down when they hit the unknown.
The monarchy has dealt with resignations and retirements before. Not every member of a given UHNW family will pursue the dynastic mission. You’ll have dropouts, accidents, distractions.
As long as enough people in every generation remain to do the job, the plan can continue. People say the queen should have stepped aside decades ago.
They’ve been saying that for decades. She refused to let others wear the crown.
Maybe she doesn’t trust them to do a good job. Maybe that’s right and maybe it isn’t. We just don’t know.
All we know is that mortality is inevitable. You can either prepare your successors when you’re alive or you can gamble on the next generation to step up.
A dynastic founder who truly cares about the family ethos will recognize this and work with the kids. If they aren’t up to the task, outside advisors can be hired as support.
That’s essentially what the family office does. That’s the “family firm.”
And the thing about families is you can always bring in talent through marriage and adoption. The royals had pretty good luck with princesses, but they were unlikely to rule as queens in their own right.
Whatever vision of next-generation royalty Harry and Meghan take with them, it won’t come with titles and ancient palaces. I don’t know if that really matters at this point.
They’re open to a vision that embraces Oprah, Hollywood, Netflix, social media. They’re the ones we’ll hear about in decades to come.
Watch how they raise their kids. Compare it to what you see among your dynastic clients.
Look at great corporations. When accidents and old age reshape the org chart, they adjust.
And they're open to talent and new ideas.
