The Problem
Family meetings can fall into predictable and sometimes boring routines. In many systems, family meeting agendas are preoccupied with two topics; money (investing, balance sheets, ROI) and legal risk (estate planning, tax planning, legal and compliance risk, governance). As I have written elsewhere, these traditional meetings can be repetitive and dull. More important, the dominance of these agenda topics can send family memberes the implicit message that they are of secondary importance: the primary focus of the system is on preserving and extending the financial capital of the family, not on the family itself.
Even in more family-focused systems that focus on the human capital development of the family and not just the preservation of the financial capital, family meetings can fall into a rut. The family gathers, an expert of some sort is brought in to facilitate a discussion on a learning topic, the family may attend to some governance matters, some fun activity is planned. Such meetings may have a broader agenda than just financial capital, but still end up–over years–making use of only certain types of learning modalities (and appealing to only certain family members, age groups, or learning styles).
One Solution: Game-ifying
I have long urged families to review the agendas of their last five family meetings, and to “score” them — how much time is being spent on money, on legal and compliance issues, and on issues that are truly focused on the family and its growth? Often the ratio of M(oney), L(egal), and F(amily) is heavily skewed towards the two former topics. As I have argued, this results in family systems systematically underinvesting in their most precious asset: the human capital of the family and its ecosystem of advisors, trustees, and professionals.
Here I suggest another kind of agenda review: what learning modalities have you employed in the last five years? How much presentation of content has there been by an expert, whether from within the family or from outside? How much facilitated discussion? How much work in small groups? How much review of written materials? How much going through Excel spreadsheets or company financials?
And, most important for our purposes here, how many truly creative things have you done in your meetings–experiential, outside-the-box, imaginative, unusual, unexpected?
Many facilitators use small games or experiential learning exercises as part of their presentations. This is of course invaluable to maintain interest, engagement, and energy during a meeting. Here, however, I want to suggest going beyond these short presentation-enhancers and considering designing larger, more immersive games or interactive experiences. “Game-ifying” a family meeting. Creating something that the family–and perhaps its advisors or employees–can do together in real time, in real space, to learn from each other, interact, build trust, acquire some content or knowledge, and have some fun.
This is not a new idea. In particular, Holly Isdale has written and presented about gamification of family meetings. (See also this article by Salvatore Tomaselli.) I am sure that many others have found ways to game-ify their meetings. I hope that this essay can further that trend.
For clarity, let me distinguish what I am suggesting from the “fun” activities that families often include in their meetings, even if such activities are included in part for some learning or team-building benefits. Instead, I mean designed experiences that are integral to the learning objectives of the meeting itself, not added as a fun side activity. Thus, going for a group bike ride might be great to let off steam and build relationships, but it is not quite what I’m pointing towards. A team-building ropes course is the prototypical version of what I’m suggesting–it is an experiential learning event that embeds certain lessons within the experience’s design. Beyond such a prepackaged option, however, lies the realm of creating such experiences from scratch, tailored to the learning goals appropriate to the family at a given moment. For example, I know of one family office that staged a “next gen” retreat centered on a custom-built version of the TV show “Survivor,” where family members had to compete in various tasks throughout the meeting. The meeting’s content was transmitted through the game itself, which was designed to engage a variety of learning styles with different sorts of puzzles, competitions, and tasks. This is more what I am trying to evoke.
Here I offer as examples two game experiences that I designed and deployed, in collaboration with others. The first was for a family meeting, the second for a private gathering of professional colleagues. For each, I describe the process of creating the game, the game’s objectives, and the feedback received about the game.
A Family Meeting Example: A Surprise, Full-Day, Game-ified Quest Around the Office
Several years ago, I enlisted the support of Heidi Coleman (University of Chicago Theater and Performance Studies, co-founder of Fourcast Lab Collective, Advisor at LK Advisors), Patrick Jagoda (University of Chicago Cinema and Media Studies, co-founder of Fourcast Lab Collective), and Leonora Zilkha Williamson (LK Advisors) to create an interactive full-day game for a family meeting. I was drawn by the amazing multiplayer game experiences that the Fourcast Lab had created for classes of entering freshmen at the university, and by the prospect of doing something creative and different but also educationally impactful.
The learning goals (or design principles) for this game included:
- For family members to better understand the family office and its operations
- For family members, staff, and Board members to get to know each other better
- To demystify the office’s physical spaces and make coming to the office less intimidating
- To reinforce prior discussions of the 5 capitals (human, social, learning, legacy, and financial)
- To introduce certain governance structures, such as the Investment Committee and the Distribution Committee, and make them approachable
- To have fun
The game took roughly six months to design. The team interviewed various stakeholders and focused in on the learning objectives described above. There were many ideas and iterations, which I won’t review here. I will instead briefly describe the “run of show” or gameplay of the day of the game.
The family arrived at the family office expecting a regular meeting. Instead, they found a chain and padlock around the doors to the Board Room, and they were instructed that their task was to figure out how to get into that room. They were split into three teams (each with their own color of t-shirt) and sent together on an initial search deep into the basement of the office building. There, in a somewhat spooky storage room that houses a great deal of memorabilia from the family’s business history, they were met by a large bear (played by yours truly) who gave each team a box containing an initial assignment, or quest.
Returning to the offices upstairs, the teams then went on their respective adventures. One was an investment-related quest. This involved going to three different offices and interrupting “meetings” being held by members of the investment team. In each, the investment professionals had a puzzle that the family team had to solve. The puzzles were very loosely based on investment problems, but required creative problem-solving rather than financial acumen.
A second quest paired family members with members of the company’s Distribution Committee, as well as the company’s trust officers. This quest was more action-oriented. It was essentially like a school “field day” or indoor olympics, where family and staff had to navigate a series of physical challenges or timed races together in the office.
A third quest centered on communications. The company’s communications director videotaped each family member responding to certain interview questions, in a mock media-preparedness process.
A fourth quest took the family on a search around the office premises. Each team was given an iPad that had been programmed with a simple application that contained puzzles and clues tied to the art in the office hallways. Using the iPad, family members went searching throughout the office for different art pieces.
Each team completed each quest. Thus, the morning was spent scrambling around the office, completing tasks, solving puzzles, and laughing. Family members quickly discovered unknown talents (“wow, you’re good at word puzzles”) and … lack of talent. Throughout, the Bear occasionally appeared to steal clues or cause trouble, and at one point he was chased down the hallway by a younger family member. Each successful quest was rewarded with a rubber duck (the company’s mascot) with a word written on it. When all the teams had completed all of the morning quests, the words were combined and unscrambled, and the family learned the combination to unlock the padlock on the Board room.
Once in the Board room, the teams discovered another layer of the game. The table was completely covered with large, colorful cards, each face down. After lunch, the players engaged in an extended board game (sorry for the pun, but it was intentional) that involved answering questions to turn over the many cards. The questions were designed to elicit information about the family and to draw connections between family members. They were organized according to the 5 Capitals (human, social, learning, legacy, and financial), which reinforced prior learning experiences about these forms of family capital. When the cards were ultimately all right-side up, a picture was revealed. The picture was an illustration of a series of interconnected islands, each representing a family member (and their hobbies, interests, and personal histories).
The game ended with a video from the family’s patriarch, thanking everyone for playing, admonishing the Bear for causing trouble, and inviting the family to reflect on the lessons they had learned.
The feedback about the game was extremely positive. The game allowed family members of different ages to interact with each other and with the family office staff in humorous ways, and on equal footing. No one is good at a three-legged race, it turns out. The game gave family members reason to range across the office space and meet the staff in an informal and playful way. Finally, the game broke expectations about what “is supposed to happen” at a family meeting, and allowed for focus on certain learning–such as the 5 capitals–in a different way.
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The Bear at the start of the day in his lair
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The lock on the Board Room
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The iPad "art quest"
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Solving a puzzle on the art quest
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A "duck toss" game
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The game board in the Board Room
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The 5 Capitals question cards
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The 5 Capitals
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Turning over a tile
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The completed game image
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T-shirt design, featuring the bear and the duck
A Musical Experience for a Professional Gathering
As a second example, I recently collaborated with Constance Volk, a Chicago artist and musician, to design an interactive musical experience for a group of professional colleagues at a conference. Unlike the family meeting game design process–which started completely from scratch–in this case Constance had a game that she had designed for another purpose, which served as the jumping-off point for our collaboration.
In the prior version of the experience, players moved a musician along a large game board set out on the floor of the room. The game board featured various words, and for each space on the Board the musician would play a different improvisation representing that word. For our experience, we created a new game board focused on the theme of the conference, which was conflict and forgiveness. Together with Constance and my co-facilitators Kerryn Seward and Danielle Oristian York, we came up with words that represented various stages of conflict, breach, repair, and forgiveness. (See photos below.) Constance then designed parameters for musical improvisations that would fit with or represent each of these words.
At the conference, three game boards were laid out on the floor of the meeting room. Two musicians stood at the conflict-ridden end of each board. The participants could move the players forwards and back using large dice. On each space, the players would perform and act out something different. For example, on the “conflict” space, the players faced away from each other and played short, staccato, divergent tones that conflicted with each other. If the players were moved to the “empathy” space, however, they would begin to face each other, and after one player improvised a short musical composition, the other would attempt to repeat or echo it.
There were six musicians, on three tracks, playing simultaneously. As soon as the game began, therefore, the room erupted in sound. Participants jumped to move the players forward and back along their tracks, exploring the different sounds and the ways in which the players interpreted the various words on the game boards. Some participants clearly worked to move the players quickly towards “harmony” and “celebration”–the termination of the game board. Other participants, however, would jump in and move the players backwards–regressing them towards conflict and dis-harmony. The experience ended when all six players were on “Celebrate.” They then played a musical piece together–for the first time, unifying all six of them in a melodious exchange.
Participants loved the experience. It encouraged a very different kind of interaction–up on their feet, moving players here and there, listening to the musical compositions, tones, and dis-harmonies. Many participants said later that the musical nature of the experience allowed them to experience emotions and to process their feelings from the day’s conference in a different way. Although the dis-harmony of the start of the experience was difficult for some, the feedback was extremely positive.
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The three game boards or tracks
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Constance explaining the game
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The game board categories
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Musicians moving along the board
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Musicians
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Musicians on the Celebrate tile
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Musicians on the Celebrate tile
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Musicians on the Celebrate tile
In Conclusion
I offer these two examples to encourage discussion among family offices, advisors, and family members about ways in which creative, interactive, game-ified experiences can be brought into family (and other) meetings. I am eager to hear other examples that families or family offices have created. Please be in touch to share the creative things you have done to make family meetings come to life.
For an excellent introduction to gamification, see Patrick Jagoda, Experimental Games: Critique, Play, and Design in the Age of Gamification (2020).
