Wealth of Wisdom

CHAPTER 54Democratizing Family Decision-Making

Barbara Hauser

How can families avoid bitter conflicts and disagreements? One answer is to deliberately adopt a system of decision-making that is seen as just and fair by all the family members.

A family is, after all, a group of people. Why not learn from the way larger groups manage themselves? We can look at countries.¹ We can also look at large companies, for whom extensive work has been done, and published, about successful decision-making, another term for governance.

Key factors in democratic decision-making. Looking at the corporate governance principles developed by the OECD (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), we find two key principles: transparency and accountability. Based on my 30 years of practice with families, I would add a third key principle: participation.

I will share a personal example of how these three principles worked in my own family many years ago. Like many families, we had issues and disagreements, and no great way of solving them, other than that unhelpful parental command “because I said so.” I read a book that suggested having family meetings to discuss any such issues. So I called together our three sons, ages 5, 8, and 10, and my good-natured husband and explained that we were going to have a family meeting. I said we would discuss issues, then vote. I said we would each have one vote. The boys looked at each other, doing the math. The middle son agreed to take written ...