Family-Advisory Relationships domain

The Family-Advisory Relationships domain – abbreviated as the FAR domain – encompasses the many generalist, cross-domain activities and needs of the family pervading all interactions with its various advisors and advisory teams, including the quality of communication, relationship, collaboration, and integration services beneficial to the family. Examples of essential FAR domain advisory skills include excellent interviewing and discovery techniques (e.g., open-ended questions, clarifying questions), empathic communication (e.g., use of active listening techniques), ability to explain complex terms or topics in understandable ways to clients with varying levels of technical knowledge, interaction with multiple family members at a time including discussion of difficult or stressful family issues, and ability to interact comfortably without bias with a wide range of family members. The quality of family members’ interactions also naturally impact family-advisory relationships, with more knowledgeable and socially-adept clients contributing to the success of the client relationship.

The FAR domain is also where higher-level, optimal service delivery occurs in advisory firms focusing on Integrated Family Wealth Management. Advisors in integrated advisory hubs in a hub-and-spoke delivery model must possess extra skills for coordinating and integrating services within and across the Ten Domains of Family Wealth, including services by professionals acting as specialist service providers in combination with the integrated hub. The skills of an expert generalist or integrated advisor are necessary for this level of service.

In general, although family wealth professionals typically enter the field through one or more content domains, the one area that all advisors need to be expert in is the Family-Advisory Relationships domain at either the essential or optimal level.