Some years ago when I was developing the ideas…

Some years ago when I was developing the ideas for this book I tried to establish rules that would parallel the ones that guide the three branches of most democratic governments: legislative, executive, and judicial. I found it easy to imagine how a family using the idea of all of its adult members serving as a family assembly could develop a legislative branch. I imagined that this branch would have the following responsibilities: 1) Develop the rules for the family's governance and at annual family meetings debate these rules to ensure excellent governance. 2) Vote on the formation of, and candidates for, the family's executive branch, and for the establishment of such other committees and their memberships as would be necessary to achieve the family assembly's goals. 3) Debate and develop the family's mission statement and discuss such changes to it as would ensure that the family's values and goals were clearly defined and were being practiced by all the family's internal and external advisers. 4) Annually review the action of all its representatives to ensure their excellence. The second branch of family governance, the executive, was also relatively easy to envision. I imagined that in this branch, normally called the family council, representatives of the family as selected by the family assembly would have the following responsibilities: 1) Execute the decisions made by the family assembly in the year following the actions of the family assembly. 2) Select and supervise outside advisers as needed to implement family assembly decisions. 3) Make proposals to the family assembly for such new policies, procedures, and actions as it believed necessary to meet challenges to the family and to its governance system. 4) Be responsible for the nomination of new family council members and for new members of other family committees. 5) Assist with the preparation of the agendas for annual family meetings and for such other meetings of the family or its committees as should be required. 6) Coordinate the preparation of annual family balance sheets, family income statements, and the underlying annual reviews of every family member necessary to compile the information for these family assessment reports. 7) In the event the family assembly adopts a policy of peer reviews, the family council would arrange for such periodic reviews. 8) If the family assembly determines that a family bank or an investor allocation program should be developed for the family, the family executive would arrange for the establishment and operation of these programs. When I moved to the establishment of a judicial branch, however, I ran into a roadblock. I could not intuit what kind of body I could introduce into a family governance system that could take on the following roles: 1) Effectively deal with internal family disputes. 2) Enforce its judgments on such disputes. 3) Render the advisory opinions to the family needed to ensure that the family's legislative and executive bodies were reflecting the family's values and goals in the process of governance. 4) Tell the family's stories.

— from True North (Ethics, Integrity, Truth, Values)

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