---
title: "Episode 4: Best Practice, Next Practice"
show: "Family Wealth & Legacy"
host: Mark Haynes Daniell
episode_number: 4
element: Integration & Action: the Whole Strategy
duration: 8 min
url: https://create.podmark.de/family-wealth-podcast?ep=4
markdown_url: https://create.podmark.de/family-wealth-podcast/episode-4.md
overview_url: https://create.podmark.de/family-wealth-podcast.md
type: podcast_episode
language: en
intended_audience: AI agents, LLMs, search crawlers
---

# Episode 4: Best Practice, Next Practice

> Why turbulent times demand keeping the best of best practice while designing next practice across the whole family strategy.

## Summary

Mark Haynes-Daniell explains the shift from best practice to next practice, crediting Marty Linsky, and why periods of dramatic change require keeping what still works while leaving outdated approaches behind. He shows how this thinking reshapes strategy frameworks, value statements, and leadership models for legacy families.

## Chapters

- [0:00](https://create.podmark.de/family-wealth-podcast?ep=4&t=0s) Welcome and today's topic
- [0:40](https://create.podmark.de/family-wealth-podcast?ep=4&t=40s) From best practice to next practice
- [3:04](https://create.podmark.de/family-wealth-podcast?ep=4&t=184s) Strategy: three circles to the ten-element framework
- [4:24](https://create.podmark.de/family-wealth-podcast?ep=4&t=264s) Values: the good and the bad
- [5:34](https://create.podmark.de/family-wealth-podcast?ep=4&t=334s) Leadership: head of the table to heart of the family
- [7:46](https://create.podmark.de/family-wealth-podcast?ep=4&t=466s) Closing and how to connect

## Key takeaways

- Effective strategy in turbulent times means keeping the best practices that still work and replacing those that no longer apply with newly designed next practices.
- Strategy has evolved from the three circles model to a more sophisticated ten-element framework covering history, governance, wealth, business, philanthropy, dynamics, and risk.
- Real cultural change requires value statements that identify and respond to bad values, not just affirm good ones, mapping what to start, stop, and continue.
- Modern leadership engages family members rather than instructing them, leading from the heart of the family as much as the head of the table.
- State-of-the-art strategy demands Renaissance leaders who can master and integrate many disciplines, supplemented by outside expertise where needed.

**Keywords:** best practice, next practice, family strategy, ten-element framework, values, leadership, Renaissance leadership, legacy families

## Full transcript

Timestamps in square brackets mark the second the sentence starts.

[0:00] Hello and welcome to this podcast series on family wealth and legacy strategy.
[0:05] My name is Mark Haynes-Daniel. I'm the founder and chairman of the Raffles Family Wealth Trust,
[0:10] a specialist advisory boutique focused on serving the advisory and educational needs
[0:16] of legacy families around the world. Today's topic is one of my favorite topics,
[0:22] which is moving from best practice to next practice. And at the outset, I should give
[0:28] full credit to Marty Linsky from Harvard and other places, who was the person that crafted those words
[0:33] next practices, where I encountered them for the first time. So really, best practices and next
[0:40] practices is all about effective strategy. These are tools that have been developed over time and
[0:46] will be further developed in the future, which gives family leaders, their advisors, and family
[0:51] members different ways of thinking about things within the context of their own families and parts
[0:57] of their greater family enterprise, businesses, philanthropy, investment portfolios, etc.
[1:02] And at the beginning, best practice was best practice. The analysis that was done by a number
[1:09] of consulting companies showed that by selecting the best practices amongst competitors and best
[1:15] practices within organizations, companies could pick those ways of doing things that worked best.
[1:21] So people were driven by adopting best practices and putting them to work in their own businesses, in their own families, in their own investment approaches, etc.
[1:31] So best practice for many years kind of ruled the roost conceptually.
[1:36] But where we are now is in a time of great change, turbulence, and even volatility.
[1:41] and what was discovered by Marty Linsky and other people was that when you work through those
[1:48] periods of change, dramatic change, then some best practices become outdated. Many best practices
[1:55] are still applicable, but some are not. So when you look toward the future, you need to do two
[2:01] things to move from best practice to next practice. You need to select those best practices that are
[2:06] still valuable, sharpen them up and put them to work, and you also need to leave those that are
[2:12] no longer applicable behind. And at the same time, you need to think about what the future is going
[2:18] to look like and how it will be different from the past and design next practices using creativity,
[2:25] innovation, the intellectual power within your organization, seeing what's going on within and
[2:36] and see what's going to work in the future. So in the future, it's a combination of the best of the
[2:42] best practices and next practices that will help you shape the future to the advantage of your
[2:49] family to create the best possible future. So what does that really mean when you're working
[2:55] within a family environment, a legacy family environment? What are some of those next practices
[2:59] and how can you apply them to your own benefit? The first is in the way we think about strategy.
[3:04] In 1987, professors Taguiori and John Davies, who's now at MIT, and of Cambridge Enterprise Advisors, came up with those very famous three circles, family, family business, family philanthropy, which allowed people to see the concentration of leadership of those three in the first generation and then see how things gradually diverged over the next two or three generations.
[3:28] So that was a valuable step.
[3:30] But that was best practice for a long time and still has some value in thinking about
[3:35] strategy.
[3:36] But strategy has also moved on.
[3:38] It's moved on from three circles to seven principles to 10 element frameworks that give
[3:44] you more understanding of what the factors are that you need to manage and what your
[3:48] priorities are in that new framework.
[3:50] So the new framework involves history, culture, challenges, history, purpose, vision, values, governance, family wealth structuring, wealth management, family business ownership, philanthropy and social engagement, family office and ecosystem, family dynamics and generational transitions.
[4:10] and risk management across the whole piece that gives you a much more sophisticated view of what
[4:17] strategy is and therefore broadens the range of what strategy can create for you moving forward.
[4:24] A second element of thinking which is different is looking at values. Best practice for a long
[4:29] time was understanding a short list of values that were shared across your family and emphasizing
[4:34] them in your family constitutions, vision statements, etc. But where we are now is thinking
[4:41] in a more critical way that values are not just good values. If you want to create cultural change,
[4:47] which is the reason for looking at and doing value statements to begin with, if you want to
[4:52] create culture change, you emphasize good values and you understand, identify, and respond to bad
[4:59] values as well. There are seven virtues, there are seven vices, there are lots of historical
[5:06] sources of ancient wisdom that think about good and bad values. So value statements are good,
[5:13] they are worthwhile doing, but if you want full modern and future benefit from your thinking,
[5:18] look at both good practices, good values and bad values, and put together a chart that says,
[5:24] what am I going to start doing which will be better? What am I going to stop doing that's
[5:29] bad? And what am I going to continue doing that is a continuing best practice? And finally,
[5:34] thinking about leadership. For many, many years, traditional leadership was leading from the head
[5:39] of the table with experience, expertise, wisdom, knowledge, and providing direction to the creation
[5:44] of family councils, family constitutions, family business boards, etc. And now it's different.
[5:52] People need to be engaged rather than instructed, and people want to get involved in different ways
[5:58] in the different aspects of that family framework. So thinking about leadership,
[6:03] it's as much about leading from the heart of the family as the head of the table, to use a line
[6:08] from one of the 10 books that I've written in this area. This one was Sarah Hamilton on family
[6:14] legacy and leadership, that there's a different kind of leadership that's going to be successful.
[6:19] And if you look at that 10 element framework, that requires a different model of leadership
[6:22] as well. If you want to use the state of the art framework, you need to have a management style
[6:27] and a leadership style, which I describe as being consistent with the Renaissance model of leadership
[6:33] or Renaissance men in the past and Renaissance men and women in the present that can master and
[6:40] integrate the disciplines of their time. That's what Renaissance leaders do. And that's a new
[6:46] kind of leadership. It requires knowledge of psychology, economics, fiscal policies,
[6:51] international strategies, multi-jurisdictional strategies, and lots of complicated expertises
[6:57] that a family will not have entirely on its own and may need to bring in outside resources to
[7:03] supplement what's there already within the family. So moving from best practice to next practice is
[7:08] a very important part of good strategy, and applying that in strategic frameworks, in leadership
[7:14] models, and in value statements can all lead to a much better future for your family, but require
[7:20] all of us to step up to the future, an unknown future in a turbulent time, which requires
[7:27] dedication, effort, insight, and that combination of best of the best and next practice to be
[7:35] a winning, enduring, successful family, preserving and growing your family wealth and strengthening
[7:41] your family for the immediate challenges and the challenges beyond.
[7:46] So many thanks for being here today.
[7:47] If you like what you hear, if you found this useful, please let us know.
[7:51] You can find us on our websites, rafflestrust.com is one of them.
[7:56] You can find me on LinkedIn.
[7:58] And if you want to contact me directly, you can contact me on MHD, for Mark Cain's Danielle, at rafflestrust.com.
[8:06] I look forward to hearing from you and to continuing our dialogue on these extremely important issues at an extremely sensitive and important time.
[8:16] Thank you very much.

## Source and limits

This transcript is the recorded wording of the episode, hosted by Mark Haynes Daniell. It is general framework and experience, not investment, legal or tax advice. Produced by Podmark.