Written by Suzanne St. John Smith M.A., M.A. (Psych.), FEA

Every July, millions of people watch the Tour de France believing they’re witnessing an individual sport. They see one rider standing on the podium wearing the yellow jersey, another celebrating a dramatic stage victory, and the cameras naturally follow the stars.

But cyclists know a different story. No one wins the Tour de France alone.

As someone who spends many hours on a bike, often climbing up mountains in the process, and follows professional cycling closely, I’ve always admired what happens behind the scenes. The strongest rider rarely succeeds on strength alone. Every victory is built on the efforts of teammates who spend hours protecting, positioning, encouraging, and sometimes sacrificing their own ambitions so that one rider has the best possible chance to succeed. And the longer I’ve worked with business families, the more I’ve realised that exceptional family enterprise advisory teams operate in much the same way.

Choosing the Right Rider

Before a stage even begins, a cycling team knows who has the best chance of success. If the day finishes with a steep mountain climb, they’ll rally around their strongest climber. If it’s a flat stage likely to end in a sprint, the strategy changes entirely.

The team doesn’t ask, “Who wants the spotlight today?” Instead, they ask, “Who’s best suited for what’s ahead?” That’s exactly how effective advisory teams should think. Business families don’t need every advisor trying to lead every conversation. They need the right expertise at the right moment.

Sometimes that means a governance specialist takes the lead. Other situations call for someone with deep experience in succession planning, family systems, financial structuring, or communication facilitation. Strong advisory teams aren’t defined by who leads most often. They’re defined by their willingness to let the most appropriate person lead when their expertise is needed. The family’s success, not individual recognition, is the objective.

The Quiet Professionals Who Make Success Possible

One of my favourite roles in professional cycling is the domestique. Most spectators never notice them. They’re rarely interviewed after a race and almost never stand on the podium. Yet many of the sport’s most respected riders have spent their careers in this role.

A domestique fetches water, shields teammates from the wind, sets the pace, chases down breakaways, and stays beside the team leader when the race becomes difficult. Their job isn’t to win. Their job is to make winning possible.

I’ve often thought that family enterprise advising has its own domestiques. For example, some advisors gather critical information before meetings. Others quietly notice tensions developing beneath the surface. Some coordinate conversations, provide specialised expertise, or support another advisor who’s leading a particularly challenging discussion.

Their contributions aren’t always the most visible. But they’re often the reason the work succeeds. The best advisory teams recognise that supporting a colleague is never a lesser role. In fact, it’s often one of the most valuable contributions a professional can make.

Leadership Changes with the Terrain

Professional cycling rewards specialisation. Some riders thrive in the mountains. Others excel in individual time trials. Sprinters may spend hours conserving energy before exploding into action during the final few hundred metres. Each rider contributes differently because each stage demands something different.

Family enterprises are no different. A family designing governance structures requires different expertise than a family preparing for generational transition. Strategic planning calls upon different strengths than facilitating emotionally charged conversations between siblings. Experienced advisory teams understand that leadership should shift as the terrain changes. There is wisdom and humility in recognising when another teammate is better equipped to take the front.

Riding Together

One of the most remarkable sights in cycling is the peloton. Dozens of riders travel at extraordinary speeds separated by only inches. They conserve energy by riding together, but doing so requires complete trust. One poorly timed movement can affect everyone.

Watching the peloton has always reminded me of collaborative advisory work. Families benefit most when advisors communicate openly, share information appropriately, respect one another’s expertise, and present a coordinated approach. Clients shouldn’t feel as though they’re receiving competing advice from multiple professionals. They should experience one cohesive team working toward a shared purpose. That level of trust doesn’t happen accidentally. It’s built over time.

When the Plan Changes

Even the strongest riders have difficult days. A leader may struggle on a mountain climb, crash during a descent, or simply have an off day. When that happens, teammates don’t criticise them or compete with them. They rally around them. They slow the pace, offer encouragement, shield them from the wind, and adjust the strategy to give their leader the best chance of recovering.

Advisory teams face their own unexpected climbs. Family dynamics evolve. Business conditions change. New information emerges. Conversations take unexpected turns. The strongest teams don’t cling rigidly to the original plan. They adapt. They support one another. And they keep moving toward the outcome that matters most for the client family.

The Real Winners

When a rider wins a stage of the Tour de France, only one person stands on the top step of the podium. Yet everyone who understands cycling knows that victory belongs to far more than the rider wearing the jersey. It belongs to the teammates who spent the day riding into the wind. It belongs to the rider who sacrificed their own opportunity to chase down a breakaway. It belongs to the strategist who knew exactly when to attack. The celebration may belong to one rider. The accomplishment belongs to the entire team.

Family enterprise advising is remarkably similar. When a family successfully navigates succession, strengthens governance, or learns to have conversations they once believed were impossible, it can appear that one advisor made it happen. The reality is usually quite different. Behind those outcomes is often a team of professionals who trusted one another, shared their expertise generously, and were willing to step forward or step back, depending on what the family needed most.

That’s one of the lessons I’ve taken from cycling. The strongest professionals aren’t the ones who insist on leading every stage. They’re the ones who know when to lead, when to support, and when another teammate is better positioned to take the front. Because in both cycling and family enterprise advising, individual excellence matters. But it’s collective effort that wins the race.

I experienced my first modern circus performance this spring, and as I watched Mystère unfold, I was reminded that what appears effortless to the audience is the product of incredible discipline behind the scenes requiring coordination and remarkable interdependence. The enterprising families I serve face a similar balancing act made even more complex by lengthening lifespans and longer intergenerational overlaps.

Depending on the country, between 25 – 50% of the GDP for each of the US, Canada, Europe and the UK comes from family enterprises. The importance of these businesses to their national economies and the communities where they operate is enormous, and the largest among them have an outsized impact.

Therefore, leaders in these larger families must continually invest in their assets, including relational capital, to ensure they function at their best given that millions of customers, employees and other stakeholders depend on them. This means ensuring their collaborative muscles are both strong and flexible and that each member of the family system understands how they contribute to this stewardship. This is particularly important given the longevity boom and the growing importance of intergenerational collaboration in family decision-making.

Interestingly, to become a more effective collaborator one must also commit to developing a greater self-understanding. I have visited both MEA campuses and there is vast beauty and wisdom embedded in the land, ocean and among the people who are drawn to together with gravitational force. My most recent sojourn in Baja hosted an age range of 37-75 and one truly amazing soul surprised us all by cartwheeling to the front of the room to accept her graduation certificate! I marvelled at her vitality and wondered how she kept so nimble. Turns out, she comes from her own family business – three generations of elite circus performers and she needs that acrobatic flexibility to juggle the dynamics of managing her thriving PR business, supporting her still mighty 90+ year old father, her adult children and an array of nieces and nephews navigating life’s transitions.

Transitions are a natural part of growth and learning and can be found at multiple points of an adult’s work, family and community lives. Constructive tension can be deeply illuminating and in Baja everyone was processing the personal frictions that accompany each chapter of our lives. It inspired some reflection on my own personal and professional evolution beginning with: Who am I becoming and how will this change how I support my clients? What follows are some questions that emerged from my meditation. They may be relevant to you and your family.

1. Identity and self-understanding

• Who are my clients becoming as individuals and how will that affect their role(s) inside their family system?
• Will advances in their self-understanding lead to increases in what Chip Conley calls Transitional Intelligence (TQ) and by applying this wisdom thereby easing tension and increasing family harmony?
• Will norms shift so that rising generations see their lives in chapters, devote less time to building and stewarding their businesses, and more easily transition into new identities and sources of meaning beyond family leadership roles?

2. Succession, tenure and leadership roles

• What are the implications for key leadership roles in an environment where physical and mental vitality is extended due to longevity improvements over time?
• What will happen inside enterprising families when we find situations where three and maybe four generations of family could be in the same workplace or supported by the same family office?
• Will they be able to reframe the anxiety producing succession process to one of continuity planning welcoming those ready and able to continue to scale the impact intended?
• Or will reluctant ‘now’ generations hold on to power longer due to increased longevity? If so, what would this mean for those rising generations and their desire to put their hand(s) on the tiller? Where will their energy be directed if there is less turnover at the leadership table?

3. Collaboration, values and governance

• Will models of collaboration be re-imagined to balance these generational tensions to reduce unproductive friction inside the family system?
• How can alignment of personal values contribute to stronger intergenerational collaborative outcomes? What to do when values are not aligned?
• How can enlightened families better integrate novel insights from rising generations along with the wisdom of long tenured family members in mutually respectful and productive ways?
• How can we optimize governance renewal in light of this need to integrate transitional capacity and wisdom over longer cooperative cycles?
• Given these possibilities, what capacities will these families need from their professional advisors to support their collaborative evolution?

One question leads to another, and I have intuitions about them all, but not definitive answers; each family situation is unique, yet these general shifts and implications apply to everyone. This rising generation of family enterprise leaders has an opportunity to re-imagine what intergenerational collaboration and stewardship can look like as it readies for each successive generation living longer. It will take some vision, fortitude and likely some acrobatics while we establish some new collaborative norms, but with a shared set of intentions, several generations can bring their capacities together to navigate the complex world that awaits them.

Chip and I want to know what you think. Send us an email if you want to be among a cadre of progressive families that will explore these questions together online or in the serenity of an MEA private retreat as we’re considering convening a small group of families for this kind of deep dive. We welcome your thoughts!