Background

The thirty-eighth floor view of the Kuala Lumpur skyline is spectacular, but no one is paying attention as the heirs of a seventy-five-year-old real estate empire nearly come to blows at a board meeting. The eldest son, Patrick, who has been groomed to replace his father, is upset with his sister Anna, a pediatrician who has never worked in the family business, for again criticizing his plans.

“You don’t even work here,” he snaps. Anna fires back: “This deal contradicts everything our family stands for.” Decades of buried resentments and misunderstood intentions bring the meeting to an end without further discussion of Patrick’s proposal as Datuk Lim,* the ninety-year-old patriarch, watches in dismay. He fears their conflicts and rivalry may destroy the firm he spent his life building.

Unproductive communication practices, hierarchies, and unspoken expectations are often a reality in Asian families. Divergent expectations of how to communicate effectively can often result in family conflicts and lost opportunities that can hinder the enduring success of a family enterprise.

Historically, many powerful Asian CEOs and leaders have never had to worry about family communication impacting the business’s success, because they were the head of both the family and the business. Today, younger generations frequently expect more egalitarian relationships, creating challenging leadership planning for the next generation. Older generation members might assume that everything is fine, while younger members might feel stifled, unheard, and uncertain about how to raise difficult topics without lighting a fire.

Why Asian Families Struggle with Communication

When multigenerational Asian families were surveyed using the Communication360 assessment,¹ the results illustrated a consistent disparity: senior generations rated the family’s communication effectiveness higher than the younger generations. The grandfather might think everyone’s having honest conversations. The granddaughter? She has been quietly biting her tongue for years.

The Hierarchy Trap

This gap isn’t just generational—it’s psychological. Senior members often sit in positions of power, and this power shapes their perception. Research shows people in authority often overestimate the transparency and effectiveness of their communication.²

In Asia, next-generation family members self-censor to avoid “disrespecting” their elders. For example, when responding to this assessment, one next-generation member wrote, “I’ve had concerns for years, but mentioning them would be like critiquing Dad’s karaoke singing—technically true, socially suicidal.”

The Elephant in the Boardroom

Enterprising families can talk all day about shipping routes and market share, but mention succession or a change in leadership, and the air thickens. They may speak every day—debating for hours at the dinner table which restaurant serves the best chicken rice, resolving the business’s operational issues, planning celebration surprises—but they avoid the most important conversations, like who will run the company next or why the recently graduated cousin was made the vice president of business development.

From Insights to Action: Creating a Family Code of Conduct

Once the family communications are better understood, many successful families strive to translate their newfound self-awareness into systemic change by developing a Family Code of Conduct and agreeing on clear guidelines for effective communication.

Using the Communication360 Feedback Report, the advisor can facilitate a discussion to identify the family’s communication strengths and areas for improvement as well as two or three behaviors that would improve communications. These behaviors associated with the family’s communication practices could then be included in their broader Code of Conduct.

How This Works in Practice: Stories from the Field

The Widjaja* family, who own a third-generation transportation business in Indonesia, had a practice of avoiding potentially difficult conversations between generations—until they saw the results of the stark divide through raw data.

As an action item, each of the family members also agreed to take another assessment to assess their own listening skills as a part of their ongoing personal development. Three months later, the family reported fewer conflicts and more productive family meetings.

Tips for Advisors

Despite the ongoing development of AI technology that, at some point, may be able generate communicate insights for each family member, for the time being, there’s no tech that can replace the well-prepared advisor—the one who knows when to push, pause, and pivot.

Below are a few tips for advisors who want to embrace technology, data, and self-reflection on communication styles into their practice.

*Names changed for privacy

References

¹ “Family and Business Learning Online 360 Tools,” Family and Business Learning, 2024, at www.fab-learning.com.

² Galinsky, Adam D., Joe C. Magee, M. Ina Inesi, and Deborah H. Gruenfeld. “Power and Perspectives Not Taken.” Psychological Science 17, no. 12 (2006): 1068-1074. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01824.x.