Strategies for trusted advisors to deescalate emotions.
Robert Williams sat across from his longtime client, Jim Smith. A seasoned estate planning attorney, Robert was perplexed. As he presented the meticulously crafted estate documents for Jim’s signature, he seemed to hesitate. Jim tapped nervously on the polished mahogany table.
That wasn’t like him.
Robert explained the legal intricacies of the documents, and Jim nodded. But there was a distant look in Jim’s eyes that he couldn’t ignore. Over the past three decades of their professional relationship, he had never seen this side of Jim’s personality. Jim was typically decisive. Sharp. Optimistic.
“Jim, I’ve gone through every detail to ensure this plan meets your objectives,” Robert said.
“I know,” Jim replied. “But something doesn’t feel right.”
Robert leaned back in his chair. He could sense that something had shifted in their usual interactions. He’d never witnessed this type of paralysis by Jim.
Robert realized that he needed to approach this situation differently.
Founder Paralysis
Trusted advisors to founders—attorneys like Robert or other professionals—often encounter client challenges that have little to do with their legal and financial training. Founder anxiety is one of those challenges. Though concealed beneath the veneer of success, it can impede traditional estate planning processes, leaving both trusted advisors and clients at an impasse.
Founder anxiety can manifest in various forms, often stemming from fears of mortality, or uncertainties about the future. As highlighted in our previous article on founder losses, founders often struggle with feelings of incompetence, irrelevance, incontinence, and impotence as they age. These hidden losses can significantly impact their decision-making process during estate planning.
Most often, the founder can’t articulate these fears, though they manifest in numerous ways, including paralysis, resistance, and emotional volatility.
There’s a neurological phenomenon at play when founders become paralyzed by fear. It’s called the “amygdala hijack.” This phenomenon refers to a situation where the amygdala, a part of the brain responsible for emotional responses, overrides rational thought processes, often leading to impulsive or extreme reactions to stimuli perceived as threats. While the amygdala is involved in processing emotions, particularly fear and aggression, it can sometimes respond disproportionately to perceived threats, bypassing higher cognitive functions.
Physical manifestations of an amygdala hijack can vary from person to person but may include: increased heart rate, sweating, rapid breathing, muscle tension, tunnel vision, and cognitive impairment. A combination of these can look like paralysis.
These physical manifestations are part of the body’s natural response to perceived threats and are designed to help individuals respond instinctually to potential dangers. In the case of the founder, the threat is irrelevancy.
Founder paralysis is rooted in the potential and real fear of the founder being left behind and losing their identity. Often the emotion is felt but not identified by the founder. The founder can’t explain it.
Ask the Right Questions: The Antidote to Founder Paralysis
In these moments, it’s more productive to engage a question-focused approach, which aims to deescalate a founder’s emotions. This will feel counterintuitive for most advisors who are solutions-driven. Not to mention, it will likely slow down the process advisors are eager to accelerate.
Of course, every client is different, and every relationship is different. Depending on the bond between the founder and trusted advisor, some questions may create fruitful discussion; some may create a blowup. It’s up to the trusted advisor to carefully determine which questions are appropriate. Always remember that the objective of the questioning is to begin a conversation. Because it is through the conversation—reasoning—that an advisor can help deescalate emotions and get blood flowing from the amygdala to the pre-frontal cortex, the reasoning part of the brain.
The conversation might go like this.
When a trusted advisor senses hesitancy, he/she might first acknowledge the behavior: “I see you’re hesitating. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”
When permission is granted, the trusted advisor might ask one or a series of the following questions:
- Are you hesitating because you’re not sure what you are going to do after signing?
- Does signing feel like you are at the end of the road?
- Are you wondering if your family can live within the plan you created?
- Do you feel that others will think you are becoming incompetent because you created this plan?
- Do you feel others might think you feel you’re losing it which is why you created this plan?
- Have you done anything to alert everyone about the soft assets you have created such as values, culture, history, legacy?
By framing the discussion in terms of the founder’s hesitations and concerns, the advisor creates a safe space for the founder to open up about his/her fears without feeling judged or threatened. Avoiding direct references to mortality allows a founder to explore feelings about relevancy in a more comfortable manner.
As the conversation progresses, an advisor can guide the founder towards further introspection about his/her resistance to change by helping him/her see the dangers of not changing. First a trusted advisor can acknowledge the founder’s success: “You can continue doing things the way you have done them for the past 40 years or so. You’ve been very successful.”
But then shift the conversation: “But if you don’t change, the risk is that change will be forced on you. As time goes on, that risk becomes greater. In your business you have always tried to anticipate risk.”
Based on personal experience, most founders understand that when you anticipate risk correctly, the harm you would have experienced if you didn’t prepare is generally greater than if you did prepare. Advisors must help the founder grapple with this: How do you prepare for the risk of not being able to continue as you have been? This simple question presses the founder to take ownership of his/her situation, so he/she can prepare for the risks as time goes by.
Change can be easy, or it can be difficult. Difficult changes always have risk—and founders must face that risk. If the founder doesn’t reach some sort of conclusion that is within his/her control to reach, the founder gives up control of his/her outcome.
The role of the trusted advisor is to help the founder deescalate the emotional portion of the process so the founder can think more clearly about the options he/she must deal with.
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