Architecture

Across the world, founder-led empires are discovering a painful truth. Legal architecture cannot repair what human architecture has never built. Yesterday’s Financial Times account of the Solorz succession battle in Poland, arriving so soon after the Murdoch saga where a father bought out his own children to unwind an arrangement he once believed would secure harmony, reveals a global pattern. Structures are polished, advisers many, documents impeccable, yet families walk into conflict because the essential conversation never took place.

Too often these structures begin with tax efficiency, legal optimisation, or the illusion that control can be preserved indefinitely. This turns succession into a technical exercise when it is, in truth, a human transition. Children grow into adults with their own talents and visions of continuity. In recomposed families, or in families with children from different parents, expectations become even more delicate and must be addressed long before documents appear. These children are not extensions of the founder; they are partners in the enterprise, that is, if the founder intends the enterprise to outlive him.

One fact remains: a legacy cannot be taken to the grave. Pharaohs tried. The Egyptian Museum holds the evidence. Choices, sometimes difficult ones, must be made. Unresolved matters do not vanish. They wait, and sooner or later return with greater force than if they had been faced early. The world moves in hoops, not straight lines, and rigid texts rarely keep pace with living relationships.

Yet many transitions begin with documents instead of dialogue. Trusts are formed. Foundations settled. Committees appear. Clauses multiply. Structures grow faster than understanding. Titles are handed out as substitutes for clarity, roles assigned before their meaning exists. What was meant to stabilise begins to confine. Fractures surface. Authority slips through the instruments meant to preserve it. A spouse becomes a symbol rather than a participant. Courts become the final arena. What should have unfolded quietly becomes a public drama. The family tears first. The business tears next.

In the GCC, several disputes have already made the news. More will erupt as aging patriarchs face decisions long deferred. No one seems to want to listen. Structural fixes continue while the human work remains untouched.

This is where governance must reclaim its place. It is a discipline long overlooked, yet it belongs at the forefront. It requires time and courage, but it remains the condition precedent without which no structure endures. Texts are necessary, but never sufficient. Legacies survive when human beings are aligned before documents. Only then can architecture carry meaning. Only then can a legacy move into the After-After™ with dignity.

Conversation is the real architecture. Everything else is engineering.

W.