The First Step Toward Family Unity and Generational Wealth Transition — Legacy / Grant & Christine Wattie
Legacy / Grant & Christine Wattie
Legacy  ·  Grant & Christine Wattie

The First Step Toward Family Unity and
Generational Wealth
Transition.

Keep Your Family. Keep Your Legacy.

For $1M+ family business founders navigating
succession, sale, or transition.

Grant and Christine Wattie
Grant & Christine Wattie
Does this sound like your family?

You lie awake with the same questions. Who will hold this together when I'm gone? Do they actually want this? What happens to us, not the business, us, when this finally comes?

There's someone in your family carrying something that's never been said out loud. You can feel it at every dinner. Everyone can. Nobody names it.

The succession plan is done. Paid for. Sent. Never heard back. The silence is its own kind of answer.

You and your partner built this together. In every meeting you present as on the same page. In the car on the way home, one of you says what you actually think. The conversation ends there.

The wealth transferred. The relationships didn't. You tell yourself it'll settle. It hasn't.

If any of that is your family, you're in the right place.
Those feelings aren't the problem. They're the signal.
True wealth is family. Not the trust document. Not the shareholder agreement. Not the name on the building. If you believe this, we work for you.
What We Do For Families

For over 20 years we have been helping founders and their families keep the family together.

You have done the legal work. The financial planning. The succession documents. What you may not yet have done is examine whether the relationships those plans depend on are strong enough to carry them.

That is the work we do. The trust. The unspoken expectations. The conversations that need to happen before the wealth moves. The part of this transition that no document can resolve.

Through the Legacy process, your family learns the specific skills to communicate honestly under pressure, move from unspoken expectations to clear agreements, rebuild trust where it has eroded, and create a shared mission that gives the next generation a reason to show up that is larger than obligation.

We have worked with over 5,000 couples and families across New Zealand, Australia, and globally. Every family works directly with Grant and Christine. Not junior staff.

Estate plans take care of the assets.
We take care of the relationships the assets depend on.
"Many of even the most financially successful families bury their talents under layers of silence, leading to failed succession, resentment, and heartache. Grant and Christine Wattie offer family members the courage to step up, be present, ask important questions, listen, and connect. With the Watties as your guides, unbury your talents and thrive, together."
Keith Whitaker PhD
Wise Counsel Research
Co-author, Complete Family Wealth
We help your family
Surface the distrust and silence that puts wealth and family unity at risk
Move from unspoken expectations to clear, honest agreements
Prepare the next generation to contribute and lead with confidence
Build a Family Legacy Mission as the north star for every decision
Navigate succession, sale, or transition with both wealth and relationships intact

70% of family wealth transitions fail.
Almost never for financial reasons.

Breakdown in trust and communication. No shared sense of purpose. No agreed picture of what the family is actually protecting. The advisory industry devotes almost all its attention to the financial 30%. Your family deserves someone working on the rest.

01
Conflict and Silence
Some families fight openly. Others have learned it's safer not to. Either way the conversation your family needs to have isn't happening. The silence accumulates quietly for years until the succession arrives and everything surfaces at once. By then it's harder to fix than it would have been to prevent.
02
Expectations Without Agreements
Your family is likely running on assumptions that have never been tested in honest conversation. Expectations that were never spoken cannot become agreements. And unspoken expectations don't stay still. They harden into the stories each person carries: he doesn't trust me, they always preferred her, I gave twenty years and it meant nothing.
03
A Plan the Family Cannot Hold
The documents may be done. The lawyers paid. But the question nobody asked before the plan was finalised: are the relationships in your family strong enough to carry it? That is the missing layer. The one that determines whether the plan holds or fractures the family trying to implement it.
Multi-generational family
One family we worked with.
The silence had lasted twenty years.
The conversation lasted ninety minutes. Your family is worth saving. We have never worked with one that wasn't.
Wherever your family is starting from, that is where we begin.
Take the Diagnostic

We Know This
From the Inside.

We nearly lost what we were trying to protect.

Fourteen years into our marriage, while our photography business was taking us into Malaysian palaces and the homes of future prime ministers, Christine packed her bags. The marriage that looked successful from the outside had been quietly eroding for years. We were busy, building, travelling, raising three children. Every day looked like it was working.

The machinery underneath had been failing for a long time. We just hadn't examined it.

Our daughter Rachel said seven words that changed everything.

I just want you and Mum.

Grant sold the business. We chose the marriage. We did the real work. What we learned rebuilding what had broken became the foundation of everything we now teach.

We know what it costs to leave important conversations until it is almost too late. We also know what becomes possible when someone finally says the actual thing.

That is what we bring to your family. Not theory. The lived experience of people who have been where you are and found the way through.

Certified professional counsellors (MNZAC)  ·  10,000+ client sessions  ·  40+ years married
Trained at New Zealand's first and most respected family therapy centre
Authors of Legacy, endorsed by James E. Hughes Jr., Dennis Jaffe PhD, Keith Whitaker PhD
Every family works directly with Grant and Christine. Not with junior staff.
Grant and Christine Wattie
"Modern shamans... holding the space for what matters most."
James E. Hughes Jr.
Author, Family Wealth — Keeping It in the Family
"What a wonderful book. It delivers so deeply on how to have a deep, honest and consequential family discussion."
Dennis T. Jaffe PhD
Author, Borrowed from Your Grandchildren
"The Watties offer family members the courage to step up, be present, ask important questions, listen, and connect."
Keith Whitaker PhD
Wise Counsel Research, co-author Complete Family Wealth
Keep Your Family. Keep Your Legacy.
Lead Yourself. Rebuild Trust. Create a Shared Future.
01
Lead Yourself First
You cannot lead your family through this transition while blaming, avoiding, or waiting for everyone else to change. The work starts with you. Not managing behaviour. Shifting the context you're operating from. Who are you being in this family right now? When that shifts, everything downstream shifts with it. One person changes and the whole room changes around them.
02
Rebuild Trust and Communication
Trust is the outcome of integrity. When your words and actions match, trust grows. When they don't, it erodes quietly over years. We give you the specific tools to move your family from unspoken expectations to clear agreements. From the version everyone performs in the meeting to what is actually true. From what gets said in the car to what gets said in the room.
03
Create a Shared Future
The succession plan is not the legacy. Your family mission is. When your family can say in plain words what it stands for, what the wealth is actually for, and what you are building together, the documents have something real to hold. Your next generation has a reason to show up that is larger than obligation. That is the inheritance that cannot be divided in a courtroom.
The Legacy Process™

Three phases. Every family. Every time.

We start with a private diagnostic. From there, two paths: private coaching or the Founders Boardroom. Our work is done when your family can navigate difficult conversations on its own.

Phase One
Reveal
Your family completes the Family Legacy Readiness Diagnostic privately. Five domains. Individual reports. We identify exactly where your family is exposed before major decisions are made.
· Family Legacy Readiness Diagnostic
· Private individual reports
· Process agreement
Phase Two
Rebuild
Using Relational Due Diligence™ and the 3D Relational Simulation™ we surface unspoken expectations and broken agreements. Your family gets the specific tools to move from silence to honest conversation.
· Relational Due Diligence™
· 3D Relational Simulation™
· Trust and communication tools
Phase Three
Realign
Your family builds its Legacy Mission and a shared picture of what comes next. You leave with a One-Page Legacy Plan and a 120-Day Execution Roadmap.
· One-Page Legacy Plan
· 120-Day Execution Roadmap
· Family Legacy Mission

Choose Your Path.

Keep Your Family. Keep Your Legacy.
Private
Legacy Founder Coaching
For the founder couple who know the technical plan is not enough.

If you want to do the real work privately, this is your path. Whether you are preparing your family for what comes next, or you are already in the difficult place and need a way back rather than a way forward.

You work directly with Grant and Christine. Every session. No junior staff. Together you work through the three outcomes: leading yourself first, rebuilding trust and communication, and creating a shared future your whole family genuinely wants to be part of.

Wealth protected. Family united.

Apply for Coaching
Peer Boardroom
The Legacy Founders Boardroom
Quarterly. Peer-supported. For $1M+ founder couples navigating succession, sale, or transition.

If you want structure, peer support, and a proven 120-day rhythm, this is your path. Every 120 days you meet with other $1M+ founder families navigating the same transition, facilitated by Grant and Christine. One practical Legacy training per session. Peer support from people who understand the specific weight of what you are carrying.

Every 120 days you leave with
A One-Page Legacy Plan
A 120-Day Execution Roadmap
The next family conversation to have
The next expectation to turn into an agreement
The next step toward sale, exit, or succession
Apply for the Boardroom

What Becomes Possible.

"We had been managing the distance for years. We didn't know that's what we were doing until Grant named it. The conversation we'd been avoiding took ninety minutes. That was two years ago. We are different people."
Founding couple
Family business, New Zealand
"I walked out of every family meeting for years feeling like something had been decided that nobody had actually said. For the first time the thing that was actually happening got named. It changed everything."
Second generation heir
Agricultural enterprise, Australia
"My succession plan was technically sound. Grant and Christine showed me the conversation I had never had with my son. That conversation was the plan. Everything else was just paperwork."
Founder and patriarch
Family enterprise, New Zealand

Start Here.

Three ways to begin. No commitment required.
The Book Legacy by Grant and Christine Wattie
Legacy
Read it before any other decision. It asks the question most families spend twenty years avoiding: can the relationships this plan depends on actually carry it?
Get the Book
The Diagnostic FAMILY LEGACY READINESS DIAGNOSTIC Trust Green Agreements Amber Succession Green Coordination Green Couple Amber Five domains. Fifteen minutes. Private.
Family Legacy Readiness Diagnostic
Five domains. Private. Fifteen minutes. Shows you exactly where your family may be exposed before the plan is finalised. Free to take.
Take the Diagnostic
The Webinar 30 MIN · FREE ACCESS WEBINAR RECORDING Watch with your partner. Grant & Christine Wattie
The Conversation Every Family Must Have
Thirty minutes. Watch it with your partner. The five things that determine whether a family gets through succession with the wealth and the relationships both intact.
Watch the Webinar
Common Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Legacy is a programme for $1M+ family business founders who want to pass on their wealth without losing their family in the process. For couples approaching succession, sale, or transition who want the relationships to be as solid as the documents.
Traditional succession planning answers who gets what, when, and how. That work is essential. What it doesn't answer is whether the relationships that plan depends on are strong enough to hold it. We examine the trust, the unspoken expectations, and the avoided conversations that no document can resolve. We sit alongside the legal and financial process as the missing seat at the table.
Selling the business often intensifies family dynamics rather than resolving them. Suddenly there is significant wealth, no common purpose, and different ideas about what the money is for. We work with founder couples before the sale to establish clear agreements, restore trust, and create a shared family mission. The goal is to exit with both the wealth and the family intact.
Every succession plan depends on relationships to carry it. Relational Due Diligence examines those relationships honestly before the plan is finalised. It surfaces unspoken expectations, avoided conversations, and the assumptions that could fracture the family once the wealth moves.
The research is consistent: 70% fail due to breakdown in trust and communication, and heirs unprepared for the responsibility. Less than 3% fail for financial or legal reasons. The problem is almost always human. The advisory process almost always ignores it. We work on the 70%.
A private fifteen-minute assessment across five domains: Trust, Agreements, Succession, Coordination, and the Couple and Legacy relationship. It produces an individual report showing where your family may be exposed before major decisions are made. Free to take.
You receive a private report. If it surfaces discomfort, uncertainty, or an avoided conversation, the next step is a thirty-minute private conversation with Grant and Christine to explore whether a full family process would help.
A private quarterly peer group for $1M+ founder couples navigating succession, sale, or transition. Facilitated by Grant and Christine every 120 days. Each session includes practical Legacy training, peer support, and a 120-day execution roadmap. Members leave with a one-page Legacy Plan and the next conversation their family needs to have.
We start with the founder couple. The relationship at the centre of the enterprise is the operating system everything else runs on. When that relationship is clear and aligned, the wider family conversations become more honest and more productive. We work with the wider family where appropriate.
The diagnostic takes fifteen minutes. The webinar is thirty minutes. A private coaching engagement typically runs three to six months. The Boardroom is an ongoing quarterly commitment. The first conversation costs nothing.
Havelock North, New Zealand. They work with families globally, in person and via video. Family wealth does not respect geography and neither do we.
Forty years of marriage. More than 10,000 client sessions across two decades. Certified professional counsellors trained at New Zealand's first and most respected family therapy centre. Authors of Legacy, endorsed by James E. Hughes Jr., Dennis Jaffe PhD, and Keith Whitaker PhD. Every family works directly with Grant and Christine. Not junior staff.

The conversation that changes
everything hasn't happened yet.

It's not as dangerous as it feels.
It is far less dangerous than the silence.
Keep Your Family. Keep Your Legacy.
Book a 30-Minute Private Conversation
grant@grantwattie.com  ·  +64 22 240 7623  ·  grantwattie.com
Havelock North, New Zealand  ·  Serving families globally
With Aroha, Grant and Christine Wattie.
Legacy / Grant & Christine Wattie
Keep Your Family. Keep Your Legacy.
grantwattie.com/legacy-advisory  ·  © 2025 Grant & Christine Wattie
grantwattie.com
Couples & Relationship Work