What's a doom loop and how do I get my family out of one?

A doom loop is a recurring cycle of the same unsolved problem. Kris Kluver, in The Dysfunctional Family Office, names them directly. You solve a problem. It comes back next week. You solve it again. It comes back the week after. The pattern means you're addressing the symptom, not the root cause. Most UHNW families have at least two or three doom loops running at any given time. The same fight about a sibling's role. The same disagreement about an investment direction. The same unspoken tension at every holiday dinner. The fix is structural. Use the Five Whys to find the actual root cause. Then address that, not the surface symptom. The doom loop will stop only when the root is named and worked on. Most families try to solve the same fight harder, with more documents, more meetings, more advisors. None of that helps.