We often think of large institutional investors like pension funds, university endowments and sovereign wealth funds as behemoth organizations with highly complex investment decision-making processes. In contrast, many private wealth clients invest to solve very human problems, like preparing for retirement, for college savings, or for a more comfortable lifestyle in the future. Different as they may seem, are there lessons that these large institutions hold for your clients?

While it might be true that many large pools of institutional capital are intricate, sophisticated organizations...