Three decades ago, the founders of The Heritage Institute embarked upon an original research project to understand why only a handful of families thrived and prospered across generations even though most families imploded. The key takeaway from this extensive study was that successful multi-generational families worked consciously and consistently to create, nurture, and conserve a culture of communication, trust, and mentoring within the family. And they pursued that noble objective within the context of a clear and united understanding of their family’s distinct purpose.

The study and the researcher’s experiences with families identified twelve specific attributes, behaviors, and attitudes that families who have maintained their family wealth and unity for three or more generations consistently shared. Families who integrate these elements into their family life are ideally positioned to create a family culture that can equip the family to become stronger and more unified today, and remain that way for generations. These key conclusions were later substantiated by independent researchers, and recent studies have concluded that creating such a culture is the key to success for multi-generational families across the globe.

Culture. “Culture” is commonly defined as “the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group” and “the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization.”

Over the years (sadly) there has been much more written about creating culture within businesses than inside families. As for what has been written about culture in families, most of it has focused on the attributes of UHNW multi-generational families, rather than on how they became and sustained themselves as successful multi-generational families.

Fortunately, the process for creating a family culture is in many ways a mirror-image of how culture is created in business. For example, in businesses, one of the first steps is to identify the entity’s mission/vision. Next the business identifies the processes and structures necessary to fulfill that mission/vision, and then recruits and trains the successors for the transfer of leadership.

In families, the first step is for the family to identify and document its unique “family’s purpose.” Then the family identifies the processes and structures necessary to fulfill that purpose and documents them in the family’s governance documents. The family then develops and implements systems to recruit and mentor the successors from the family’s rising generations for the systematic transfer of leadership in the family over time. In families, this is often accomplished through what are known as “pre-inheritance experiences,” and through the establishment of a family council.

Creating and maintaining a unique family culture takes time. It cannot be done by simply holding a family meeting or two, or a retreat, or even a series of meetings unless those meetings are carefully designed and structured to build upon each other with the end-goal of creating culture. In our experience, holding regular and intentional “business of the family” gatherings (often annually) are indispensable to creating and maintaining the culture of the family.