Every family has a culture, but those that leave their culture to accident rarely end up lasting across the generations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuDIvGkkrVE
Mitzi Perdue shares the wisdom of successful multi-generational families, as she connects two business titan families with a collective 276 years of staying together as a family. She’s a businesswoman, speaker, and anti-trafficking advocate. Mitzi is also the author of How to Make Your Family Business Last, How to Communicate Values to Children So They’ll Love It, and How to Keep Your Family Connected.
So, if you want to create a family culture and traditions that solidify, strengthen, and “glue” your family together over the generations... tune in now!
Table of contentsHow Mitzi Became Interested in Family CultureWhat is Different About Families that Last for Generations?The Henderson Family DinnerWhat Can Families Do to Build a Functional Family Culture?How to Avoid Airing Dirty LaundryThe Family ConstitutionThe Henderson ApproachBuild Family Culture with a Family NewsletterConnect with Mitzi PerdueAbout Mitzi PerdueBook A Strategy Call
How Mitzi Became Interested in Family Culture
Some time ago, Mitzi lived in New York and belonged to the “Famous Last Names Club.” As you might imagine, members of this club were from high-profile families in the US. One of the conditions of belonging to the club was that you never mentioned the names of the members. So while Mitzi doesn’t share names, she does share the fascinating story of how she first became interested in what makes a high-functioning family.
As it turns out, Mitzi was at a lunch with about 16 of these club members, when someone asked the question: How well do you get along with your siblings? And unfortunately, as people around the table shared, it was one catastrophe story after another. One woman shared that her brothers were freezing her out of the family business by “forgetting” to tell her about meetings. Another person shared that their family members were suing each other, and the inheritance was going to legal fees.
The list of disaster stories just continues.
Cultivating Family Culture
[6:33] “That’s telling me that there are a lot of very famous families that haven’t figured out the basic of how to get along.”
Of course, Mitzi was the last to share, but she didn’t have any horror stories about her siblings. Things were good in her family, and continue to be. So she didn’t say much at all, to avoid sounding insincere or as though she was gloating.
[7:10] “As I left that meeting, you know, I’m thinking that the two families I’m a part of are the biggest source of joy in my life. What do we do that not everybody else does? And what enabled us to last so long? Because the statistics on families lasting—every generation only about a third of family businesses make it to the next generation. And by the time you’re at a hundred years, only one in a thousand makes it that long…I spent the next fourteen years reading everything I could, interviewing people, even writing blog posts.”
What is Different About Families that Last for Generations?
[11:14] “High-functioning [families] means you enjoy being together. You probably have above average mental health [and] physical health. Kids stay in school and finish school. If it’s their temperament, they go on to college. They form good marriages; they don’t get pregnant before it’s time to be pregnant… They don’t get in trouble with the law. The [kids are] less subject to obesity, they’re less subject to substance abuse. That’s high-functioning.
Mitzi shares that families that spend time with each other and know their family stories are the ones that are the highest functioning. When they're high-functioning, they tend to meet the criteria above. One correlation experts have noticed is the more meals a family has together each week, the higher functioning they are.
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