The Family Edge

I n the late 1960s, my father, Bill, had a conversation with one of our neighbors, Herb McLean, about the importance of families and how they functioned. As they discussed how their families differed from one another—how they made decisions, delegated chores for family members, set meal times and so forth—the two of them decided to try an experiment to better understand the differences between the Dyer and McLean families. They would swap one child from each family for a week to let the child experience what it was like to live with another family. Then the two families would get together to discuss the differences reported by the two children and hopefully gain insight into how effectively (or ineffectively) they were functioning as a family. (Bill, always the alert social scientist, tried several experiments like this with our family while I was growing up.) My parents felt that my younger brother, Michael, was expendable for a week, so he was sent to live with the McLeans. We, on the other hand, got Herb Jr.; he was my age, and he got to spend a week in Mike’s bed, which was situated next to mine. At the end of the week Mike and Herb Jr. gave their reports. Mike described spending a week with the McLeans:

Every morning about 6:55 a.m., a bell was hand-rung. I was informed that this bell was the five-minute warning for breakfast. No one was late for breakfast. No bells in the evening, but we all ate together. Mrs. McLean was also good to give me a chore to perform; I think that everyone had chores to perform during the week. . . . I swept the carport and the gutters. At our home I often listened to a record while I studied; I don’t know if the McLeans owned a stereo—or if I was too timid to ask—but no one played a record of any kind while I was in the home for a week. Somehow I survived.

Herb gave a fairly different description of what the Dyer home was like. I don’t have a direct quote from Herb, but what follows is how I would explain my home growing up. No bells of any kind got us up in the morning—each child was responsible for getting up, eating, and getting ready for school. Because my mother was often ill during my childhood (she had significant back problems and several surgeries), she rarely made breakfast for us. So the Dyer children had to fix a bowl of cereal or stir up an instant-breakfast drink to get the day started. Then it was off to school. After school we sometimes did chores, but there was little thought on our part in helping to keep the house clean—a source of constant irritation for our parents. We’d typically come home and listen to the latest recordings of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, or the Doors while doing our homework; our family pattern was much more relaxed and less structured than the McLeans.

After listening to the reports from Mike and Herb Jr. and asking a few questions, I think both families left the meeting feeling grateful that they were members of their own family. The McLeans appreciated the structure of their household, while the Dyer children were much more comfortable with their autonomy.

In this chapter, I will examine the kinds of family behaviors and processes reflected in family culture to better understand how the culture can either encourage or undermine family capital. I’ll use a number of examples from my consulting clients as well as families I have studied to highlight how different family cultures lead to very different results. While family structure provides the context for the development of family capital, and in many ways is decisive in determining the degree to which family capital can be created and accessed, family culture can mitigate negative impacts of a family’s structure or negatively affect a more favorable family structure.

What Is Family Culture?

In general, family culture can be defined as “socially acquired and shared rules of conduct that are manifested in a [family’s] artifacts, perspectives, values, and assumptions.”¹ That definition is somewhat complex, so let’s break it down into its component parts.

Artifacts are the overt manifestations of cultural rules. Physical artifacts could be a family’s clothing choices, the state of the rooms in the home, and implements used for work or school. Verbal artifacts are the language and stories shared by a family. Behavioral artifacts are a third type; they are the rituals and common behavior patterns used by a family. Artifacts are the tangible aspects of culture—things that we can hear, see, or touch. For example, in my first visit to Japan I was mystified by the artifacts that accompany the process of entering a traditional Japanese home. To enter the home you approach the sliding door entrance. You then slide the door open, step into what is called the genkan—where people take off and leave their shoes before stepping up into the home—and then you shout “gomen kudasai” and hope that someone comes to the entrance of the home to greet you. If no one comes, you exit the genkan, shut the door, and go on your way. In America, if I were to open someone’s door, step in, and shout something, I would likely be greeted with an angry homeowner wielding a baseball bat—or worse. So, to understand the Japanese culture, I had to understand the rules of conduct attached to the physical artifacts of the door and the genkan, the behavioral artifacts of walking into the genkan and shouting, and the verbal artifact—the words “gomen kudasai.”

Cultural perspectives are situation-specific rules of conduct deemed appropriate. For example, in a specific situation like greeting someone in Japan the appropriate behavior is to bow. In the United States and most of the Western world, we shake hands. In the context of a family, perspectives are the situation-specific rules for dealing with things like greeting family members, deciding rules (like curfews), or showing physical affection in public. In my home, my father used to kiss his children (even the boys) on the lips before leaving on a trip—that was deemed appropriate behavior in the Dyer household in that situation. I always assumed that this was due to some Welsh tradition, since his father (my grandfather Will Dyer) was born in Wales. Those outside my family might see such behavior as odd.

Cultural values are more general, trans-situational rules that are reflected in cultural perspectives and artifacts. For example, some homes have numerous rules about religious observance: the children are expected to attend Sunday worship service, to say their prayers on a regular basis, and to participate in church service and church recreational activities. These rules in a family could be summarized in a value that might be labelled “religiosity”; in other words, religious observance is important for the family. Other values that I’ve seen in my consulting include “respect for elders,” “honesty in all our dealings,” and “hard work is expected.” These values are often articulated by members of the family, and these values serve as guides to their actions.

The most fundamental aspects of culture are called basic assumptions, or the basic beliefs that underlie the artifacts, perspectives, and values of the family. These assumptions, often unspoken and generally invisible, account for the more overt aspects of culture. To illustrate how these basic assumptions shape a culture, anthropologist Clyde Kluckhohn gives an example from the Navaho tribe of the American Southwest:

Experience shows that if one asks Navaho Indians about witchcraft, more than 70 percent will give almost identical verbal responses. The replies will vary only in this fashion: “Who told you to talk to me about witchcraft?” “Who said that I knew anything about witchcraft?” “Why do you come to ask about this—who told you I know about it?” . . . Navaho are uniformly careful to hide their faces and to make sure that no other person obtains possession of their hair, nails, spit, or any other bodily part or product. They are likewise characteristically secretive about their personal names. All three of these patterns . . . are manifestations of a cultural . . . premise: “fear of the malevolent activities of other persons.” . . . This principle does order all sorts of concrete Navaho behavior and, although implicit, is as much a part of culture as the explicit acts and the verbal symbols.²

Thus, in the case of the Navaho that Kluckhohn studied, their basic assumption that others are not to be trusted shaped many of their culture’s artifacts, perspectives, and values.

The example of entering a Japanese home versus an American home showed the differences in the cultural artifacts between the two countries. However, ironically, the basic premise underlying those behaviors in the two countries is actually the same: In Japan, people are assumed to still be outside the house while standing in the genkan— even if they are inside the door. In the United States, opening the door without permission symbolizes a violation of the homeowner’s space. The underlying assumption about what constituted the homeowner’s space is the same in both cultures. If I were to step into the home from the genkan without permission, the Japanese would have been just as upset as Americans would be if I had entered the front door without knocking.

Previous studies of cultural assumptions have suggested several categories that are common to many groups; I’ve found the following categories of assumptions particularly applicable to families and their ability to develop and transfer family capital:³

» Assumptions about human nature: Are people basically good, basically evil, or neither? In other words, can other family members be trusted?

» Assumptions about relationships: Are relationships in the family assumed to be hierarchical (someone is always above someone else in the pecking order), collateral (more or less equal in nature), or individualistic (it’s everyone for themselves)?

» Assumptions about the environment: Do we assume that the environment—the physical and social world we live in—can be tamed and shaped by us, do we assume that we are victims of a world we can’t change, or are we supposed to harmonize—be one—with our environment?

» Assumptions about truth: Do we learn “truth” from external authority figures or do we gain knowledge and truth through personal investigation and testing?

» Assumptions about the nature of human activity: Do we assume that family members are valuable for what they can do for us or do we see them as individuals with unlimited potential that need to be developed in their own right?

» Assumptions about time: Should we be primarily focused on following the past, living in the present, or preparing for the future?

Where Do Assumptions Come From?

Professor Edgar Schein of MIT, with whom I worked closely for several years as a research assistant, has done extensive study and theorizing regarding the origins of cultural assumptions.⁴ He argues that these assumptions are developed as a group (or family) attempts to manage two basic problems of human existence: how to adapt to the environment so the group can survive and thrive, and how to work cooperatively to achieve the group’s goals. Schein provides numerous examples of how various groups attempt to solve these two challenges and how they come to a consensus about what works. A group or family’s solutions have embedded within them the core assumptions. Thus Schein writes, “Both of these areas of group functioning (adapting to the environment and cooperation) will reflect the macro-cultural context in which the group [or family] exists and from which are derived broader and deeper basic assumptions.”⁵ Once a family develops its approach to adaptation issues (such as obtaining food and shelter, creating basic security, and protecting its assets) and resolves integration issues (such as helping one another, communicating with family members, and resolving conflicts), the family sees certain actions as the “right way” to do things. These actions and the beliefs attached to them are then passed on to future generations. However, in most cases the future generation is not privy to events that caused the family to adopt certain artifacts, perspectives, values, and their attendant assumptions. For example, my siblings and I never knew why my father kissed us on the lips before leaving on an extended trip. We just accepted it as what was done in the household. I believe the practice had to do with my father’s (and the Dyer family’s) basic assumption that we love, support, and trust each other, which can be demonstrated physically in the form of a kiss from the father.

Cultural Assumptions as the Foundation of Culture

The listed categories of assumptions suggest a number of ways a family can see themselves, others, and the world around them. To understand culture we must discover the pattern of assumptions that forms the foundation of a culture and give rise to certain artifacts, perspectives, and values. Family members enhance family capital when they acquire human, social, and financial capital from their environment, develop such capital themselves, preserve the capital for themselves and future generations, and share that capital with other members in the family. So, for family members to be successful, the family’s culture needs to foster enhancement of family capital. In my research I have been able to identify what type of family cultural patterns lead to family-firm continuity and success and which ones lead to dissolution and failure. The following table describes the patterns of assumptions that tend to be associated with the successful acquisition, development, preservation, and sharing of family capital, in addition to the cultural patterns that tend to undermine family capital formation and sharing.

The assumptions in table 4.1 are related to the adaptation and cooperation problems all families face. In particular, the assumptions regarding the environment, truth, human activity, and time are related to helping the family adapt successfully to changing conditions. Assumptions regarding human nature and relationships focus primarily on the problem of how to cooperate within the family.

Assumptions Affecting Family Integration and Collaboration

The Marriott family, owners and managers of the Marriott Hotel chain, exemplify success in developing family capital through trusting family relationships. The company, founded by Willard and Alice Marriott, has grown substantially over time to be one of the largest hotel chains in the world. In Willard Marriott’s biography is a letter he penned to his son and successor, Bill Jr., that notes the kind of trust and relationship they had developed. Here is part of the letter:⁶

I am mighty proud of you. Years of preparation, work, and study have shown results.

A leader should have character, be an example in all things. This is his greatest influence. In this you are admirable. You have not taken advantage of your position as my son. You remain humble.

You have proved you can manage people and get them to work for you. You have made a profit—your thinker works. You are developing more patience and understanding with people, more maturity.

It is not often that a father has a son who can step into his shoes and wear them on the basis of his own accomplishments and ability. Being the operating manager of a business on which probably 30,000 people depend for a livelihood is a frightening responsibility, but I have the greatest confidence you will build a team that will ensure the continued success of a business that has been born through years of toil and devotion by many wonderful people . . .

This letter reflects the confidence and trust that Willard had in his son Bill. I have consulted with and studied other families with a similar cultural pattern that encourages love and support.

In contrast, the DuPont family, owners of DuPont Chemical Company, regularly ended up suing other family members when conflicts arose because of distrust. Likewise, another family leader interviewed by my research team noted the following:

I have a son who works for me, but he really doesn’t work hard. He’s unwilling to make the commitment. He is a good technician, but at this point in my life, I’m unwilling to leave the business to him for this reason: It would destroy him, more than it has already. My business makes a lot of money, and if he were to be in a position to get that kind of income with no investment and no personal commitment, it wouldn’t do him any good. It would be the ultimate destruction of him. Maybe not physically, but there would be no growth, no development, no nothing.⁷

The feelings of this father contrast with the confidence and trust Willard Marriott had in his son.

One of my consulting clients also had a significant problem trusting members of his family who worked in his business. Several years ago, Frank (not his real name) called me on the phone with some distressing news: he had found out that at least one of his employees was using a company phone to contact a sex-talk hotline. He felt that whoever was doing this was clearly stealing from the company and engaging in what he considered immoral conduct. As I was leaving on vacation, I told Frank to not do anything until I got back; then, I’d help him think through his options. Two weeks later, after I returned from vacation, I called Frank and was horrified when he said, “I was so upset that I couldn’t wait for you to get back from your vacation. I decided that most of the people I was talking to about using the sex-talk hotline were lying to me, so I decided to call my friend who is a polygraph expert. He encouraged me to test those employees who I felt weren’t telling me the whole truth with a lie detector. So I checked with my lawyer and eventually decided it was the right thing to do. The first person who I decided to test was my son-in-law who works in the business.”⁸

As a result, the son-in-law became so upset that he left the business and filed suit against Frank for invasion of privacy. The son-in-law eventually won a $20,000 judgment against Frank. Over time, Frank’s other children left the business, largely due to his distrust of them.

This example of mistrust is extreme; a more common problem is that of “helicopter parents” who attempt to regulate every aspect of their children’s lives. Such control reflects an underlying distrust of a child’s ability to make independent decisions and thus makes it difficult for the child to develop the self-confidence needed to become a healthy, functioning adult.

Assumptions underpinning relationships are important in the creation and transfer of family capital. In table 4.1 an arrow exists between the terms “hierarchical” and “equal.” The arrow signifies that within a family, particularly between parents and children, relationships initially assumed to be hierarchical should evolve to be more egalitarian. Young children are typically in a dependent relationship with their parents, relying on them for guidance and sustenance. However, as the children mature and develop, they can provide help and support to their parents and potentially other family members as well. In the case of Willard Marriott and his son Bill, Willard provided Bill with a set of principles he believed were important to run the Marriott Corporation and for life in general. Some of these principles, passed on to Bill when Willard wrote the letter, are as follows:

» Encourage all management to think about better ways and to give suggestions on anything that will improve the business.

» Think objectively and keep a sense of humor. Make the business fun for you and others.⁹

Whereas initially Bill was dependent upon Willard for support and advice, he eventually developed knowledge and expertise in how to grow a business rapidly. Willard came to trust Bill’s judgment on such things, thus creating an interdependent relationship in which they learned from and collaborated with each other. While Willard supplied the company vision and values needed for the business to succeed, Bill supplied the financial knowledge and skills to grow the business. They thus developed additional family capital that benefited the Marriott Corporation. Relationships that remain hierarchical keep family members dependent, which stifles development of family members and undermines potential synergy.

In contrast to egalitarian relationships are individualistic relationships, in which self-interest rules supreme. Several scholars have tracked the assumptions underlying marriage over the centuries and suggest that marriage relationships are now primarily based on self-interest.¹⁰ Before the latter part of the nineteenth century, most marriages were based on economic criteria—both men and women wanting to marry someone who would enhance the economic outlook and status of their entire family in society. However, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, around the time the writings of Jane Austen and other authors extolling the virtues of romance gained popularity, love emerged as the criterion for marriage. (As the father of six daughters, I can attest to the power of the writings, as my daughters loved to watch the movies Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, based on Austen’s novels.) In recent years, however, the notion that the institution of marriage/cohabitation should primarily serve individual sexual, social, emotional, and economic needs has prevailed; when those needs are not overtly met, divorce or dissolution of the relationship becomes appropriate. Unsurprisingly, the divorce rate has increased in the United States and other countries.

Individualism often trickles down to parent-child and sibling relationships. One example is the Shoen family. Leonard Shoen founded U-Haul and was married and divorced several times. His children, who worked in or owned stock in U-Haul, couldn’t ever get along. Relationships got so bad that a fight broke out at a company board meeting; it was reported in the newspaper:

A fistfight erupted at a recent U-Haul stockholders’ meeting, punctuating a bitter family struggle over control of the rental empire. Witnesses said the fight Saturday involved the four sons of U-Haul founder Leonard Shoen, 73. . . . Two of the sons involved in the fight, Mike and Sam, supported their father’s position in the ownership struggle, while the other two, current board chairman Joe and Mark, oppose it. . . . Hotel security guards quickly responded to the fight and broke it up. Sam Shoen, who was forced to hold an ice pack to his cheek afterward, said the fight occurred after the stockholders’ meeting adjourned. “They ran it in the most high-handed possible fashion even though they knew they had the votes they needed to win,” Sam said. “They were not willing to allow discussion on anything.” . . . The elder Shoen contended that the company has been devalued under Joe’s leadership and no longer adheres to its founding principles of customer satisfaction. [Leonard] Shoen . . . appeared to be visibly shaken by the brawl. “I created a monster,” he said.¹¹

The monster that Leonard created resulted from family members believing each should be looking out for their own self-interest and not for the interest of the family as a whole. The case underscores the concept that distrust drains family capital. In the case of the Schoen family, financial capital was further diminished through costs associated with various lawsuits. Moreover, accounts such as the news story certainly tarnished the family reputation and that of other stakeholders connected with the Schoen family. Although self-interest is a part of every person’s make-up, to foster family capital one must subordinate self-interest for family needs or, better still, align self-interest with family goals and objectives.

Assumptions Affecting the Formation and Preservation of Family Capital

A family’s assumptions about the environment, truth, human activity, and time can influence the formation and preservation of family capital. The family may see the environment as hostile and immutable (attempting change is futile) while other families may view their environment as mutable. In the field of psychology, the constructs of external (outside forces control people) and internal (people can influence their environment) locus of control describe behavior.¹² A study that a group of student research assistants and I conducted in Mexico about entrepreneurship training for those classified as “poor” illustrates the concept.¹³ The Academy for Creating Enterprise (ACE), founded by Steve and Bette Gibson, was initially designed to help poor individuals in the Philippines. The program proved to be successful there, so the Gibsons started another program in Mexico. They realized many of the young people in their program needed both an understanding of business principles and a change in orientation toward their environment. Many program participants felt relatively helpless because prior individual or family attempts to change their circumstances had proved fruitless. Moreover, they hesitated to start a possibly lucrative business because they were unsure wealth was a worthy goal.

Taking their concerns into account, Steve and Bette developed a curriculum that not only taught business skills but also focused on new values and assignments that encouraged them to change their circumstances. For example, one of the first activities for the students was to find people on the street to accept an object such as a rock or paper clip in exchange for something of equal or greater value. They would then repeat the process until, at the end of five or six hours, they would return to the academy to show the rest of the class what they had eventually traded for—something that usually had significantly more value than a rock or paper clip. This exercise dramatically demonstrated to the students that they could change their world and make a difference.

Overall, the training program made a significant difference to participants. We tracked a control group and the participants for approximately two years after they went through the program; participants had significantly more income than the control group. Moreover, those in the ACE program below the poverty line in Mexico received the greatest benefit, with many moving out of poverty after the training. The program shows that the assumption an individual has about the environment can affect their family capital.

The nature of truth can similarly facilitate or undermine the formation of family capital. Psychologist Daryl Bem argues that individuals tend to believe that knowledge can be gained from either external authority figures or personal investigation and testing; they typically use one approach at the expense of the other.¹⁴ Although listening to your parents or other authority figures can prove useful—particularly when you are younger—continuing to do so will cause your resources, and thus family capital, to stagnate, as exploring and being innovative yield new solutions to old problems. For example, one entrepreneur I have studied was involved in his business with his wife and daughter. Although quite successful in the trucking industry initially, he had to close his business after several years due to his inability to adapt to changes in the marketplace. His employees called him “the Supreme Intelligence” behind his back because he made all major decisions in the business and the family. He always believed he knew best and would not take advice from his family or employees. His authoritarian management style alienated his employees and daughter. Thus, turnover among employees was high and eventually his daughter left the company due to conflicts with her father. I have seen many other families follow this pattern, which tends to yield stability in the short-run but inhibits innovation and adaptation in the long term.

In contrast, I consulted with a very large family-founded firm started by two brothers who encouraged both family and the firm’s employees to seek their own answers to problems. Employees were encouraged to ask others for advice, but they needed to be proactive. One employee I interviewed told me the following story:

[There’s] a phrase: “do what’s right.” . . . I don’t know if it’s apocryphal or not, but I was given a story when I was first coming aboard that described it. . . . A middle manager who wanted to do something . . . made this proposal and was told by his boss: “no, you can’t do that, that’s crazy.” And so he pushed back. He did what was right. He went to the next guy up, his functional boss . . . and he was still told that it was crazy. So he went to the next level—the vice president’s level, and the executive people level—and they told him it was crazy, but “do what’s right.” And then he wound up in the president, Bill Henry’s, office—really selling his idea and Bill Henry told him it was crazy, but “do what’s right.” That kind of thing is a piece of the culture that says “if it’s right, you do it, but it better be right if you’ve gone all the way. And if you make it work you’ll get rewarded for it.”¹⁵

Cultural assumptions are often based on solutions to past problems, not present or future problems. Hence, families with a penchant for exploration and new ideas generally develop and preserve their resources more effectively than families who strictly rely on authority figures.

Another important assumption in families that develop family capital is that family members are important assets to be encouraged and developed. Guidance and positive support from parents and other relatives and opportunities for family members to gain experiences and education that helps them to succeed accomplish that. In the case of my own family, my wife, Theresa, and I have provided opportunities for our children by having them visit other countries, study overseas, take music lessons, and receive remedial help when they have struggled at school.

Most important, we have made ourselves available to mentor them when they have faced significant challenges. We were fortunate that we had the financial means to provide such support to our children. Other high-profile families such as the Marriotts or the Watson family who ran IBM for many years have also provided many mentoring and developmental opportunities for their children and other family members; this is clearly the case in Donald Trump’s family as he has given his children opportunities that others could only dream of. While financial means and opportunities help when parents want to help develop their children, we’ve seen numerous examples of individuals who, despite humble backgrounds, were given guidance, support, and opportunities that allowed them to rise above their circumstances (a good example is former president of the United States, Barack Obama).

Unfortunately, some families see members as assets to be exploited rather than developed. You need only look at the statistics regarding family violence and abuse to understand the scope of this terrible scourge.¹⁶ Here are just a few of the sobering statistics:

» In the United States, an average of twenty people are physically abused by intimate partners every minute. That’s more than ten million abuse victims annually.

» One in five women and one in seven men have been severely physically abused by an intimate partner (e.g., assault, rape).

» One in three female murder victims and one in twenty male murder victims are killed by intimate partners.

» Seventy-two percent of all murder-suicides are perpetrated by intimate partners and 94 percent of murder victims of murder-suicide are female.

» In 2015, 683,000 children were either abused or neglected in the United States.¹⁷

Such violence and abuse often leave long term physical and emotional scars not easily healed, leading to mental health issues for the victims, which are frequently compounded by substance abuse and a continuation of the cycle as they form their own families. Families caught up in a web of abuse and violence are typically unable to generate their own family capital—particularly human capital—that can be passed on to future generations.

An experiment conducted by a professor at Stanford University in the 1960s clarifies the last assumption considered, that of time.¹⁸ The experiment consisted of putting four-year-old children in a room with a tasty looking marshmallow. The children were told they could either eat the marshmallow right away or wait fifteen minutes and get two marshmallows. The researcher then left the room and watched the children through a two-way mirror. Seventy percent of the children couldn’t wait fifteen minutes; 30 percent had enough impulse control to wait and get the extra marshmallow. The researcher then tracked the children over time and discovered that the children who couldn’t wait had more behavioral problems later in life. Those who waited tended to be more optimistic, had higher motivation, earned better grades and incomes, and had healthier relationships. Thus, the ability to delay gratification pays big dividends.

Regarding assumptions about time, families seem to be primarily oriented to the past, the present, or the future. The children who ate the marshmallow had a difficult time envisioning a future with the reward of the extra marshmallow and wanted to be satisfied now. From my experience in Asia, the past is often the anchor for behavior in that part of the world, while in Western countries, the people tend to be more oriented to achieving a new (and hopefully better) future.

In terms of family capital, a strictly present or past orientation tends to lead to the worst outcomes. Families oriented to the past are often unwilling to try different solutions and therefore don’t foster much innovation and change that might generate more family capital. Families with a present orientation tend to find themselves in a resource poor environment; when they gain resources they are quick to consume them rather than save or leverage those resources to create a better future. Carol Stack, in her book All Our Kin, illustrates how resources are quickly consumed in a poor neighborhood: “When Magnolia and Calvin inherited a sum of money the information quickly spread to every member of their domestic network. Within a month and a half all of the money was absorbed by participants in their network whose demands and needs could not be refused.”¹⁹

When resources are scarce and people don’t know if and when they might be available again, the natural tendency will be to quickly consume resources or to share them with family or with those in their social network whom they feel obligated to help. Altruistic behavior is laudable, but it makes saving money and other resources difficult— thus making it more difficult to start a business or invest in other resources or opportunities.

I have consulted with entrepreneurs whose families have been primarily oriented to the past. “That’s the way we’ve always done it” is the typical response to my question concerning a certain practice that I’ve observed within their family. Whereas relying on past values and practices provides some stability, it also makes envisioning a different—and possibly more effective—way of functioning harder. For example, one family that I worked with from Latin America had fallen into a pattern of verbal and even physical confrontations when they disagreed. I tried to get the family to be more objective and less emotional in handling their disagreements, though I was not very successful. In the end the business suffered and eventually went bankrupt. I couldn’t get the family to envision a future where family members cooperated with one another and where the business quickly adapted to changing marketplace conditions.

Families that I’ve worked with who have been successful in developing family capital seem to actually have a mix of the past and future orientations. They have certain beliefs and practices from the past that they can rely on to help them as they anticipate and solve problems. But they aren’t so wedded to the past that they don’t look for new, innovative practices that might help in the future. Healthy families are inclined toward action and improvement as they navigate an uncertain and changing world. Thus, in table 4.1, I note that an orientation toward time based on the past and the future leads to the successful formation of family capital.

Unfortunately, data from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) regarding American’s retirement savings suggests that Americans are not very future oriented.²⁰ This is a recipe for financial disaster for many Americans families. The EPI reports:

» The median working-age family had only $5,000 in savings. In contrast, the top 1 percent of all families had saved $1,080,000 or more.

» Single men (43 percent) and single women (42 percent) are much less likely to save than married couples (65 percent). Again, being married has advantages.

» Sixty-five percent of whites had a savings account compared with 41 percent of blacks and 26 percent of Hispanics.

Your wealth certainly has a bearing on how much money you can save, but even some of those with wealth are not planning for their retirement. The mantra seems to be “spend today, and let the future take care of itself.” Those without a future orientation may need to rely on the government or their family for support in retirement and they will have little or no financial resources to leave to their posterity.

Family Assumptions in Practice

The assumptions underlying the family culture may vary significantly, and some that encourage family capital may pair with assumptions antithetical to family capital. I have seen some families with members who distrust one another and whose relationships are individualistic—yet who also believe that knowledge doesn’t reside only in family leaders and that each member needs to individually discover what’s true. To determine the assumptions in a given family is no mean feat, for family members are unlikely to clearly articulate those they operate from. Generally, one must examine the artifacts, perspectives, and values of a family to infer the assumptions that underlie them.

Changing Family Culture

What might be done to change a family culture that undermines family capital? The question is difficult to answer since changing culture is not easy. A number of years ago I did several in-depth studies of cultural change in organizations.²¹ Change typically occurs when a major company crisis calls into question the effectiveness of the organization’s culture, and management is replaced by those with different cultural assumptions and values. Unfortunately, as a researcher and consultant to many families and family businesses, I have noticed that resistance to change is common and that cultural change rarely occurs—families, unlike businesses, can’t just fire family members and replace them with others they like better. I have discovered that family culture change generally coincides with the death or disability of the family patriarch/matriarch and with new leadership.

In lieu of such dramatic circumstances, a few approaches may bear fruit. One that I’ve required with clients is family counseling. Good family counselors encourage family members to examine the assumptions underlying their family’s behavior, help the family gain insight regarding the negative outcomes of the family’s culture, and then help the family develop a new culture based on new assumptions, values, perspectives, and artifacts that will allow them to function more effectively. The process is difficult and can take months or even years. But it is often the best chance for a family to change its culture for the better.

Another approach is for the family to identify the kinds of assumptions that underlie the family culture. At the end of this chapter is a diagnostic questionnaire that a family could use to identify whether its culture is based on trust versus distrust, hierarchical or more egalitarian relationships, etc. Then the family should examine the more general rules used by the family (their values) and the situation specific rules (perspectives) that tend to cause problems in the family. The family next can make action plans to change their artifacts—behavioral patterns, language, and so forth—to reflect a different set of assumptions (and hopefully get better outcomes). At that point in the process, the family may need an outside consultant or facilitator who will help the members agree on what changes need to be made and then follow up to make sure they follow through. This process can likewise be fraught with difficulty, but has the best chance for success. In my experience, families that experience abuse, distrust, or victimization and helplessness have great difficulty changing their culture without external support and a willingness to explore new beliefs and behaviors.

Chapter Takeaways

» The most fundamental aspect of family culture is its basic assumptions.

» Assumptions that encourage trust, equality and cooperation, proactive behavior, truth-seeking, development of all members, and an orientation toward the future coupled with what works from the past are key to creating family capital.

» Distrust of others, individualistic relationships, a fatalistic attitude toward the environment, an exclusive reliance on others for gaining knowledge, an exploitative attitude toward others, and a focus on the present ruin family capital.

» The Survey of Family Capital Cultural Assumptions provides a basic diagnostic tool for determining whether a family culture encourages family capital.

Survey of Family Capital Cultural Assumptions

Circle the number that best describes where your family might be placed on the following continuum of cultural assumptions. While certain family members may differ along these dimensions, estimate where the family as a whole falls along the continuum:

Scoring: Now total up the scores for the eight items. The scores could range from -4o to +4o.

Families with cultures that foster high levels of family capital generally would score between +30 and +40. Those with more modest means of generating family capital would score between +20 and +30, while those with cultures that encourage some family capital formation would score between +10 and +20. A score between 0 and +10 would indicate only a minimal amount of support for family capital. A negative score would suggest that family capital would have difficulty being creating and sustained. Scores between 0 and -20 would indicate a low likelihood of generating family capital. A score between -20 and -30 would suggest significant problems related to family capital formation, and a score between -30 and -40 would suggest a culture that has a severe family capital deficiency—if not now, certainly in the future.

Notes

1. William G. Dyer, “Cultural Change in Family Firms: Anticipating and Managing Business and Family Transitions,” Admininstrative Science Quarterly 32 no. 4 (1987): 635.

2. Clyde Kluckhohn, “The Concept of Culture,” in The Policy Sciences, eds. D. Lerner and H. D. Lasswell (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1951).

3. Dyer, “Cultural Change in Family Firms: Anticipating and Managing Business and Family Transitions.”

4. Edgar H. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010).

7. W. Gibb Dyer, The Entrepreneurial Experience (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,1992), 196.

10. Andrew Cherlin, The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today (New York: Vintage, 2010).

W. J. Dyer, “Shifting views on the male-female relationship.” The Religious Educator, 18 (2017): 31–51.

11. “U-Haul Meeting Erupts into a Family Fistfight,” Deseret News, March 6, 1989, D5.

12. Julian B. Rotter, “Generalized Expectancies for Internal Versus External Control of Reinforcement,” Psychological Monographs: General & Applied 80 no. 1(1966): 1–28.

13. W. Gibb Dyer et al., “Can the Poor Be Trained to Be Entrepreneurs?: The Case of the Academy for Creating Enterprise in Mexico,” Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship 21 no. 2 (2016): 1–22.

14. Daryl J. Bem, Beliefs, Attitudes, and Human Affairs (Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1970).

15. W. Gibb Dyer, “Culture in Organizations: A Case Study and Analysis,” MIT Working Paper (1982): 27–28.

16. Domestic Violence Statistics prepared by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

18. Walter Mischel and Ebbe B. Ebbesen October 1970. “Attention in Delay of Gratification,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 16 no. 2 (1970): 329–37.

21. W. Gibb Dyer Jr., “The Cycle of Cultural Evolution in Organizations” in Gaining Control of the Corporate Culture, eds. Ralph Kilmann and Associates (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985), 200–29.

The most important . . . work that you will ever do will be the work you do within the walls of your own home.

Type of Assumption	Assumptions Favoring Family Capital Formation	Assumptions Undermining Family Capital
Human Nature	Family members are trustworthy	Family members can’t be trusted
Relationships	Hierarchical → Equal	Individualistic
Environment	Environment can be affected	Environment can’t be changed
Truth	Truth is found in family authority figures → Personal investigation	Truth found in family authority figures
Human Activity	Human Activity Family members can and should be developed	Family members are to be exploited for gain
Time	Past and future oriented	Present oriented