How Will You Measure Your Life?

by Clayton M. Christensen

Kids won’t have to stop and think about what Mom or Dad wants them to do—they’ll just go about it because their family culture has dictated, “This is the way our family behaves.”

A culture can be built consciously or evolve inadvertently. If you want your family to have a culture with a clear set of priorities for everyone to follow, then those priorities need to be proactively designed into the culture—which can be built through the steps noted above.

If you want your family to have a culture of kindness, then the first time one of your kids approaches a problem where kindness is an option—help him choose it, and then help him succeed through kindness. Or if he doesn’t choose it, call him on it and explain why he should have chosen differently.

We decided in a deliberate fashion that we wanted our children to love each other and to support each other. We decided we wanted our children to have an instinct to obey God. We decided we wanted them to be kind. And, finally, we decided that we wanted them to love work.

It entails choosing what activities we pursue, and what outcomes we need to achieve, so that as a family, when we have to perform those activities again, we all think: “This is how we do it.”

Doing things together, over and over, led to a mutual understanding of what things we prioritize, how we solve problems, and what really matters.

Make no mistake: a culture happens, whether you want it to or not. The only question is how hard you are going to try to influence it.

Forming a culture is not an instant loop; it’s not something you can decide on, communicate, and then expect ...