While I am working on a much longer article / white paper on the moment, I wanted to share 7 core capabilities that legacy focused families must develop over time in order to be successful.

Most often, people focus on the first – can the family work together?

While this is necessary, it is not sufficient to address the full panoply of challenges that families face over the generations.

Consider the following:

• Can we work together?  Do we know how to organize ourselves to accomplish a task?  
• How are decisions made? How is power exercised within the family? Is this power model durable for the long term?
• How does the family preserve tradition, but also remain innovative to avoid becoming brittle in a changing world?
• Can we manage conflict?  Can the family disagree but remain in relationship?
• Can we manage hardship / suffering?  How will we handle the inevitable griefs that come?
• Can we welcome others in?  Every generation on-boards both in-laws and the next generation?  
• Can we learn?  Is the family self-reflective to identify knowledge and skill gaps and capable of the learning required to address?