SUMMARY

Today I want to share with you a nice story and a few simple techniques that you can use to create a strong sense of family values in your home - because leadership starts at home.

One of my clients, a CEO of a local company here in the UK, shared with me a set of values that he and his family had created to guide their behaviors and actions in much the same way that you would create a set of values in your workplace. 

This particular CEO with his family would have this habit of asking themselves regularly, "Are we doing this right?" But what was really cool and beautiful about this is that “right” stood for the set of values that they had all agreed on as a family. So it was actually spelled R-I-T with three E's. RITEEE. 

The R was for respect, the I was for integrity, the T was for teamwork, and then the three E's were for excellence, environment and enjoyment. “Are we doing this RITEEE?” was basically a question that the family would ask themselves in a given situation or a decision that they're trying to make. It was short for: Are we doing this with respect? Are we doing this with integrity? Are we doing this as a team? Are we doing this with excellence? Are we doing this with respect to our environment? Are we doing this with enjoyment?"

We create a set of values for companies, but we never think about doing that for the most important unit of all, our family unit at home. Where are the values for our family? Where are the guideposts to guide our behavior?

To create a set of family values:

First, sit down with your family members and agree on your values. What are the things that we value in each other? What are the things that we don't value? What are our likes? What are dislikes?" And create a list of words. Five or six words maximum. 

Second, play around with synonyms of those words or just reorganize the order in which you lay them out, so that you can create an acronym. A memorable acronym that you'll never forget. Similar to the client's story that I shared, "Are we doing this RITEEE?" Where RITEEE stood for the six family values.

Third, get into the habit of asking the question, "Are we doing this [with whatever that acronym is]?"

Over time you will see that your behavior and the way you operate as a family, as a unit, starts to coalesce and form around the very things which you find to be most valuable, which you value as a family.