Yet it is exactly thisโa characteristic way of thinking, feeling, judging, and actingโthat defines a culture. Both in direct and subtle ways, children are molded by the family culture into which they are born. Growing up, their assumptions about what is right and wrong often reflect the beliefs, values and traditions of their family culture. Even those who later reject all or part of the family culture often discover that they are not entirely free of their early influences.
No matter that they promise themselves they will never repeat the mistakes of their own familyโcertain cultural attitudes and responses are so ingrained in family members that they continue to affect their thinking and behavior, whether or not those individuals are aware of such influence. To say that families have identifiable cultures, however, is not to suggest that they are static.
Families are in a constant state of transition as each member moves through the cycles of life and the family itself moves from one stage of development to the next. Marriages, births, divorces, and deaths change the family constellation and, in profound ways, alter the family culture. Simultaneously, larger political, economic, and social forces also impinge on the family culture. The social revolution that began in the s, for example, changedโamong other thingsโattitudes and expectations about the roles of men and women.
The boy or girl raised in a family in which mother and aunts are professional women are exposed to a very different family culture from the one their grandparents knew. In the s, management theorists and consultants popularized the concept of organizational culture. They described corporations in anthropological terms, pointing to their social structure, norms and laws, language, dress codes, and even their artifacts.
Organizations with distinct cultures invariably bore the imprint of their founders. The corps of clean-shaven IBM executives dressed in white shirts and blue suits reflected the personality, beliefs, and style of Thomas Watson, Sr. Like corporations, family foundations have distinct organizational cultures, and they are as varied as the families that generate them. As in corporations, the values and norms of the founders and their families determine the focus of the foundation as well as how it is governed, how conflicts are handled, and how emotions are expressed.
