Just got back from our cabin, so musing is late.
Lencioni points out that many families do not have a plan about how best to manage their responsibilities and commitments let alone doing it within a limited time frame.
To overcome that impasse, he suggests each family develop their core values in the context of their faith. We know intuitively that core values are important but we rarely talk about them or are intentional about organizing our lives around them. Lencioni uses a fictional family who adopt the core values of excellence, humility, passion, empathy, and humor. I had never considered writing down values like these and sharing them with our children as they were growing up. It does occur to me that doing this could reduce some of the stress generated when kids are told it is important to do something they really don’t want to do. Letting kids know that the family will not abandon these core values even if they are inconvenient or other people don’t like the key to making them a part of a family’s DNA.
I think writing down core values and referring to them as the family makes decisions will serve as a compass to help them make consistent and faith based life choices.
Next week let’s talk about strategic anchors.