Individuality or Inbreeding Mentality? Which Side Are You Truly On?

Cleopatra married her brother. Anne Boleyn had six fingers on her right hand due to inbreeding. Queen Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, were third cousins. Why would anyone uphold an inbreeding mentality?

As the BBC points out, “Inbreeding comes with such a high cost, the logic of engaging it might seem baffling. Historically, inbreeding didn’t just keep traits within a bloodline, it also kept power.”

There’s a mentality correlation between inbreeding and multi-generational business traditions. Allow me to explain.

Many traditional multi-generational businesses have heirs. The individuality of these heirs is often crushed and molded to conform. The intent for such actions is mostly to preserve the family name. However, it gets disguised as preserving the family assets and the ancestry’s power.

But at what cost? Here’s what I mean:

Cost: Crushed Awareness

In my article, Do You Want Your Heir to Run Your Business Like You? I share how winning often takes the form of the elder generations convincing Junior to follow in the family’s footsteps without much self-reflection.

What might be in it for a parent not wanting their heirs to know themselves better?

Consider this: Suppressing awareness is a lot like the gene suppression and mutation that takes place with inbreeding.

Anne Boleyn had six fingers on her right hand. After she was accused of adultery and incest, her husband had her decapitated.

What might have happened if Anne Boleyn’s parents had given her the opportunity to self-reflect and make her own choices? Would she still have married Henry VIII?

We can also question why many traditional multi-generational businesses deem it their utmost duty to decapitate the individuality of their heirs.

It begs the question, “Is decapitating individuality real power?”

Cost: Reduced sustainability

Let’s come back to inbreeding. Like hemophilia, insanity, and obesity, it is a condition where traits are passed down from one generation to the next.

Cleopatra was a Ptolemy, and tradition in the Ptolemaic dynasty dictated that all rulers must marry their siblings to acquire their power. Cleopatra married her ten-year-old brother when she was eighteen years old and eventually, she married her other brother as well. She committed suicide in an attempt to avoid losing her kingdom to outsiders.

Marrying the traditions and values of a multi-generational family business can feel crushing and hopeless to the heirs.

In my article Why True Visionaries Are Not Self-Made or Multi-Generationally Groomed (Part 2), I show how the heirs chosen to ascend the family throne of power are usually those who were crushed and molded to believe it is their duty. Preserving the family name, the family assets, and the ancestral power becomes their life’s blood.

Cost: Destitute Offspring

Let’s all pause here and consider the emotional intelligence realm of the family business.

In my article on genuine accountability, I share how it is our individual and collective responsibility to become more self-aware about the standards we uphold. Are they our standards or someone else’s?

There are examples of individuals in a family business who went out on a limb and did something that others likely rejected. For example:

Queen Elizabeth was told that Prince Philip was an ill choice as a husband, not because they were third cousins (gene suppression and mutation alert!), but because his family was exiled and impoverished.

Let me be bold. There is nothing sustainable about upholding the standard of ‘What can I put in my back pocket now, even if it hurts my future generations?’

Many traditional multi-generational businesses gamble the wellbeing of their heirs for a chance to consolidate the throne of power.

Wake Up Call

The purpose of inbreeding is to replenish stock. However, in the process, we weaken the genetic line.

If you’re part of a traditional multi-generational business, how is the inbreeding of ideas and values weakening your organization?

For the creative genetic line of your business and your financial coffers to flourish, individuality must be valued and nurtured.

There’s a reason inbreeding is frowned upon. As you’ve seen throughout this article, inbreeding is detrimental to the bloodline because it bets on the ancestry at the cost of the heirs’ wellbeing. That craving for power might just be what keeps costing them the throne.

New blood in the form of individuality, ideas, and strategy may just be the wake-up call needed to strengthen your multi-generational business. Are you ready to make that call? Let’s talk!

My name is Anne Beaulieu. I assist highly successful entrepreneurs like you in designing and implementing emotionally intelligent plans that will inspire the next generation of emotionally intelligent and strategic women. You can reach me at anne@financialeq.coach