Core values play a powerful role in developing and maintaining family unity. Many families say they have core values, but they have not determined them using a formal process that involves all family members. Advisors who help families go through this process offer great value.

Here are the steps for holding a meeting on core values.

1. To begin, ensure that each family member has a list of possible core values for reference. (Note: You can find examples online that are appropriate to your circumstances.)
2. Set up a series of exercises for each person to answer on their own. Here are several examples:
   
   • You have the opportunity to write a message on a billboard that will be seen and read by thousands each day. What do you choose to write?
   • A spaceship awaits to take you to a vacation planet where all you need will be provided. Because of limited space on the ship, you can only bring three items with you. What three do you choose to bring?
   • Think of three people alive or dead that you admire most. What qualities made you choose them?
3. After each exercise, have everyone refer back to the list of possible core values and mark those they believe best reflect their answers.
4. When each person has marked their values on the list for each exercise, they may find that many are the same for each exercise. Group the values into categories, such as:
   • Personal: honesty, responsibility, loyalty, cheerfulness, integrity, achievement, generosity, kindness, resilience, etc.
   • Social: justice, liberty, freedom, service, equality, collaboration, etc.
   • Intellectual: creativity, intelligence, learning, imagination, curiosity, open-mindedness, attentiveness, humility, etc.
   • Spiritual: faith, tolerance, compassion, forgiveness, etc.
5. Using a comprehensive list of the values submitted by individual members, mark off those that are the same, or nearly the same, in meaning. Ask the members if they could agree on the remaining list as representing the family’s core values. Note: You may have to ask them to reduce the total number to between 5 and 8 to be workable for the family; this may involve some compromise. You can help them consolidate the list by finding those values that might encompass several others. For example, kindness, generosity, and caring could be linked under caring; integrity may include honesty.