Heredity

Heredity is the transmission of traits from one generation to the next. In biology, DNA carries information that determines physical characteristics, predispositions, and potential. The business analog: organisations, families, and institutions transmit their "DNA" — culture, values, operating principles, biases, and blind spots — across generations of leaders, employees, and products. What gets inherited shapes what's possible. Some inherited traits are advantages; others are liabilities carried forward unconsciously. Understanding organisational heredity means recognising which traits you've inherited and deciding which to keep, which to change, and which will require deliberate effort to overcome.

Audit your organisation's inherited traits. What cultural DNA comes from the founding team? Which traits are still adaptive, and which have outlived their usefulness? Deliberately choose which traits to pass forward and which to mutate. Heredity is not destiny — but ignoring it means repeating patterns without understanding why.

Organisations inherit traits — culture, values, biases, operating patterns — from their founders and prior leaders. Some inherited traits are advantages; others are liabilities carried forward unconsciously. Audit your organisational DNA, decide what to keep, and deliberately mutate what no longer fits.