Leverage your legacy
If you’ve been to business school, you’ve likely learned how a corporation can leverage its vision, mission and values. If you own a family business, you can take this one step further —by leveraging your family legacy.
Your family stories are the basis of a powerful brand. Telling them shows customers your business stands for something; it’s not just another faceless corporation, even if it’s large. Consider this excerpt from SC Johnson & Son’s website: “On a December night in 1927, Herbert F. Johnson Sr. first summarized the guiding principles that had already shaped the company for 40 years. ‘The goodwill of people is the only enduring thing in any business,’ he said.”
In April at the Transitions 2011 Conference, sponsored by Family Business and Stetson University’s Family Enterprise Center, speakers from a wide range of family companies presented their families’ stories. These business owners discussed how their legacy sharpens stakeholders’ focus on shared goals, strengthens extended family members’ ties to the family and the business, and eases decision making.
Tim Hussey, sixth-generation CEO of Hussey Seating Co. in North Berwick, Maine, cited his Quaker ancestor Timothy Hussey’s “golden rule”: “When Thee agrees to furnish a man with a dollar’s worth of goods, just try thy very best to deliver a dollar and one cent’s worth.” Scott Livingston, president and CEO of Horst Engineering in East Hartford, Conn., called his company —founded by his grandfather, a German Jew who escaped the Holocaust—a “classic European immigrant story.”
Phil Clemens, chairman and CEO of the Clemens Family Corporation in Hatfield, Pa., noted that his company—which survived a devastating fire in 1946, among other tragedies—explicitly states in its vision statement that its goal is “to own profitable diversified enterprises that honor the Lord Jesus Christ.” The company’s core values, Clemens said, are integrity (“I’ll do what I say”), ethics (“I’ll do the right thing”) and stewardship (“I’ll build a foundation for the future”).
Clarifying your family’s legacy and values may sound simple, but in later generations, when more shareholders have come into the picture—Clemens’ company has 249 family owners—a lot of family governance work may be required before everyone agrees on what the legacy is. Moreover, as Livingston noted, some family values, like traditionalism and frugality, can actually impede long-term business sustainability.
Basic questions—Why is our family in business? What is important to us about the business? What are our shared values?—may seem beside the point when customer calls and e-mails are pouring in. But taking the time to explore these questions may very well help you and your employees to give the right response to those customers.