Tag Archives: legacy

02/29/20

Envisioning Family Legacy

While consulting with the head of a family business, I frequently raise the subject of “legacy.” It comes up in connection with strategies for helping family-businesses move along the path of intergenerational transition; toward multi-generational success. Often however, at the mention of this word, I’m met with a sort of attention disconnect. For my client, the challenges of managing the business day-to-day overshadow any thoughts of building a legacy. It seems that this short-term focus creates a sort of mental cloud that diffuses any comprehension of what legacy is. This cloud cover affords no vision of the importance of legacy, or of its function or its range. It’s as though contemplating a legacy for future generations demands too much energy right now, and is seen as a luxury.

What is it about the idea of a legacy that’s so daunting? According to the Merriam Webster online dictionary the noun “legacy” means:

1: a gift by will especially of money or other personal property: BEQUEST// She left us a legacy of a million dollars.

2: something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past[1]

This kind of disconnect is not unreasonable when legacy is perceived only according to these definitions. But in my experience legacy in family business is far less strictly defined. It’s much broader, and in many respects less tangible. It includes family history, values, stories and reputation. It reflects the family’s accomplishments and bears witness to its challenges. Legacy is the imprint left behind by previous generations for following generations to learn from and experience.

It’s said in family-business-advisory circles that legacy springs from seeds planted in a garden by earlier family members who, while they will never see the resulting fruit, provide for future generations. In that sense each family business’ legacy exists even before its birth.

It may be helpful then, for family-business leaders to understand that their task is not to create a legacy from scratch but rather to sustain the stories that inspire family members across generations, together with a shared set of attitudes, values, goals and behaviors that characterize their own particular family.

The result is a multi-generational culture of harmonious family relationships, shared wealth, ownership, meaning and purpose.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/legacy

 

07/28/16

Creating Lasting Value

LinkedIn affords business people the opportunity to learn from many important thought leaders through their posts. Among others, I follow the posts of Gerald Hassel, Chairman and CEO of BNY Mellon.

Hassell has published several posts on Alexander Hamilton, one of our nation’s founding fathers. He is interested in Alexander Hamilton not only because he founded the Bank of New York, of which Hassell is now chairman, and not because of the award-winning musical Hamilton, now playing on Broadway. He writes about Alexander Hamilton because he believes that Hamilton’s virtues hold lessons for today’s leaders.

In his LinkedIn post published June 9, 2106: “What Have You Done Today that Will Endure?” Hassell noted Hamilton’s ability to create institutions of lasting value, in contrast to the current trends of our increasingly disposable culture.

This immediately struck me as illustrating a mindset of long-term thinking that I have written about with regard to building multi-generational family businesses. In “Grow People” I quoted a Chinese proverb that formulates a strategy for 100 years of prosperity. In “Beneath the Surface of the Ground” I wrote about a Native American culture whose chiefs were mandated to make every decision with the seventh subsequent generation in mind.

The crucial question to ask is “what are we doing today that will create an enduring legacy and heritage for our family enterprise?”