To Build a Company That Lasts Decades, Don’t Neglect This 1 Factor
To Build a Company That Lasts Decades, Don’t Neglect This 1 Factor
A new book examines why certain companies outlast others—and what you can learn from them.
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Building a company that spans decades, even centuries, does not depend on inventing some revolutionary new product or entering a certain industry right before it experiences exponential growth. That’s what author and former Inc. editor-at-large Bo Burlingham learned while writing his latest book, Another Way: Building Companies That Last… and Last… and Last, along with his co-author, serial entrepreneur and technology investor Dave Whorton.
Instead, the most evergreen companies often employ obvious or boring business models but execute on that simple premise. Enterprise Holdings, the parent company of Enterprise Rent-a-Car, National Car Rental, and Alamo Rent a Car, has been renting cars since 1957. Wegman’s, the cult favorite supermarket chain, has been selling groceries since 1916.
Often, the focus of the business changes and evolves with time. Radio Flyer, the maker of the iconic little red wagon, started in 1917 making phonograph cabinets. O.C. Tanner, a company based in Salt Lake City, launched in 1927 selling class rings, pins, and ribbons for high school and college graduates before pivoting and pioneering the field of employee recognition in 1940s. Today, the company’s clients include American Airlines, Starbucks, 3M, Taco Bell, and Harvard University. Hollingsworth and Vose, an East Walpole, Massachusetts-based company that supplies filters to SpaceX and Tesla, traces its roots as far back as 1728, when the business manufactured paper in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
All of these seemingly disparate companies have something in common, says Burlingham, and it all comes down to ownership. “I tried very hard to find companies that had lasted beyond two changes of the ownership, beyond two generations, that had that magical quality,” says Burlingham. “I could find only two types of companies that had that ability to hold on to that quality. One was employee-owned companies, and the other was family-owned companies.”
When families or employees have ownership over the company they operate, they are able to protect how that company does business, he adds. “These are private companies that have been around for a long time. They’ve been very successful for a long time, but basically not been recognized,” he says. “This is a whole section of the economy.”
Option two
If employee ownership isn't part of your plan then consider employee involvement, especially relating to customer service culture. No one knows better about customer expectations than your front line team. Many of our clients have a customer service advisory group made up of no more than 5 people. Their job is to think like the customer whenever a new procedure is being implemented. Their insight, and buy in to the new procedure, is monumental to it's success. It also gives your employees a sense of pride and ownership.
BY ALI DONALDSON AND CARL PHILLIPS
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