Something happened the other day that got me thinking about the experience that I had over a decade ago pulling my father’s company out of Chapter 11 Bankruptcy or “Reorganization” as he liked to call it. He had been in this situation for 4 years when I joined his company. I thought I was joining his company to work as an outside sales representative. I felt that if I could boost revenue that the other challenges he was having would eventually subside. However, he had different plans.

Unbeknownst to me, I was soon introduced as the new payables clerk! I had never worked with creditors and this was to be a great learning experience for me. Things had taken a definite turn for the worse at the company. We needed to get a handle on some persistent problems or boosting revenue would be of no consequence.

Payables clerk was the worst position in the company. No one wanted it at the time. I felt somewhat trapped with nowhere to go. Everyone else that had held the position had eventually thrown up their hands in frustration and quit. There was never enough revenue to take care of every real and pressing need. Because of this, and the resulting challenges that sporadic cash flow and negative revenue figures create, the morale at the company was suffering greatly.

Not being one to back away from a challenge (which is a trait I have found to be both good and bad), I figured that if I could find a way to make the venders happy that might be the key to giving the company enough breathing room to get things moving in the right direction. After working for four months on this challenge, I surmised that the problems he had were much deeper than just keeping the creditors at bay. This turned out to be the right assumption.

I had become very concerned with my father’s health. He was literally working himself to death. He has been an exceptionally hard worker his whole life. He also has a personality that most people are drawn to – he was, and remains, the quintessential people person.

Dad had become horribly discouraged with the general lack of progress his company had experienced over the previous 4 years. He had taken to barricading himself in his work area where he could weld and pound on metal and had ignored most of the challenges his business was having at the time. It became clear to me that he knew he had challenges, he just didn’t know quite how to handle them.

He had always been able to bury himself with the physical labor side of his business until things worked themselves out. He would weld and pound on metal until the passage of time naturally allowed the difficult issues to evaporate. This time that was not going to work. He was headed for trouble and he knew it.

I had discovered that most of the people who worked at the company were competent enough. Most were loyal. Most had stayed with him because they liked him and their situation was “comfortable” even though they were making less than market value. Some changes with employees were later required; however, the core group were solid, good, hard working, and engaged people.

As I talked with the employees, I found that there was a lot of “activity,” but they were all discouraged and felt “beaten.” They didn’t have any direction! There was no vision at the company anymore! Dad had lost his way. He knew it. Everyone around him knew it.

After speaking with my father one day, it became clear to me that he had completely lost the fire that had motivated him for over four decades. He was struggling just to keep a smile on his face around others. I don’t ever remember him being so depressed and negative about his business, the people he worked with, those he did business with, those who the business served and life in general.

I knew that that things were pretty much over if we didn’t get our heads together and come up with a vision for the company that the employees, customers, and vendors could support. We called the family members together along with a long time, respected friend of my fathers’, and hammered out a five-year plan for the company. We finally had some focus!

It was not as simple as it sounds, few things ever are. I’ll talk about that in detail later. However, the transformation at his company was nothing short of miraculous.

Everyone was working very hard and there were many sweaty brows because of the “huffing and puffing” going on, however, all we were creating was “a cloud of dust.” (Illustration 1) We had forgotten that dust, hard work and action do not always equal meaningful, directed progress. Parenthetically here, Illustration 1 is NOT an “Organizational Chart for Family Businesses” as my very “funny” friend who owns his own family business believes.

Once we were able to communicate our vision for the company to the employees, customers, and vendors, they started to buy into the process and the dust began to settle. (Illustration 2)

Not everyone bought into this immediately. It took some hard work and focus to get everyone’s attention; however, once we were able to get some of the key employees, customers, and vendors invested in what we were doing, I knew it was just a matter of time before all of them would be supportive to one degree or another. (Illustration 3)

As time passed, we found that every employee who stayed with the company, our best customers and most supportive vendors, to varying degrees, were all pulling in the same direction. (Illustration 4) This made all the difference!

The secret is to first, have a vision and direction for your company, then, secondly, enthusiastically communicate it to all who have an interest in your success!

Family Business Rule : If you don’t know where you are going, it’s difficult to get anyone associated with your company to come along for the ride.

All material COPYRIGHT© 2010, Russell R. Bethers, Offpoint, Inc., USA
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