Family-Business Values

This summer, New Englanders were captivated by the Market Basket saga, as the challenges of running a family business took center stage in a very public way.

A recent Boston Globe article profiled other local family businesses in the food service industry. While many owners acknowledged the common difficulties of working with family members, they also identified some important values that made their family businesses a success.

The values identified by these entrepreneurs are: humility, focus, diplomacy, compassion, open-mindedness, and respect for elders.

How will values such as these be communicated and replicated? Storytelling is a powerful way to bind family members to a shared agenda. Often members of the next generation, or even relatives within a generation, can be disconnected from the central family narrative and the history of the business. When business founders capture and share these tales—and invite other family members to be part of the ongoing story of the business—they help create a strong family culture, mutual understanding, and hopefully a shared vision of how they can work together for a common goal.

At Story Trust, we help families and businesses tell their stories. To learn more, please see samples of our work, and call David O’Neil at 617-755-3283. Because everyone has a story to tell.

Here’s the link to the article: [BOSTON GLOBE]

Photo Credit: jsome1@flickr