‘Do you remember me? As I remember you.’
Two simple phrases that are lyrics to a song. They are also two keys to the continued success of any business. If we forget where we came from we also forget what got us here. Talk to any CEO or founder of any sized business and one of the continual concerns is, how do we keep moving forward? How do we insure that what we started continues after we’re gone? How do we convey to our long standing employees that we haven’t forgotten our mission, and how do we tell our new employees what that mission is?
What we’re talking about here is legacy. We all want to be remembered and for most families that means pictures, movies, slide shows even Facebook sites that will keep us alive in the hearts and minds of our loved ones after we’re gone. By the way, if you don’t have any of those things you should get them. But while the emotional threads that run from generation to generation make up the fabric that holds families together across decades what is it that does the same thing for business? Frankly, up until now, not much. There has always been ‘the mission statement’, that long list of goals and benchmarks that has been used as a touch stone for many corporations and businesses. What is your mission statement exactly? Where did you put that thing? What’s on that list? Anyone seen it lately?
There isn’t a company anywhere that shouldn’t commit it’s mission statement to a living, breathing, document, a video. You can post it on your web site, you can play it on screens in the cafeteria, you can make it part of new employee training. Don’t ask them to read it. Don’t just hand it out in a packet. Read it to them, with the emotion, urgency and sense of history that it and the company deserve. Nothing will have more an impact.
But legacy goes beyond just a well thought out document read on camera with feeling. Legacy is the many stories that come with the struggle to build a company. Legacy is a living history of why and how certain decisions were made. Why did we get into that business? Why didn’t we get into another?
And then there’s ego. Ego is not a bad thing. It is important that those that come after have some sense of who the first one or ones where. Ever walk into the Goodrich Library? Who was Goodrich? What did he or she do? Why is this library named after them anyway? Goodrich would like you to know. Ego.
Another word for legacy just might be foundation. The foundation of any family are the people who came before. The foundation of any business is the same. I wish I could hear my Grandfather speak. I wish I could hear my Dad. If you’re in business, if you’re a leader, if you’ve poured your heart and soul into making something successful, something you’re proud of, you owe it to your employees, your family and yourself, to make sure you have those thoughts and feelings not only written down, but committed to video. You need to tell your story. You need to cement your foundation, your legacy.
‘I will remember you. You will remember me.’
