Founded by Henry Ford in 1903, the Ford Motor Company rocketed to success by mass-producing reliable, low-priced automobiles. When Henry’s son, Edsel, took the helm in 1918, he championed a different strategy for a new era. He sought to replace the Model T — iconic but outdated — with a more modern design geared to high-end and foreign markets, and later embraced compromise with labor amid the suffering of the Great Depression.
How to Build Upon the Legacy of Your Family Business — and Make It Your Own
Reframe your company’s past in a way that creates advantages for the present.
June 09, 2023
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Summary.
Family companies often have a strong sense of history and tradition. Although these legacies can create advantages, they sometimes leave next-generation leaders feeling handcuffed or constrained by the way their ancestors ran things. To overcome that, they should seek to reformulate the company’s story in a way that creates advantages for the present.