<<<Click for a 100 year old view of our family business.

Let me share with you a story about my family that I first used in Wood Works! about ten years ago.

My family was always in the furniture business. The picture was taken almost a hundred years ago. Under the gaslight are my grandmother Dora – who remained in charge of marketing all her life - and my grandfather Max who built trunks and cabinets in the back of the store until he went on to do something immensely more important (but that’s another story).

Their business thrived and prospered for almost seventy years, supporting them and their three sons - my father Joe, and his brothers Mike and Lou. Today the only mementos of that business besides the picture are two “dollies” (carts used to deliver furniture).

A few years ago I took one of these dollies apart to salvage the wheels for a workbench. I was amazed how little rust they had despite Florida's climate. But what astonished me even more was my quick reply to Sheila's question as to why I was destroying a family heirloom: “We're not moving any more”.

The dolly I took apart was 1930 vintage - a carpeted wooden one probably built by my grandfather. I remember when uncle Lou built the other - a “star wars” aluminum version. My uncle Lou was a dreamer. He spent weeks exploring pre-space age materials and construction methods. Sure, it's lasted almost a half-century but the one my grandfather cobbled up twenty years earlier was still intact until I chose to “salvage it”.

The time Lou spent in 'R&D' on this and other projects could have been much better spent in developing the business. There is no sense in developing a better mouse trap if you're not in the business of selling mouse traps. (Sure, there's a lot of pride in saying “I did it myself” – “We built our own finishing line”; “We engineered our new factory layout”; and “We developed our own systems from scratch”.) You may have done a great job but you sure as hell wasted a lot of assets -- management's time -- which could have been better spent developing the products you sell.  Don’t reinvent the wheel! Life is too short and second best solutions are dangerous.

This is not to say that dreamers don't have an important place. Lou pushed the family into changing from a traditional baby furniture business into a discount toy store. This revitalized the business for a few years but eventually they couldn't compete with the major discount chains using toys as loss-leaders.

I look back on my family's business now realizing the symbiotic relationship of family partnerships. In a family, as in a corporation, not everyone has the same skills or capabilities. It's best to focus the capabilities of dreamers rather than lament their failure to spend time on the selling floor, production line, etc.

My grandparents didn't understand that their love for their boys, and their desire for them all to share in a "family business"  would eventually destroy what took them years to create. To them their children were all equal partners and the energy that a professionally run business should spend on marketing and planning for the future was dissipated in unproductive ways.

The bottom line: Long-term success requires more than love. Dreams, energy, effort and entrepreneurial vision have their bounds and must not be squandered. Management must be (or become) a professional team focusing on realistic long-term goals.

We've moved again - adjusting our business and lifestyle. Time and technology changes your perspective, so Sheila became the cheerleader for moving again. It was easy because we still had uncle Lou’s dolly!