The Need for a Personal Strategic Plan

A plan is important for any endeavor, but for the successor of a family business it is critical. In the prologue of this book, I alluded to Bill Wrigley and his strategic plan: to break free of his father's influence, find out who he was as well as what he wanted, and to push the Wrigley Company to reinvent itself. Getting clear about the corporate strategic plan starts with being clear about one's personal strategy. Being clear about one's personal values, mission, and vision lays a foundation for the successor to engage the management team in creating a vision and strategy for the company that aligns with the values and vision of the family.

Bill came to a critical juncture where he was forced to ask himself a simple question, “What's important to me?”

“After I had stopped answering that question based on what my family thought was important for me,” Bill laughs, “I finally got honest with myself. I spent a lot of time looking inside to figure it out.” That seminal question led him to develop a strategic plan to guide him in his life and his work. Bill regularly updates it to this day. “It keeps me grounded and functions as a kind of map to keep me on course. When I first wrote my plan, ideas suddenly jumped out at me. I surprised myself… ‘Wow, that's what I've been looking for. I will introduce it to the company.’” Bill discovered that when he put ideas down on paper, he became more purposeful, and his goals more attainable. His plan helped him cast a vision that he transferred to the company. It was the foundation that enabled him to authentically engage the management team to develop a new corporate strategy for Wrigley, making it better than it was under his father. His father said, “If it ain't broke, don't fix it.” For Bill Wrigley Jr., the system was not completely broken, he just wanted to find a better way, more authentic to who he was as a leader.

A personal strategic plan forces answers to the two questions a successor must ask: “What do I want to do with my life?” and “What role do I want to play in our family legacy?” This legacy creates an enormous challenge for the generative family leader: “How do I leverage the legacy for good, rather than getting caught in its shadow? How do I resist becoming an icon? How do I build on the foundation to forward the business to the next generation so they can continue to contribute to the legacy?”

It is a burden of responsibility that requires a strong sense of self. The adjectives—personal and strategic—are important. The plan is personal; it is not a parent's plan, nor is it a family plan, so it may or may not align with the family's plan. The successor has to own it. It's a full expression of who he is and what he wants distinct from the family business and its founder. But it's also strategic. It must leverage the strengths as an individual and the strengths of the family business (its values and mission that have spanned the generations), stewarding the best of the past for the benefit of the future. It serves as a leader's inner compass, so he can ask the right questions for the business: Why are we doing this, and what difference are we making in people's lives? Why does what we do matter to people? These questions reveal the organizational DNA, those qualities that have shaped the organization for decades. The personal strategic plan keeps both the successor and the family business true to the legacy, rather than true to an icon.

This goes a long way toward protecting the successor from creating a cult of personality, which disables next-generation leaders. A leader whose identity is tied up in the power of the position often creates a cult of personality to bolster a sagging self-esteem. They lead for the adoration and accolades of others. A differentiated leader stays true to plan regardless of public approval. Yes, these leaders are successful, but they are also comfortable with failure. They are transparent when a plan fails; they persevere when they face resistance; and they realize leadership sometimes means being unpopular. These leaders feel good because they stick to plan, not because of what people say about them. Staying in this reality ensures that a new mythology is not created that redoubles a shadow for the next generation of leadership.

A Plan to Differentiate

Jack Bush gave his son the title vice president of development, even though Greg hadn't earned the title. It was Greg's plan, however, to work into the title so the miners wouldn't snicker when he walked into the plant. The challenge for the sons and daughters in a family business is to separate from an established founder so that they command their own destiny and the respect of their family members and employees. But successors must also leverage the strengths of the family business and its legacy, and strengthen it for future generations. To be a favored son and a favorite boss in the family business is a balance that only differentiated leaders can maintain.

Differentiation is critical but challenging for family business leaders. Most children leave their families to go through the differentiation process; their families don't follow them into their working world. The two stay separate so that the child can become a responsible adult, accountable to people who have no vested interest.

For many successors who jump into the family business (and soon face uncertainty about their role), the default is to stick it out and do what the parents want. Relationships entangle the differentiation process. When going straight into a family business, a successor can't make a clean break. He or she remains (and is scrutinized) within a family fishbowl. It makes the differentiation process that much harder. It's difficult, though not impossible, to contribute authentically when the successor is unclear about who she is and the impact she wants to have on the world (broadly) and the family business (generally).

A differentiated and generative leader opens him- or herself up to enormous opportunity and reward: stewardship of the family legacy for the next generation. It's why Wrigley Jr. didn't run away from Wrigley Sr.; it's why Greg Bush stopped flying and started digging; and it's why Lansing Crane left a prestigious private practice to revive the family business. Building a family legacy sustained across generations is as rewarding (if not more rewarding) than pursuing fame or riches on one's own. But it has a more enduring impact on the life of the family, employees, and community. In a family business especially, nothing is more important than building relationships with the people who matter to the family business—the family stakeholders, employees, and community. A family business generates and sustains these relationships across generations.

Differentiation is the pathway to this generative leadership. And a personal strategic plan is the best way to engage the process. It forces a leader to get clear about who he is and what he wants. This is particularly important when the family wants a leader to do only what it wants, or when it doesn't want the new leader at all. Differentiation's two extremes are fusion and disengagement. The fused family is so emotionally entangled that an individual fears to assert his or her identity because it might lead to family strife. The family views it simply: To be different is to invite conflict, and conflict is essential to differentiate. A fused family will thus fight the leader attempting to differentiate. Disengaged families, on the other hand, are so detached from one another that they lack a common bond. Healthy family businesses rest on a point between the two poles of fusion and disengagement. A differentiated successor provides just enough friction to ignite a family business that has gone cold, enough oxygen to keep the fire burning, and the boundaries to keep it from blazing out of control.

When Greg Bush came back to the family business, he had established a strong sense of who he was. “I got out of town,” he says. “I was gone long enough and far enough away, and my life was different enough that I felt very comfortable making my own decisions. And live my life for me.”

As an example, Greg grew a goatee, an emblem of independence. “Take that thing off,” his brother said. “Mom doesn't like it.”

“But I like it,” I told him. “It's good for mom to have little treat now and then, to give her a little spark.”

Growing a goatee is symbolic of what all successors must do. Be authentic. It's not an easy task for a successor to resist family expectations and stay true to his calling. For Greg Bush, his ultimate calling was CEO. For another, it might be a different position. Over almost 20 years of teaching successors in our Next Generation Leadership Institute and Family Business Stewardship Institute, we have had individuals who thought they wanted to be CEO, but after doing some real reflection, felt that they wanted to pursue other things in their life. One chose to become the VP of HR, another chose to leave and join the army, and another chose to leave the family business and start her own company separate from the family business. Not every successor should be CEO of a company, and not every family can breed CEOs of multimillion-dollar and billion-dollar companies. The question a successor must ask is, “What's the right place for me in terms of what I want, what I am good at, and the sacrifices I want to make?” A differentiated leader will not try to be another legend, but will remain steadfast to both his vision for his life and the family business and its legacy.

Successors bring to bear the best of who they are and what they do to bring out the best in the family business and the people in their employ. When they know who they are and where they are going, they find the right place for others. Leaders follow an inner calling, and people follow them. Creating and following a strategic plan makes this possible.

True North

A strategic plan is the blueprint of its architect, the differentiated leader who wants to continue to build the family business. It shapes his choices, tells him what's important, and reminds him who he is, what he's doing, and why he's doing it. A strategic plan keeps leaders pointed true north. It corrects them when they head off course.

In short, it holds a leader accountable.

The adage, “Measure twice, cut once,” applies to more than carpentry. Leaders tend to be doers, and all leaders at some point succumb to the tyranny of the urgent, the myriad of things that must be done now. The problem is, there are always things, and it's always now. It's hard to resist the relentless call to do and instead stop yourself, step away, take a breath, and think about what you're doing and why you're doing it. This takes time, attention, and considerable mental effort. Successors must regularly set aside that time to reflect and evaluate, at least twice a year, perhaps more in the beginning when a new leader has to do more heavy lifting. A strategic plan can increase leaders' accountability to achieving their vision.

Accountability starts with writing down the plan. Floating ideas tend to disappear; putting them to paper creates an orientation that will help the successor make decisions about where to spend resources (time, money, energy). Read the plan to yourself and to the people most important to you. For true accountability, a strategic plan must separate the merely interesting ideas from the crucial. It must include the essentials of values, mission, vision, and an action plan. This takes time; it is a process of gaining clarity. Bill Wrigley did not wake up one morning and say, “I am going to write a strategic plan today.” It germinated over hours in airplanes to dozens of business trips around the world, as he clarified what it was that he wanted, what it meant for the company, and most of all, what it meant for his relationship with Bill Sr.

Bill Jr. struck a balance between fusion—running the company just like his father—and disengagement, leaving the business completely (an option he seriously considered before his father got sick). Bill Wrigley's strategic plan helped him identify his purpose, distilled to 10 words that I've repeated throughout this book: “Respect the past, but do what's right for the future.”

Values

The heart of Bill's plan that inspired his innovative philosophy of leadership was in his practical values: Don't try to do too much. Don't isolate. Educate yourself. Entertain multiple points of view and influence. Anticipate pushback but don't be pushy; respect the family values. And be a problem solver.

Values are the genetic sequence of a leader's soul, and the strategic plan maps its genetic code. The work of self-reflection over months and even years maps personal values distinct from parents' values. A successor is not a clone of the founder. This is vital, not only because it shows a leader who he is but because it brings a successor's DNA into the mix, so that the company is strengthened. Strong genes get stronger when they are diversified. Massimo Ferragamo describes this type of DNA:

Values are the foundation of the plan. They are clarified over time, but they don't change. Jean Moran identified her three values—full-expression, self-awareness, leadership—as they emerged from the tests she faced, mistakes she made, and tears she wept. “My values got me through,” Jean says, “and I've worked with a lot of leadership coaches and done a lot of work on myself to identify them.”

“Values are what help companies walk the walk.” When Bill Wrigley became CEO, he reinforced the values that had helped Wrigley Corporation “walk the walk”: trust, dignity, respect. He realigned the company to its historic true north, and strengthened it with his personal core values, which were different from his father's: listening, empowering people, and trusting them to make decisions that would help reinvigorate the company. Pierre Taittinger's aligned his values with the two-century-old tradition of the Champagne Way.

Mission

The mission gives the values a target. It answers the question, “What impact do I want to have?”

The military gave Greg Bush a very specific understanding of taking on and accomplishing a mission. “The military does not pay well, and it's largely made up of kids who love to party. But come Monday morning, they are there for one reason, to accomplish the mission, whatever it is, to defend their country.” The loyalties that form around that mission are fierce. A soldier fights for his country, while sacrificing his life for his brother-in-arms.

Greg struggled for a year and a half trying to redefine a sense of mission, for himself first, and then for the family business. Jack Bush gave his son a title but not a mission; Greg had to discover his own mission as he spent time with the employees, working alongside them, asking questions, listening, and finding out that for many employees, working for Linwood was nothing more than a job.” Greg realized that he needed to translate a paycheck into a sense of purpose. Greg Bush says of his mission:

Greg Bush reflects the best of family business leadership. He learned to harness the power of the family business values while providing clarity of vision and a mission that benefits generations to come. Not every family business has that ability to develop the long-term view. But if families can support the development of the next generation in the right way, the next generation is equipped to step into leadership with a clearer sense that the business is about more than just them.

Action Plan

“When you don't know where you are going, any path will get you there” is a popular adage that pertains to family business succession. A successor must choose his or her unique path. Leaders who have clearly articulated their values, vision, and mission do not wander, or pick the easiest path in front of them. They often take the road less traveled, and that makes all the difference. These leaders have clarity of purpose. Purpose compels them to act because it brings into focus the things that matter the most. When a leader acts in line with his purpose, he creates a way forward. Greg Bush had a mission to serve and protect all the families in the employ of McCarthy-Bush Corporation, but his action plan started with one step, one task: take on one problem area, find out what it revealed, and bear down on it until he learned everything there was to know about the process. He followed through until he understood all the processes, and the company prospered under his leadership.

When Bill Wrigley became chief executive of the The Wrigley Company at the age of 37, he granted a rare interview with Forbes magazine in which he said, “I see my role as taking a late nineteenth-century company and bringing it into the twenty-first century with guns blazing.”¹ He walked the walk and stayed with it. In two years, the company bought back millions of shares, created a health division, and bought part of a gum technology company. “Almost everything they said they were going to do a year ago, they've executed on,” Mr. Katzman at Deutsche Banc said. “That's rare.”² That's following a strategic plan.

A Flexible Plan

A few years ago, I took my own advice and developed a strategic plan for my business. I got clear about what I do and stand for: Building healthy families and healthy businesses. What I do in both my personal and professional life I try to gear toward these two goals. Am I perfect at doing this? Absolutely not. I get caught up in life and get excited by ideas. But a strategic plan helps me to manage the distractions. To create a layer of accountability, I have shared these goals with close friends and colleagues who I can turn to for accountability and feedback.

A plan, however, is never so rigid that it can't be reshaped. As my worldview shifts, my strategic plan will follow suit. Generally, a mission is constant, and the vision and goals, as outlined in a strategic plan, adjust based on circumstances. This is a trait of a successful leader: agility. Leaders with focus can read the feedback and adjust course when circumstances change.

It is akin to being a pilot and filing a flight plan. You create a plan for how you are going to get from point A to point B, but once you get up in the air, you might encounter turbulence, storms, and wind that make you adjust your plan. Sometimes you must land in a different place.

Let There Be Love

A strategic plan is sometimes a high-wire tightrope. The strongest leaders have the balance to stay on and walk to the other side when even their most loyal supporters resist them. “I've never gotten much pushback from nonfamily,” says Greg Bush. “It's mostly been family.”

Greg walked this tightrope when the McCarthy-Bush board elected Greg as CEO to replace his father, after it became clear that his older brother Larry's talents would be better suited to the role of CFO. Like his brother, Larry had launched his own career before stepping into the family business. Greg assumed Larry would seize the reins of leadership—and do it better. But the challenge in any succession process is matching each successor's skill sets to a job where they can add value.

“This is going to disrupt the family,” Greg told Larry. In fact, it created competition between Greg and his other brother, Joe. Following his simple plan to learn, stay focused, and do a good job, Greg earned the respect and trust of the Linwood employees and the executive board of the McCarthy-Bush Corporation. His followers had already granted him the authority to lead. And now they wanted to make it official.

“I pretty much knew going in that it was going to be that way. I felt like I was the most qualified for the position, because I had best prepared for it.”

“But the fallout was as bad as you can imagine,” Greg says, “with the perception among some family members that I had gamed the system.” His Dad had not managed the family expectations; they expected a vote but got a decree of the board. Greg was the new CEO of McCarthy-Bush, and for five years he and Joe were somewhat alienated.

Greg credits his ability to remain emotionally objective, a critical quality for a family business leader who must navigate the thin line between keeping the family peace and doing what's best for the business. “I have an ability to lay aside the family issues,” he says, “and all the excess emotional baggage, and look at problems logically.”

When a family leader makes a true north decision that conflicts with the family, he will also need the strength to hold on and seek to rebuild family relationships through the emotional fallout. “If you're in any contest at all where you can win or lose,” said the great director Mike Nichols, “try to win.” For Greg Bush, who prefers winning to losing, following his true north ultimately was a win-win, but it also had a cost. Greg and Joe have repaired the relationship, and Greg feels that Joe would concede, that his skills are better aligned with the role that he has today.

“But our relationship changed,” says Greg. “I'm not just one of the Bush boys. I'm different, and that's forever. But I felt I had to be true to me, and that's my rock.”

Family businesses, even the best ones, are not Camelot. “That was my dad's vision for the business,” says Greg. He thought it would be the “perfect opportunity for every family member. Everybody comes in and nobody ever leaves. The business cradles all of us.”

Greg has a less romantic version. “A family business allows you to be yourself. But it comes with a lot of family conflict, and it's never completely resolved. That's heaven, but it's not family.”

The family business gives family members wonderful options and opportunities to be and do their best. And that's different for everybody.

“I have a brother who works for us, but his passion is coaching wrestling.” Greg says. “He loves it. Shouldn't the family business provide him the opportunity to coach wrestling and do what he loves? That's my vision for the family business. It gives each of us an opportunity to live the life we love. What a great thing.”