If there is one thing I have learnt from my years in leading a business, it is the power of the story. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a story is worth a thousand sermons. Stories encapsulate messages in a way that makes them hard to forget.
In my own group, when people want to describe the business, its history, its progress and its culture, I find that they don’t talk about profit figures or growth statistics or revenue projections. They talk about stories—stories about the people whose personalities shaped the company, stories about the ways in which the company coped with good times and bad, stories illustrating the values that are a torch passed down from generation to generation.
Sonu Bhasin has very effectively used the medium of stories to trace the trials and triumphs of some outstanding family-owned businesses in India. Family-owned companies are the backbone of Indian industry. At last count, fifteen of the top twenty Indian businesses in India were family-owned, in some sense of the phrase. They enjoy advantages like agility, nimbleness and speed of decision-making. They also face the challenges of family dynamics and culture, intergenerational perspectives and handling succession. This book elicits the family perspective on all these aspects. The stories it articulates convey all the difficulties, all the challenges, all the drama and all the rewards of creating a business that flourishes over generations. Reading these sagas in the words of the people who lived them makes an impact that no classroom lecture can match.
I am sure that The Inheritors will provide insight and inspiration not only to members of family businesses but also to anyone who aspires to be an entrepreneur. Learning from someone else’s success story is a very powerful incentive to fashion your own.
September 2017
Anand Mahindra
Chairman and MD, Mahindra Group
*****
Why did Harsh Mariwala leave his family business? What made the entire
Dabur management to quit one day? How did Dhingra brothers turn a
suffering business in to India s second largest paints company? This is a
fascinating behind the scenes look into what goes behind brands like
Marico, Dabar, Keventers, Berger Paints, Select Group, Max Group and
many others. The book focuses on the culture, family politics, business
rivalries between and within families, ego battles and a lot more. Plus
there are the inheritors themselves who sometimes take the business to
great heights and during others, lead to its doom. - www.Amazon.com
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