This is chapter 6 from my book Your Memoirs: Saving the Stories of Your Life and Work
available at http://www.amazon.com/Y-O-U-saving-stories/dp/1430312815/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247589508&sr=8-1
“You can boost recognition and market share by showcasing the firm’s heritage in these ways: (a) Publish a company biography and sell or mail it to customers; (b) put the story of the founder, with photos, on brochures and sales material.” — Eugene Muscat, Family Business Research Center, University of San Francisco (Quoted by Joanna L. Krotz in Mom, Apple Pie and How to Tout a Family Business)
Importance of Business Biography
Individuals and families with an independently owned business benefit from intertwining stories of their family and business lives. It’s impossible to overestimate the importance of recording that unique history. All too frequently, such stories disappear into the mists of time.
For example, many winery owners in the Napa Valley, where I live, often have at least two stories to tell. The first is about their lives before they bought a winery. The second is about the legacy they are creating in a prestigious winemaking area in the United States (the fourth largest producer of wine in the world). The history of Napa Valley wineries is of local, national, and global importance. Yet few owners have recorded the history of their lives and wineries.
Many books are published about the valley and its denizens, including two histories by James Conaway that include some controversial sketches of those who have shaped the area. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to harvest more winery owners’ stories in their words from their point of view?
Napa Valley wineries are more the rule than the exception in that businesses, whether publicly or privately owned, tend to ignore their valuable historical assets. This is understandable given the pressures of corporate life. The simplest solution is for a business to hire a professional biographer to interview the leaders whose memories are noteworthy archives—and to get their recollections down on paper.
Because the history of a business is one of its primary assets, preserving that history in business memoirs conveys hands-on experience and records the heartbeat of an evolving corporate culture. Leaders’ stories can guide, inspire, and expand market share by personalizing the company and can also transmit policies and principles to heirs, employees, and future board members. When you articulate your organizational values, you support competitive recruitment and provide role models.
After all, the potential audience for your business history comprises not only family and friends but also clients, customers, colleagues, and community.
Families who combine their personal history with the history of their family business pass on their principles as well as their business assets to future generations. They can also clarify criteria for managing and distributing wealth—and spotlight who and what matter most (and why)—at the same time they celebrate and transmit their family’s mission, achievements, and place in the community.
Current Status of Business History
Invention of the phrase business history is attributed to Harvard Business School’s Wallace Donham. At the school’s website, there is a note that “Harvard Business School, more than any other leading business school, integrated the study of history into its curriculum from its earliest days.” (www.hbs.edu/businesshistory/overview.html)
Further evidence of the importance of recording business history is provided by the Newcomen-Harvard Book Award ($4,000 and a certificate), given every three years for the best book published in the United States on the history of business.
According to Richard L. Narva in Heritage and Tradition in Family Business (©2001), research indicates that the biography of a business:
- Places activities and mission in the context of the people and events that led to success.
- Records for future organizational members the past history as well as the history you are making now.
- Is a further step toward greatness. Studies show that great companies articulate and exemplify their core values. (www.genus resources.com/site/content/publications/articles/narva_heritage.asp; Web page no longer available.)
In the United Kingdom, the Association of Business Historians is working to convince more business schools to include business history in their curricula. And the Business History Conference encourages “all aspects of research, writing, and teaching of business history and the environment in which business operates.” (www.h-net.org/~business/bhcweb/about/index.html)
An Internet search suggests that those who appreciate the importance of recording business history are passionate about it, but an alarming number of business professionals still haven’t grasped the concept. As more and more businesses hire experts to record their history, the business community may reach the tipping point, and the excellent habit will catch on. The sooner the better, because according to the Society of American Archivists: “Not so long ago, most companies had good corporate memories. Today most do not. Employees rarely spend their entire careers with one company¼. New dynamics related to global markets, doing business in diverse cultures and traditions, are healthy, but they can weaken corporate memory and forgetfulness tempts big risks.” (www.archivists.org/saagroups/bas/Intro_bus_arch.asp)
James Collins and Jerry Porras point out in Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies: “The primary distinguishing characteristic of the truly great companies (which their competitors lack) is that they ¼ preserve a cherished core ideology¼. [And] they distinguish their timeless core values and enduring core purpose (which should never change) from their operating practices and business strategies (which should be changing constantly in response to a changing world).”
A business memoir is an excellent place to record core ideology, values, and purpose.
Preparation for a Corporate History
Before conversational interviews begin with a professional biographer, it’s a good idea to construct a list of names, titles, addresses, clients, customers, and other relevant details that will appear in your story and to give the list to your business biographer. Also draw on such company materials as:
- Videos
- Awards
- Proposals
- Photographs
- Annual reports
- News clippings
- Business and marketing plans
- Letters of praise from customers, clients
- Advertising and public relations materials
You, your biographer, or a research assistant can consult old issues of Inc., Fortune, the Wall Street Journal, and so forth, as well as publications that serve your specific industry, to help you recall details of past times.
Internet searches for news of your industry may also be useful. In other words, place the story of your corporation in its historical context. For example, changes in Silicon Valley when the dot-com bubble burst were dramatic, and the impact was far-reaching. If your company was in one of the affected businesses, you’ll find online more than enough memory-prodding material that recalls the debacle. On the other hand, if your business benefited from an historic event—like the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976 that did so much for Napa Valley wineries—go over online accounts of that drama.
