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The key to business success is the strength and dominance of the company’s core values in all branches of its activity. These principles help shape your business, improve its performance, and increase worker engagement and retention, ensuring its future sustainability.
A healthy sailing vessel will survive volatile times, especially during black swan events akin to the recent Covid-19 pandemic that has challenged the very fabric of the business landscape around the world.
Customer loyalty is arguably the most vital factor in a company’s growth and sustainability, but what drives any such dedication to a particular company or brand?
This is a key query to reply because the data clearly shows that many, if not most, corporations around the world, especially in the US, struggle to survive inside the first five years of founding. According to US Bureau of Labor Statisticsroughly 20% of companies fail inside the first two years, 45% inside the first five years and 65% inside the first 10 years – a trend that is quite consistently since the Nineteen Nineties.
Despite such statistics, some corporations have been around for a very long time. And interestingly, many of the oldest corporations in the world are like that family businesses. Family businesses are likely to cope higher in difficult times, as those who managed to survive the 2008 UK recession showed.
Kowloon Motor Bus Company is also a fourth-generation family business. Currently owned by Transport International Group, it is the largest and oldest transport company in Hong Kong. Since my grandfather William Louey Sui-Tak founded the company in 1921, it has survived the Japanese occupation during World War II, economic crises, and most recently the Covid-19 pandemic.
My own experience and passion for family businesses helped me discover application of family values with the company’s core values is the secret to success. Below are five values that in keeping with data provided by the company WebMD. I consider that these core family values, instilled in the company’s core values, are extremely essential to make sure the future survival and sustainability of the company.
1. Empathy is good in business
Empathy is the ability to grasp the feelings of others and is a key personality trait, essential for cultivating family relationships, in addition to long-term business relationships, especially those inside the company itself. This skill might be improved through diligent training and practice, so it must be implemented as a core value.
Being empathetic in the context of a company means listening to the needs of employees and customers, which builds mutual trust that may help the company survive difficult times and thrive. According to the World Economic Forum, it is also an essential tool for ensuring: sustainability of the organizationbecause it has the power to create a higher work environment. Empathy was also seen as key an element of competence for the future by the European Council.
2. Honesty is the best policy
In any case, honesty and transparency are highly valued family values that will also be applied to your organization’s core values. Although honesty is often touted as an essential value in the business environment, economists may argue that dishonesty also can bring profits, in some cases more often than honesty itself. However, a Harvard Business Review article argues that honesty is justified, even if it is not profitable.
Business longevity might be linked to having a trustworthy repute, as seen in the Exxon case study, where the oil giant convinced the town of Valdez, Alaska, to adopt a tanker terminal by promising that a spill was highly unlikely and can be contained inside hours. When 240,000 barrels of oil spilled, promised cleanup measures didn’t materialize. So far, the costs of this broken promise have been estimated at over $2 billion, and Exxon’s actions are limiting the oil and gas industry in Alaska.
3. Respect may help us act in harmony
It often goes without saying that respect is extremely essential in business, especially when it involves internal collaboration in the workplace. Respect reduces the likelihood of conflict in the workplace and creates cohesion between employees and managers. This creates a harmonious work environment that is more prone to encourage employees to remain with the company and help the company grow and prosper.
4. Loyalty ensures longevity
Staff loyalty ensures the retention of the workforce, which stabilizes the company and increases its probabilities for future survival. More importantly, what really drives a company is the loyalty of its customers, which ensures the regular streams of revenue and profits that are the essence of a company’s longevity. Ways to build customer loyalty include providing high-quality services, creating memorable experiences, introducing attractive loyalty programs and communicating effectively with customers.
5. Perseverance guarantees success
Persistence predicts entrepreneurial success and longevity, in keeping with research conducted by MyCompanyWorks. While this trait is also an essential family value, in business it acts as a powerful mindset that may assist you to face market competition and economic uncertainty and solve problems by being resilient, flexible, determined and focused.
Perseverance also helps corporations achieve long-term goals, and applying this trait as a core value will help a company build strategies that are appropriately future-proof and risk-prepared. This is one of my favorite traits because I strongly consider in learning from mistakes and finding ways to maneuver forward despite setbacks.