家族企业薪火相传之道

    54年前，我的父母埃德与诺玛•米切尔凭借三套西装、一个咖啡壶和一个梦想，在康涅狄格州韦斯特波特一间只有800平方英尺的建筑里创办了男装商店。

    上世纪60年代，我和弟弟比尔加入了家族企业，1974年父母将火炬传到了我们手中。到了80年代中期，我和比尔已经将这家企业打造成了在韦斯特波特占据统治性地位的服饰商店。90年代，我们的七个儿子与我的妻子林达加盟企业，使其进一步成长为全美最大的家族拥有的高档服饰商店，年营收超过1亿美元。

    你能想象半辈子职业生涯都在家族企业中度过，与母亲、父亲和兄长共事，而且还保持良好关系吗？然后下半辈子职业生涯与兄长、妻子、四个儿子和三个侄子共事，仍然精诚合作吗？我是罕见的例子。我们得以创造一种相互尊重和信赖的环境，在此之下，我们能像一个团队那样运作，分担企业经营中情感和才智面临的挑战，并分享经济收益。

    第二代到第三代的交接之旅一直相当愉快，以至于我们已经开始盘算如何把管理权转移给第四代了。回顾我们半个世纪来的历史，我认为一路顺风顺水要归功于以下七点：

1. 薪火相传的激情

    得是你真心想要这么做才行，你得真想把权益和责任交给下一代，我的父母有这种激情，而我和弟弟也拥抱了这种激情。

2. 寻求帮助

    父亲传给我们一个神奇的表述，我们兄弟俩将它发扬光大：“我需要你的帮助。”为了编制成功的交接计划，我们需要帮助。我们并不了解关于家族企业的一切知识，因此我们同意从成功者那里学习。1979年我们加入了“论坛”（Forum）——一个由十几家类似家族企业组成的互助组织。在1985年的一场会议上，家族企业咨询专家戴维•波克发表的演讲引起了我们的共鸣，次日我们就聘请了他。我和比尔与他共事七年之久，共同完善交接计划。我们还设立了一个外部建议委员会，在接班以及其他战略议题上发挥辅助作用。

    戴维从一开始就向我们强调，我们首先应当重视家族企业的企业性，换句话说，像运营其他企业一样运营它，大多数时候对企业有利的事对家庭也很有裨益。

    幸运的是，我们兄弟俩的七个儿子都很聪明，上了顶尖的大学，学业相当出色。我们希望他们自己决定职业发展方向，如果他们想进入家族企业，我们非常欢迎，前提是他们要遵守我们上世纪80年代确立的两条规则。我很是讨厌规则，但戴维和比尔使我相信，我们需要一些坚定的规则。

3. 五年规则

    我们兄弟俩的儿子大学毕业后，得先在别处工作五年。父亲仍然经常与我们一起参与公司经营，他不是很喜欢这一规则，担心我们把他的孙子们“送出牧场之外”，浪费了孙辈已经体现出的优越才干和对家族企业的激情。

    尽管我和比尔也认识到了这一风险，我们感到他们必须获取经验、自信，并领会真实世界中真正的工作是怎样的。他们必须理解被父亲或叔叔之外的人招聘、派遣到另一个城市、升迁、排挤或提拔意味着什么。如果他们决定成为宇航员或足科医生，我们也会全心全意支持。

    五年规则不仅给下一代工作经验，还使他们获得了可以带到家族企业内部的智慧。当我们的子侄加入企业时，他们积极给出建议，因为他们有这些外部工作经验，我和弟弟愈加尊重他们的建议。

    拉塞尔拥有IBM工作经验；鲍勃曾效力于《体育画报》；安德鲁在运动鞋厂商Footlocker和歌帝梵巧克力公司都工作过；斯科特涉猎过服饰企业Eddie Bauer、Abercrombie & Fitch和Ann Taylor；克里斯给NBC体育台和百货公司内曼•马库斯打过工；泰勒曾效力于澳大利亚男装公司Henry Bucks、意大利男装品牌Brioni和加拿大的服饰零售公司Harry Rosen；林达则在自己的家族企业工作过。

    Fifty-four years ago -- with three suits, a coffee pot, and a dream -- my parents, Ed and Norma Mitchell, founded a men's clothing store in Westport, Conn., in a little 800-square-foot building.

    In the mid-1960s, my brother Bill and I joined the family business, and in 1974 our parents passed the torch to us. By the mid-1980s, Bill and I had built the business into a dominant clothing store in Westport. In the 1990s, our seven sons came aboard, along with my wife Linda, and the business has grown into the largest family-owned upscale clothing store in the United States, with sales exceeding $100 million.

    Can you imagine spending half of your working life in a family business, beside your mother, father, and brother, and all getting along? And then spending the next half of your work life with your brother, your spouse, your four sons and three nephews, and still all getting along? I pinch myself. We have been able to create an environment of mutual respect and trust, one where we can function as a team that shares the emotional and intellectual challenges of business along with its financial rewards.

    The succession from the second to the third generation has been a joyful journey, so much so that we have already begun to plan for the transition to the fourth generation. When I think back over our half century, I can identify seven things that made it all go smoothly.

1. Passion to pass the torch

    You have to want to do it. You have to want to pass the equity and the responsibility to the next generation. My mother and father had this passion, and my brother and I embraced it.

2. Asking for help

    My father gave us a wonderful phrase that my brother and I adopted: "I need your help." To shape a successful succession plan, we needed help. We didn't know everything about family businesses and so we agreed to study successful ones. In 1979, we joined the Forum, a networking group of a dozen or so similar family businesses. At a 1985 meeting, David Bork, a family business consultant, gave a talk that resonated with us. The next day, we hired him. Bill and I worked with him for several years on our plan. We also set up an outside advisory board to assist with this and other strategic issues.

    David shared with us from the beginning that we should think of our family business as a business first. In other words, run it as a business, and most of the time what is good for the business isgreat for the family.

    We were blessed with seven bright sons who went to excellent colleges and did well. We wanted them to make their own decisions about their careers. If they wanted to enter the family business, our arms were open, provided that they satisfied two rules we established in the late 1980s. I intensely dislike rules, but David and Bill convinced me that we needed to have a couple of firm ones.

3. The five-year rule

    Our sons had to work five years elsewhere after finishing college. This rule was not popular with our father, who was still very much with us. He worried that we were sending his grandsons "out to pasture" and that we might lose some of the great talent and passion for the business that his grandsons had already demonstrated.

   While Bill and I recognized that risk, we felt they had to gain experience, self-confidence and an understanding of what a real job is about in the real world. They needed to know what it meant to be hired, transferred to a different city, promoted, pushed, and pulled by someone other than their father or uncle. If they decided on becoming an astronaut or a podiatrist instead, we would support it wholeheartedly.

    The five-year rule not only gives the next generation work experience, it also gives them wisdom they can bring into the family business. When our sons join the business, they made positive recommendations, and my brother and I respected them even more because they had these outside experiences.

    Russell worked at IBM, Bob at Sports Illustrated, Andrew at Footlocker and Godiva Chocolatier; Todd at Apple (AAPL); Scott at Eddie Bauer, Abercrombie and Fitch (ANF), and Ann Taylor; Chris at NBC Sports and Neiman Marcus; Tyler at Henry Bucks in Australia, Brioni, and Harry Rosen in Canada; and Linda worked at her own family business.