World Business Forum provided quality thinking time on important issues

 by Mike McGrann, executive director of the S. Dale High Center for Family Business

One of the benefits of attending the World Business Forum was that it provided a time away from the office in which participants were encouraged to think… rather than do. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, encouraged participants to create time for disciplined thought. He referred to this as “creating white space” in your calendar to think. I know that I spend a great deal of time doing stuff and not enough time thinking about where our Center needs to be in the next five years… about how my classes at E-town need to change… about where I, as an individual, need to grow and change. The few times I have done this since returning from the World Business Forum have been incredibly productive. It is a practice I will continue.


I found several other points raised by Collins to be particularly compelling for leaders:

1. Double your ratio of questions to statements.

2. Continually ask yourself: “How is my industry changing, and what are the brutal facts?”

3. Create a to do list and a NOT to do list and rank it … with no ties allowed.

4. End our obsession with titles – great people have responsibilities, not a title.

5. Companies are more like likely to die of indigestion from trying to swallow too many opportunities… than starve from a lack of opportunities… so FOCUS.

6. Set a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) 10-15 years in the future for your organization.

I also found Al Gore’s discussion of the relationship between climate change and capitalism particularly interesting. Some still doubt whether global warming is occurring, and others doubt that man is the cause of changes in the global climate. But it seems to me that these debates are avoiding one of what Collins calls a “brutal fact”… which is that man is pumping tons of carbon dioxide into the earth’s atmosphere. And the other brutal fact is that if you change the inputs to a system, eventually you will change the outputs. How long will this take? Perhaps 5 years, perhaps 50, perhaps 500… but eventually the ecological system of the earth will breakdown if there is no change to our current levels of CO2 output. As Gore pointed out, capitalism’s great challenge and great opportunity is to find ways to address this problem now in a way that creates economic opportunity. Ultimately, policies that inhibit economic opportunity create more poverty and further degrade the planet.

Mike McGrann was one of five business faculty and students attending the 2010 World Business Forum in New York City, representing Elizabethtown College and the S. Dale High Center for Family Business, made possible by The High Companies, headquartered in Lancaster, PA.

World Business Forum: Confirming one student's professional aspirations

by Hayley Mazzur '12, Business & Economics Major, Elizabethtown College



(L-R) Hayley Mazzur, Dr. Scheiding, Dr. Ciocirlan, & Allan Craven
in front of Radio City Music Hall

Attending the HSM World Business Forum was truly a great experience.

As a college student, it was very inspirational to listen to some of the most successful people in the business world. I really enjoyed listening to speakers like Jim Collins, Martin Lindstrom, Joseph Grenny, and Nando Parrado, hearing them talk about important topics such managerial skills, marketing, economics, decision- making, and success.

This opportunity confirmed my future interest in business.


Hayley was one of two students and three faculty members attending the 2010 World Business Forum, representing Elizabethtown College and the S. Dale High Center for Family Business, made possible by The High Companies, headquartered  in Lancaster, PA.

Business leaders hold the world in their hands: Reflections on the 2010 World Business Forum

Dr. Cristina E. Ciocirlan, Assistant Professor of Management, Elizabethtown College

Attending the World Business Forum in New York City helped reinforce valuable truths about leading organizations in the 21st century. In a global world, where emerging economies are becoming increasingly powerful, leading organizations poses unique challenges that require unprecedented creativity.

Al Gore spoke of the rising importance of China in renewable energy development, while Marvin Odum, President of Shell Oil Company, spoke of the importance of being socially responsible in addressing climate change. An example of Shell’s social responsibility is that the company charges itself $40 for every ton of carbon dioxide it generates and spends a tremendous amount of R&D funds in renewable energy.

Jim Collins and James Cameron spoke about the value of humility in leadership, about giving your team credit for success and blaming yourself for failure. James Cameron stated that creativity requires persistence and scouting for ideas anywhere (as an example, the movie Avatar took 15 years to make and required the collaboration of specialists in fields as diverse as Anthropology, Astrophysics and Languages).

Humble, compassionate leaders, who are able to leverage the creative potential of their team, are needed to lead today’s organizations. I really enjoyed attending the Forum and sharing these valuable insights with my students.

Dr. Ciocirlan was one of five faculty members and students attending the 2010 World Business Forum, representing Elizabethtown College and the S. Dale High Center for Family Business, made possible by The High Companies, headquartered  in Lancaster, PA.

Stepping into a global businessman's shoes at the World Business Forum

by Allan Craven '11, International Business/Spanish Major at Elizabethtown College

Attending the 2010 World Business Forum while still an undergraduate gave me the chance to step into the life of a global businessman seeking to improve his or her company strategy by analyzing the feasibility of various speakers' ideas on innovation, relationships, and creativity.

I felt truly honored to be in a room with so many esteemed executives while still a student, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to hear from such well-known speakers on topics relevant to the business world today. I particularly enjoyed the presentations by Jim Collins on building greatness within a company, Jack Welch about employee incentive and reward, and Al Gore on the relationship between business and the environment.

I know that this conference gave me the valuable chance to see where pertinent issues can be applied to business at the company level before I even enter the job market.

Allan was one of five Elizabethtown College students and faculty members attending the 2010 World Business Forum in New York City, a program underwritten by The High Companies.

Learning outside one's discipline--World Business Forum reflections by an economist

by Dr. Thomas Scheiding, Assistant Professor of Economics, Elizabethtown College

The 2010 World Business Forum at Radio City

As an economist, I was intrigued first and foremost by the economists speaking at the World Business Forum (WBF): Joe Stiglitz and Steve Levitt. While their insights on the performance of the economy and the value of the discipline of economics in a time of heightened uncertainty were valuable, I can't help but remind myself of comments by the likes of Jim Collins and Carlos Brito. 

Collins' remarks made me think repeatedly of what it takes to achieve greatness and what can be done to identify a time within an organization when the institution is on a downward trajectory.  I can certainly think of many companies where good things were being achieved and quite suddenly a downfall began. Collins reminded us that the seeds of a fall from greatness are planted long before the downfall begins and that it is important not to be lulled into complacency.  

Carlos Brito, CEO on Anheuser-Busch InBev, implicitly puts into practice principles that make a company great.  It was amazing to hear him speak of how he took Anheuser-Busch and its culture and both learned from that company and took the time to teach what the culture was of InBev during the merger of the two companies.  Teaching employees about a company's principles and ensuring that those principles are put into practice is one way that Anheuser-Busch InBev has been working to grow and not lose its greatness.  

Upon leaving the WBF, what I unexpectedly found is that I took more away from the non-economists than the economists.

Dr. Scheiding was one of five faculty members and students attending the 2010 World Business Forum, representing Elizabethtown College and the S. Dale High Center for Family Business.

2010 World Business Forum chatter

Three business faculty members and two business students at Elizabethtown College attended the 2010 World Business Forum in New York City. You can read their observations about the event on Monday. Until then, here's some of our favorite posts by bloggers attending the event:

Lessons From The World Business Forum by Kris Ruby: "Being at the WBF was like watching ''The Social Network.'' I left feeling energized, empowered and ready to create something huge . . ."
Charlene Li on Social Networks by Kathie at Fleishman Hillard: "The only way you can get people to go in your direction is to lead them."

A Funny Thing Happened During the Forum by Jill Hart: "Before anyone had taken the stage, I knew that hearing from leaders like Jim Collins, A.G. Lafley and Jack Welch would certainly make for a memorable experience."

Learning from a book about visionary family businesses

by Gale Martin, Director of Marketing, S. Dale High Center for Family Business

The S. Dale High Center offers a Generation Next Affinity Group for young people committed to their family businesses. We meet every other month between October and June to discuss issues concerning their work and work life as they prepare to assume responsibility for running their family businesses.

Since one of the members requested more information on best practices, for the last several meetings we have discussed Managing in the Long Run: Lessons in Competitive Advantage from Great Family Businesses by Danny Miller and Isabelle LeBreton-Miller (Harvard Business School Press) as part of our work in this group.

Thus far we have learned about four categories of exemplary family businesses:

• Brand Builders
• Craftsmen
• Operators
• Innovators

According to the authors, Brand Builders are image masters who create perceptions of themselves and their prompts that prompt customers to buy from them. Estée Lauder, Hallmark Inc., and L.L. Bean, Inc., are all family businesses who have created a brand that is highly sustainable as a competitive resource. The authors stated that Estée Lauder dominates the United States cosmetics markets with a 40 to 45 percent share. Hallmark lays claim to 55 percent of the U.S. market and is the only brand name card 80 percent of Americans can name. Miller and Le-Breton-Miller stated that L.L. Bean is the world's number one outdoor specialty products and sport catalogue retailer. Each of these companies, several generations old, had the vision to make choices in brand building that would position them competitively in the market. They committed themselves to offering a distinctive product that creates an emotional link with customers and to promote that product in unconventional ways--Hallmark, for instance, was told they can't sell a greeting card by turning it over and reading the name of the company that created it, which is exactly what they've done since the 1930s Hallmark they first advertised their cards on the radio.

The Craftsmen are family controlled businesses for whom nothing less than perfection is acceptable. They craftsmen they cited included the Adolph Coors Company, The New York Times Company, and Nordstrom, Inc., to name a few. Craftsmen adopt the highest standards for their products, are willing to wait years for decent ROI, and are known to sacrifice a great deal just to do things right. The pursuit of quality has served as their conduit to sustaining their reputation and economic well-being of the family.

The Operators focus on efficiency, making great use of routines, procedures, and automation to sustain their efficient model. Cargill, IKEA, and Tyson have all refined their operations based on sustaining a vision of an economy-driven business model that targets value-sensitive clients. Operators are also highly committed to consistent senior leadership.

The last group we studied were the Innovators, or family controlled businesses who have distinguished themselves by taking risks and by continually challenging the frontiers of their industries. Corning, Fidelity, and Motorola were all mentioned as Innovators for whom renewal is a guiding precept. They exhibit an unfailing discipline, committing unprecedented resources to R&D, to sustaining a culture of creative new ideas that keeps moving the company forward.

No matter the category, all these extraordinarily family businesses possessed guiding principals--a vision--of the kind of company they wanted to be and what they needed to do, in the long run, to get there. The family businesses have embraced different paths to success, carefully examining what kind of business they wanted to be, based on their values, staking their reputation, their viability, on their values and vision.

What is your vision for your family business? Have your staked your business model to your vision, your operations, your brand?

Harvard Business Review Press has made an excerpt of Managing in the Long Run available here.