How a family business harmonizes "soft" family values and "hard" business values.
Family businesses can be heaven or hell. Document Management Group is one that is learning to create "one small plot of heaven" (Kenneth and Elise Boulding's image for the family) on earth.
Named one of the five best companies to work for in Ireland in 2003 and 2004, Document Management Group grew out of a business which had been operating in Dublin for three decades. A family business focused on high-quality service, DMG has grown to 130 employees since its inception, expanding steadily for the past five years.
Tom Hefferon, co-founder and chairman of DMG, aware of the pitfalls family businesses face, belongs to an international family business network. The network recognizes that family businesses tend to run into conflicts between "soft" family values and "hard" business values, and it helps businesses integrate the two. Hefferon uses the image of a clutch in a machine: "You stand in the middle between the hard company values and the soft family values and you say, we need to design a clutch for this machine, so they can meet and harness each other, so they can drive, rather than grind and break." Half of the "clutch" Hefferon has designed is a written constitution that was presided over by all the family members, designating the family as a shareholder group: We want them to say, 'Hold on, where is my dividend?' and thus think like business owners," claims Hefferon. This part of the clutch helps the family members recognize and value the hard business values.
The other half of the clutch helps harness the power of the soft values for the business and consists of such initiatives as the Excellence through People program and the Best Companies initiative. The Excellence through People program, started at FileStores (one of DMG's divisions) in 2000, has focused on values, communication and involvement, and training.
FileStores wanted to harness the power of relational competence for business success. Because the company had grown so much from the small family business it had been merely a few years before, the sense of being a close-knit family had faded.
The Excellence through People program began with employees articulating their values, naming what was most important to them that they wanted to bring to work with them instead of parking it outside the door. Then the composite list of employee values became the value statement of the company, posted on the wall:
VALUE STATEMENT
Integrity We will be open and honest with each other and our customers. We will earn trust through honesty, dignity, integrity and accuracy.
Pride We will take pride in the excellent work we do. Our service will be dedicated to accuracy and efficiency, with reliability and flexibility. We will listen to our customers so that we can better meet their needs.
Harmony Harmony, happiness and humor are three essentials for a good working environment. We commit to a special spirit of cooperation in working together, happy to serve the needs of our customers, as well as the work needs of each other.
After articulating the value statement, the company worked on team building, communication, and training.
DMG has found that articulating its values together and then putting those values into action through specific trainings has harnessed the soft values for business success.
By marrying the soft values and the hard values, Document Management Group has begun to create the "one small plot of heaven" that the best families experience.
— — — Dr. Margaret Benefiel, Ph.D., author of "Soul at Work: Spiritual Leadership in Organizations" (from which this column is drawn), works with healthcare leaders, Fortune 500 companies, and nonprofits to help them develop spiritual leadership. Contact her by email at
