Synergizing old and new ideas

Hi Chris,

This is sort of a delayed reaction to your past column regarding online marketing. We have a family business but we are very much behind when it comes to marketing compared to our competitors. We are blessed though that the business is doing good with my father as the brains that fix any problem that comes our way. We are importers of dry goods and our customers are wholesalers and retailers which we ship out in different provinces. I have already opened up to him my plans to open up an online store in order to retail our products to the younger generation. My father does not like the idea because he thinks we will be competing with our customers. I cannot argue with him because he always has the last say in everything especially in the business.

I told him that our competitors already doing what I have in mind but he does not seem to care or troubled by it. My father also thinks that "dugang dugang lang na sa atong trabaho" (it's another workload for us) and does not like to get into a business that he does not know especially if it involves computers. He is 69 years old with little knowledge about computers and the internet. In short, he does not really understand how online business goes.

We have put our hearts into this business, but I also fear that if we stay away from the internet, we will lose out eventually because our competitors are so aggressive online. It's really frustrating for me because I have a degree in information technology and it’s painful for me to see a good idea easily abandoned. Our business has a lot of potential but we are not investing in good ideas. We are stuck with the old ways of doing business with the thought that we will be alright in the future which I doubt. I don't want to be disrespectful to my father, but I also want to help our business to be prepared. I want to do this on my own, without telling him, do you think I'm making the right choice?

Thank you and more power to your column.

J. Queen

Hi, J. Queen,

Bluntly, go ahead. What's important is that you have the best intentions in your heart. But you need to also tell him about it and reassure him that you will not be wasting his or the company's time or money, about your plans. Tell him gently that it's a project that you're so passionate about and you want to do it because you don't want to waste your degree in information technology. I'm sure your father will understand.

On another note, I think it's worth sharing my experience dealing with a boss-father. Well, we were too young then to insist on our ideas. But we did observe that my dad always had this notion that fathers also know best when it comes to business, which of course, is not always the case. This is not to say that my father does not care to listen, or fathers are naturally arrogant to new ideas, it is just that their acumen comes from experience which they cannot easily dismiss. For them, to solve a problem is to solve it the way did it in the past. Say if there is a problem in marketing, the father who is very much used to his ways of marketing, would always have the tendency to adopt the same methods. New ideas are not so easy to embrace by the senior generation especially if the latter's methods still work no matter how old these methods are. The best way to present new ways with the old ways is to connect them -- finding the right synergy to have both methods done without conflict. Thus, do not argue with your boss-father. The wisdom of experience is something that fathers hold dear. They see it in a way that "If ain't broke, don't fix it" mindset.

To introduce new ideas in an old family-owned enterprise may be a delicate issue to family members, especially in a patriarchal leadership. When introducing new ideas, it should not be presented to replace old methods, but an appeal to respond to new ways of doing business. To do so is to implement the idea gradually and independently without or with the least impact to the enterprise's resources.

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