It isn't difficult to see that trans-generational businesses or companies aren't many in post colonial Africa. People simply take their businesses into their graves leaving their children to go start again from scratch. That such has negatively impacted our overall productivity is an open secret.
The reason is simple, we always don't want our children to continue on the paths we took. We see such as a dead end not leading anywhere. We want them to be more educated than we were and for them to go get jobs with their certificates far away from the 'sufferings' back home.
We say honesty is the best legacy, so we build all the right characters into them just to go get employment outside and help those organizations become great while the businesses that sent them to school is left to die with the parent's generation.
We need to learn one or two things about inheritance here. An inheritance is the right you have to the labours of your progenitors and the responsibility you have to also bequeath a greater platform for your progenies.
An inheritance must be inherent in the family system. It is what a generation owes the next and the responsibility the new generation has to preserve the legacy for the coming generations.
We often think of inheritance as being monetary or material. However, the greatest inheritance to leave is the platform and the financial system or machinery the family relies upon for sustenance and influence.
Children are to be brought up with the sense of responsibility that they would be taking over the financial system with the aim of taking it further. It gives a sense of vision and gives them ample time to put their imaginations to work in crafting better ways to achieve more and to commit to study, learning and training that will impact the system better.
I understand that not every business system can be bequeathed, but in every endeavour there's always something even if intangible that can be left for one's children for them to start life with.
An inheritance isn't for personal use. It isn't bread for eating, it is seed for sowing. From where bread comes for everyone. It is the investment in the next generation made by the past to ensure the future. It is work and not rest. It is labour and not pleasure.
It may be a cocoa farm but that cocoa farm when inherited by the next generation can be better worked and packaged to meet the demand of the new generation with new technologies, new innovations and marketing strategies to make cocoa business more relevant, presentable and profitable.
It can also be an educational set up, an engineering business, a legal or a financial system even if it's easier with an entrepreneurial system.
This is what legacies are all about. That business shouldn't die, rather it should keep the next generation busy and employed instead of them coming back with bogus certificates with no jobs. We must make what makes us money more attractive to our children enough for them to ride upon the backs of our knowledge, experiences and achievements to build their lives and not to start again struggling to start or to rise... There's no pride in always having to start again and there's no shame in inheriting a good business system to make it better for everyone!
Think about this and start working towards it!
It's a great week!
Absolutely correct. More anointing brother.
ReplyDeleteWow! Great one sir.
ReplyDelete