The Lorange Network is an online learning, sharing and business community for family members and executives from family businesses, entrepreneurial individuals and larger private investors. I am often asked why I founded the Lorange Network, and as with everything, identifying “the why”—and communicating it—is essential.
How we define family businesses
First of all, I find it important to clarify what family businesses mean to us. In our view, family businesses are first- or multigenerational businesses owned by one or more families. We also include independent investors in family businesses in this definition.
Key characteristics of family business
Why are family businesses core to the Lorange Network concept? Family businesses share at their hearts key characteristics that, in our view, are vectors of well-performing business practices and therefore transferable to other businesses. These characteristics include:
Long-term focus
Willingness to take risks with long-term consequences
Accountability and responsibility
Quick decision-making
Agility and adaptability
Respect for and practice of learning with accumulation (historic learning)
Leveraging of relevant experiences
Future long-term-focused succession
Multigenerational decision-making
Positive contribution to society
Family businesses as key drivers and inspiration
These factors explain why family businesses tend to be drivers for economic progress in most societies. If you take most countries around the world today, the most successful and innovative firms are usually family businesses, so we should all be ready to learn from them.
What lessons do family businesses offer for non-family businesses, and how can any size or type of business find inspiration from a family-owned company? These questions helped trigger Lorange Network´s creation, and their answers help explain how our network, focusing on the dynamism and values of family business, can be a resource to families, entrepreneurs and investors.
Business ecosystems à la family business
Many clubs, organizations and associations addressing family business have intentional or unintentional walls between family and non-family firms. Instead, the Lorange Network strives to break these walls and show how value creation, long-term thinking and a focus on changing society and doing good can flow from family businesses to all other types of firms and stakeholders. However, we do agree that learning and exchanging ideas must take place in a safe environment, free from direct solicitation and imbued with a sense of congeniality and mutual respect.
In family businesses, we typically find long-term thinkers who focus on long-term results, in contrast to the high pressure and short-term orientation often imposed quarterly on stock-listed companies. We also see an all-inclusive spirit in the group of members active in the family business. For example, this inclusive group may be comprised of owners and families; employees in the family firm; individuals sharing the family business philosophy, including young persons at the beginnings of their careers; or retirees in the network around the firm.
We also see individuals who put innovation in center field and are willing to take risks to achieve long-term innovation. Finally, family business owners have “skin in the game” and, thus, practice direct accountability and responsibility.
Role of family business leaders and what they need
Besides considering the nature of the participants within a family business and their roles in value creation, long-term thinking and doing good for society, one should also examine the role of the leader. A family business leader typically works longer hours than in public companies, but still needs to be agile and results-oriented. Thus, this leader must quickly learn from what might be available more broadly in business books and articles, which are plentiful and voluminous. Hence, short articles, key learnings from business literature, and high-level executive profile interviews may give these leaders a wider set of inputs without having to spend excessive amounts of time on reading. Life is too short, even for the leader of a family business. Leaders often focus on ensuring the lifelong learning of their employees, yet leaders must not forget the responsibility they have toward their own continuous learning and development. The Lorange Network can play a role in this regard.
Lorange Network members: Who are they?
The Lorange Network wants to attract and seek members who are:
part of a family business or family office: owners, next generation and executives
founders, entrepreneurs and top executives of privately held firms
professional investors
The above individuals are usually:
broad-minded and eclectic (i.e. valuing diversity as a key success factor)
long-term thinkers (doers, not dreamers!)
results-oriented people who want to do well!
keenly interested in strategy for privately held businesses (e.g. “asset light”; financing; also, IPOs)
eager to learn and in search of “best practice”
committed to social entrepreneurship (broadly focused), sustainability and social responsiveness
What the Lorange Network offers
The Lorange Network provides a safe space for high-level knowledge transfer, exchange and inspiration. It is a place for deal sharing and co-investment opportunities, and it is the place where the three ecosystems of family business, entrepreneurship and investment meet. In other words, the network transforms the value creation and long-term thinking from family businesses, entrepreneurial energy of business founders and entrepreneurs, and growth orientation from the investment community into concrete tools for business success. Our philosophy constitutes progress, solutions, elasticity and collaborative spirit. We offer members a journey of learning, value creation and networking with like-minded individuals.
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