A few months ago a friend of mine sadly lost her father after a brief illness. The father had been a member of one of the large, traditional mainstream churches all of his life, but in the last five years had moved to a smaller and newer church movement whose message resonated with him stronger at his later stage in life. He however informed his family that in the event of his death, he would wish for the traditional mainstream church to oversee his funeral procedures. When the family approached the church soon after his demise, the response was shocking: “We cannot have his funeral service at our church and we will not be involved in any of the pre-burial services since your father chose to leave us.” In the clergy’s view, since he turned his back on them, they would turn their back on him.

For those who may not be Christians, the basic tenets of Christianity are founded on the teachings of Jesus Christ who is believed to be the son of God and came to earth in human form. Jesus Christ, or JC, was the most loving, forgiving and non-judgmental human being that walked the sandy soils of present day Israel about two thousand years ago. He welcomed all lovingly to his fold, where all included prostitutes, tax collector and socially ostracized lepers. He didn’t require a dress code or color scheme to attend his sermons, nor did he require a minimum attendance record to his seaside sermons that would guarantee entry into heaven. To be honest, if JC came back today he would quite likely find the rules of many mainstream churches totally unrecognizable.

In the course of my governance work, I often work with founders of businesses that have grown successful organizations and are struggling to let go of the reins to the next generation. This phenomena of founder’s syndrome is commonplace worldwide and completely understandable, as a business is essentially the birth child of a founder. In the founder’s eyes, there is no one who can lead, guide or grow the business like themselves and the fear that the business can be destroyed if handed over to their children or independent management is a clear and present danger to them. Business cemeteries are full of organizations that collapsed following the demise of the founder or once the children took over the reins during the founder’s lifetime.

One of the critical conversations we have with founders is bringing in investors into the business or just independent directors who begin to infuse the business with different thinking and help the founder to start to distance themselves from the confining trichotomy of shareholder, director and manager. The objective is that the business can then become independent of the owner and the family can reap the dividends for multiple generations if the new investors are professional corporate entities.

In 1820, John Walker opened a grocery shop in Kilmarnock Scotland and discovered the art of blending single malt whiskies produced in small family distilleries. His blends became popular and upon his death in 1857, his son Alexander took over a healthy business. Alexander introduced the iconic square bottle, which he discovered allowed more quantities to be packed in shipment crates as the arrival of the railway had now opened markets beyond Kilmarnock. Alexander’s sons George and Alexander II took over the business after his death in 1889.  In 1908 they brought in an outsider James Stevenson as the managing director who, together with the Walkers, began a new marketing strategy which introduced the striding man as well as the company’s tag line “Johnnie Walker: Born 1820, still going strong”. The company went public in 1923 and in 1925, the company merged with another whisky distiller to become the Distillers Company Ltd which was eventually acquired by Guinness in 1986.

While there are no descendants of John Walker running what is now the world’s biggest selling scotch whisky brand, the basic tenets of the brand have stood the test of time. The iconic square bottle and slanted label that were designed by his son Alexander have been maintained 150 years after they were first introduced.

Religion and businesses are similar in that they are founded by charismatic and visionary founders. They are also similar in their need for human beings to carry through, execute and grow that vision for future generations to consume their product. If the founders came back today, what would they say about how the present day human beings have interpreted and executed that vision?

[email protected]

Twitter: @carolmusyoka.com