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Among the successful keys to business are when you have faithful, truthful, and trusted people working together. A business that is set up by faithful and trusted people lasts longer.
Family members can be a huge success to a business while in order hand can also be a stumbling block. A family business is sweet and successful if the whole family does it wholeheartedly; that is, no nepotism, no stealing, no backbiting.
In my family we are into farmy business; and we are into cash crops; this was because our grandfather had a lot of land. Before he died 60 years ago, he acquired land. He was a warrior and king.
When my father told me the story of my grandfather: he was a man of valor, he conquered many battles. He was a great farmer in his time. He had a plantation farm of more than 100,000 hectares. He planted cocoa, coffee, kolanut, alligator pepper and plantain. His laborers were about 500 laborers. He was the greatest business in his environment in those days.
After he died, the business continued. Because of the unity, trust and faithfulness among his children, his properties were not divided among his children. Despite his great wealth and influence he got married to only one wife but 4 males and 2 females. My father happened to be the last born.
Therefore, his business was controlled by his children after his death. In those days, there was no gender equality. We believe that a female child is not entitled to properly because she would get married to someone outside. Male children were hot cakes in those days.
If you give birth to only females, the community would advise the man to get married to another wife that could give him male children.
They don't believe that it is a man's sperm that determines the sex of a baby.
When those men were alive, the business was booming. My family had a cocoa factory, and white men purchased cocoa from them directly. It was a big time business.
Three of my grandfather's children married more than two wives- my father married 4 wives.
About 26 males were added to the family, and 9 females. The family got bigger and bigger.
Each family began to fight for their personal property. For more than 5 years, some family members were fighting each other to divide the farm land for each member of the family.
After a long fight, some family members died on the course of the fight; then, farm land was finally divided. The farm was divided according to the number of the families. The farm was divided into 4, and just small was given to the two females. 5,000 hectares was given to each of the females.
Each male had over 22,000 hectares; therefore, some of our cousins sold their farmland and used the money to buy cars, and enjoyed exotic life.
Today, the business is not moving well like before because everything is divided. Majority of my cousins have sold their farmlands. Right now the lands have turned to gold because of development, some of them are regretting their actions.
This picture is mine but I'm not in the farmland, I'm in the city. Bi would have taken the pictures from the farmlands.
Hmmm!! The success of a family business is in the hands of family members. One family member can destroy a family business.
In conclusion
Business family without commitment, unified leadership, trust, vision, faithfulness, loyalty, common goals and visions can not last.
I discovered that what caused misunderstanding and conflict among us was that everyone wanted to be a boss, be in control, overall manager and in-charge of sharing the interest since we have the same equal share to the farmlands. Nobody wants anyone to control him.
Succession was very hard to select because everyone wants to be a successor. This was what the business suffered for years.
Our fathers were not learned: none of our four fathers went to school. It would have helped the farmland by getting a writing document about everything. The writing document of how everything will be, it wouldn't have been hard to choose a succession. They were using a traditional method to choose a succession which was the eldest.
In my own time, we have plenty of graduates and the eldest among us did not go to school. He couldn't write his name on a paper. The second and third did not also go to school. It was a family war that is beyond cold war.
Enmity: there were enemies everywhere. Some of the brothers of the same father and different mothers were enemies to each other. This was because everyone wants to lead, and if a brother was against another brother's opinion, he was his enemy.
7 brothers died in the process and that was the reason they agreed on sharing the farmlands.
I stand up for success, and success is not achieved by merely making mouth, No room for laziness, no room for idleness. Success comes to the people who are desperately and consciously searching for it. When it seems unsuccessful or you smell failure around you, never discourage yourself from being successful.
“Discouragement and failure are the two surest stepping stones to success.” - Dale
Thank you for reading my post.
This is #aprilinleo Day 7