Elephant #3: Significance Takes Longer Than a Generation

An elephant stands in a modern office lounge—symbolizing the unspoken truths that threaten leadership succession.

You know that 70% of businesses fail to make it to their second generation of leadership.

The best leaders understand that significance takes longer than a generation.

They “bite the bullet” and tackle difficult issues head-on, ensuring that succeeding generations of leadership inherit solutions rather than problems.

Gil’s story shows us why—and more importantly, how to break this devastating cycle.

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This is the third article in our continuing series on “Elephants in the Boardroom and Your Team” - those uncomfortable truths everyone knows but no one discusses. These elephants trample succession plans and prevent businesses from thriving beyond their founders.

Today, we examine how a profit-only focus can live in boardrooms and teams and sacrifice the development of future impact.

The Empire With No Soul

When Gil took over his company, he inherited a profitable business with a hollow core. 

The founder knew how to make money—lots of it—but by his own admission, he was “a failure in caring for his people.”

 🥹Employees were merely tools for profit.

🤝Vendors were just transactions.

🏠The community was simply a market to exploit.

💏Even his family relationships were in shambles.

Like Solomon of old, he had built an empire, but no one was better for it. 

Billy Graham wisely noted, “The greatest legacy one can pass on is not money or other material things accumulated in one’s life, but rather a legacy of character and faith.”<<<

>>>>>The founder had passed on neither.<<<<<

The Hidden Cost of Profit-Only Focus

The founder’s values were all about money, including the way he sold the business to Gil.

Greed and selfishness defined his approach to business and succession.

This profit-only focus created an elephant in the room that no one dared address:

>>>>>the next generation of leadership was being sacrificed on the altar of short-term gains.

<<<<<

A Native American proverb reminds us: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”

The same is true of our businesses.

Significance takes longer than a generation to produce.

Gil’s Transformation Journey

Gil faced a choice: continue the founder’s profit-only approach or chart a new course, realizing that significant impact requires more than one generation.

He chose the latter, but it wasn’t easy.

Gil had to spend years and significant resources establishing values his predecessor never bothered to pass on.

A large part of his time and effort was expended creating what his predecessor had neglected.

As Anne Frank wrote in her diary: “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

Gil didn’t wait. He began immediately to transform the company’s culture.

Building a Legacy That Lasts

Today, Gil is training the third generation of leadership.

He hasn’t just defined their impact but emphasized and ingrained it throughout the organization.

The company’s purpose—to make a profit, bless the community and advance the purpose—has set hearts ablaze with new enthusiasm.

Gil is demonstrating his faith in Christ. It is imperative that this impact be carried on.

Gil has built a team, selected his successor (3 person c-suite), and steeped them in the values that demonstrate their faith through “caring for our people.”

This transformation didn’t happen by accident.

It required Gil to confront the elephant in the room: that pursuing profit alone sacrifices the next generation of leadership.

The Succession Planning Conversation

We must begin strategic conversations now to minimize relational conflict later:

• As founder or CEO, what are your concerns about the eventual transition of your role? 

• What are the concerns among team members about this eventual change? 

• What are the financial goals for the business in an eventual transition? 

• How do you anticipate building a team that will take this business to an even greater level?

• What problems are you solving now that your successor won’t have to tackle?

One of the greatest legacies you can leave behind is a business that continually makes a profit, blesses its community and advances its purpose for generations.

Gil understood this truth, and his business now stands as testament to what happens when we confront the elephant in the room and choose legacy over short-term profit.

Harry T. Jones