The 1,000-Year Plan: Lee Kum Kee and Sustaining a Family Culture
The Lee family, whose Hong Kong-based Lee Kum Kee company has established itself as a legend within the Chinese and Asian sauce world, sets out to create a daring new vision of what family legacy means. With the family business having been established in 1888, and by 2020 showing no signs of slowing down, the members of the third, fourth, and fifth generations sit down to hash out exactly what it means to be in the family. To this end, they realize that what they need is not a simple one- or two-step succession plan, but a 1,000 Year Plan to guide family governance and values over the next millennium. This grand idea, replete with lofty goals, comes with all types of questions as each generation of the family brings their own perspective. What should those goals be? How can one generation possibly expect to anticipate the needs of the next? Is it right to predetermine the outcomes of a family so far in advance? As the Lee family addresses these questions, they shed light on the more familiar questions about legacy, values, and preparing for the future. Do these same questions not apply even in the case of one generation planning for the next? If a family believes in its ability to hold fast against the chaos of the world, why not plan for the entire future? Each member of the Lee family meets these ideas with their own mix of practical and idealistic solutions, and their landmark document generates a battery of criteria against which other families may compare their own ideas of legacy.
Keywords: Family Business; Mission and Purpose; Values and Beliefs; Business and Community Relations; Organizational Structure; Strategic Planning;
Citation:
Cohen, Lauren, Dawn H. Lau, and Billy Chan. "The 1,000-Year Plan: Lee Kum Kee and Sustaining a Family Culture." Harvard Business School Case 221-047, November 2020. View Details