The Family Feeling

There is a word that appears, unbidden, in the writing and speeches of the founders of some of the greatest businesses ever built. It shows up in the memoirs of Ray Kroc , in the annual reports of Old Dominion Freight , in the founding philosophy of IKEA . The word is not "strategy." It is not "execution" or "competitive advantage" or "return on invested capital." The word is family . A pattern…