On the East side of Detroit, in a traditionally German and Polish neighborhood, Bernie Polen oversees the operations of Alexander & Hornung, the sausage company started by his great uncle, Willie Alexander, over 50 years ago.
Bernie is now the third generation to operate the company.
His father, Merle, has retired from active participation but remains on the board. Bernie recently made his plant manager, Tom Eckert, a partner in the company.
Tom, who also comes from a meat industry family, will manage the day-to-day operation of the plant, freeing up Bernie to devote more time to the administrative operations of the company.
Under Bernie’s auspices, Alexander & Hornung has grown tremendously—not only in acquiring other small specialty food manufacturers, but also by creating a website for the company.
"I came into the business from the retail side nearly 30 years ago.
I had worked on and off at the Dearborn [retail] store for most of my life, and eventually took it over.
I would have questions, and I would ask Dad, and his response was, `You’re running the place, you figure it out. I’ll guide you.’"
"I had the great advantage of working for someone who didn’t want to manage for me. He would give input, but he didn’t want to be a part of the decision making."
From this vignette, it is difficult to tell how Bernie’s dad led Bernie, but the end result was successful.
One way to develop the skills, knowledge and judgment of people is to have them do work that is a bit beyond their current competency and observe how well they do.
Watching is key. You see what the other person does know, and recognizing that success builds their confidence and yours.
You also see what they don’t know, or appreciate, which indicates where you can teach, coach or provide more practice.
What happens in this story is that Bernie, over time, gains a deep confidence in his judgment and his knowledge of the business.
And in learning to make management decisions, he has learned that he can incorporate new technology without letting go of the traditional methods that set Alexander & Hornung´s products apart from their processed competitors.
The other side of the coin is that the older generation can develop a real – tested, proven – confidence that the “kid” knows what he’s doing.
This allows them to be more tolerant or accepting of his changes and innovative ideas. As you’ll see the fax machine was tolerated, but later, the web work was more readily accepted.
"We’re taking great advantage of the science of this industry which, for many, many years, was run as an art.
When I came in, my dad’s partner said, `if you’re going to work here, you’re going to start back in the kitchen and work from the ground up.
You’re going to get your arms dirty, and you’re going to make sausage.’"
"Once I’m back there, I ask the sausage maker, `Why do you do this?´ And his response was, `I don’t know. This is the way we’ve always done it.’ `Well, how long do you chop the meat?’ `You chop it until it feels right.’"
"Now, technology tells us there’s a reason for all these things, and we’ve added that to the equation.
It allows us to continue to replicate the process, which is the most important thing, but the second most important thing, in my mind, is that the consumer today doesn’t take into consideration the uniqueness of a product like ours.
They feel that, if they bought the product last week, and they bought the product this week, and they’re going to buy it again next week, it had better be exactly the same. Otherwise, we’re ruined."
"But if you go back 100 years and your grandmother went to the butcher shop every day to get a steak or a roast or ground beef, you knew that you were dealing with an animal, and you were dealing with the butcher personally, and every week the meat was going to be a little different.
Today, people don’t want different. We don’t think of different as being a good thing."
This goes to the heart of the brand promise. Customers come to your product with an expectation.
It is certainly different from what it was 100 years ago. So often family businesses take these customer taste changes personally. “Grandpa’s sausage is being rejected!” That isn’t the case.
Times, tastes and expectations change and new customers in new generations need to be cultivated. Bernie is doing that. His comments about blending tradition and technology illustrate this perfectly.
But "different" is a crucial value to a company like Alexander & Hornung, where individual sausage links and casings are still shaped by hand, despite the availability of high-tech equipment that can do the job more quickly. "Different," to Bernie, means tempering technology with tradition.
Frequently in family businesses, friction arises when the younger generation wants to implement new technologies. The senior generation often wants to hold back on innovations like a website: After all, the business has always done well without it, so why take a risk with something new and unfamiliar? Bernie knows this scenario well.
"We had a conversation like that years ago with my father’s partner when I first wanted to buy a fax machine. He refused. I ended up buying it with my own money. He’d come in everyday, point to the fax and say, `Does this thing work? Why do you have it? We don’t need it.’ Of course, it’s pretty tough to do business without a fax machine today!"
