Kinky Boots, the currently touring popular Broadway musical, is based on a true story. When I saw it recently, I was not only entertained by an engaging, heartwarming story. I was also struck by an uncanny parallel to the real world of middle market companies that the firm I am part of, Newport Board Group, is involved in every day.
The core of the musical’s story is that fourth generation WJ Brooks Ltd. of Northamptonshire, England (Called Price and Sons in the musical), which was founded in 1890, is experiencing a severe family business crisis.
A Parable of Middle Market Companies in No Man’s Land
Price and Sons has a problem that is very common to real life middle market companies. Just like them it faces the Four Ms, a framework described in our Chairman Doug Tatum’s acclaimed book No Man’s Land. After decades of success and renown, Price and Sons has lost momentum and is stagnating. The shoes they have proudly manufactured, which their brand has been associated with for decades, have become dated. The company has lost its following. For the first time in its history, its biggest customer cancels and returns a full season’s worth of shoes, leading to significant financial problems.
When its third generation owner unexpectedly passes away, Price and Sons must improve and professionalize its management. The son who is expected to become the fourth generation owner reluctantly returns from London to the family’s home in rural England to face the company’s employees and his destiny to take up the mantle of leadership.
The hesitant son is faced with the set of challenges that No Man’s Land and our firm’s advisors call the Four Ms. A changing market requires the company to come up with new kinds of value to new classes of customers. Its outdated business model and infrastructure are inefficient compared to its competitors. A lack of money i.e. capital to finance growth prevents the company from expanding. And the company must upgrade its management.
Spoiler Alert
The ensuring story provides a fictional but true-to-life example of how a company in No Man’s Land, where it is too big to be small and too small to be big, can reposition itself for a successful future. In particular, a loyal employee suggests how the company can expand its market, in this case by pursuing an under-served niche.
Price and Sons finds the passion, commitment and worker alignment to create a recipe for success, saving the company’s factory from being turned into condos and the employees from losing their jobs. With the adoption of making shoes for a new niche segment of the market, the factory remains in business, local rural employees keep their jobs and the company returns to profitability.
The moral of the story is you never know where inspiration will come from. The same in reality as in a Broadway play: if a company that has lost its way faces its problems, is willing to change and keep an open mind it can reignite its success and recapture prosperity.
