Are We Communicating Our Values? New Ranking Tool Revealed

Edelman Barometer shows that trust in family businesses has been waning over the last few years, dropping six points in their 2022 report. As corporate citizenship has developed, consumers expect companies to espouse and demonstrate their commitments to causes like the environment, just supply chains, and social issues. Family businesses often have these values ingrained in them from their founding, yet it appears many are failing to communicate their long standing commitments.

To understand how well family businesses are communicating their values, we designed a ranking system with 8 criteria. The VISibility Ranking helps a company measure how well they are sharing their Values and Impact through Storytelling. We then scored 30 B Corp certified family businesses in how well they are communicating their values across these 8 criteria. We chose B Corp businesses as the certification process ensures the family businesses selected for review have proven to a third party that they are indeed values-driven businesses.

“Family businesses are a trove of incredible stories across generations, but often they don’t take the time to reflect on or share these stories,” said Esther Choy, our Founder and Chief Story Facilitator. “When they do it [storytelling] the impact can be so powerful. Not only as a marketing strategy, but in elevating the purposes of the company internally and preparing the next generation for leadership. This is why I was interested in creating this ranking system.”

Here are some highlights.

• Only four companies ranked Best In Class, meeting every criteria on the Values Communication Scale.
• Eight achieved the Great Storytellers level, scoring at least 6 out 8.
• The majority of companies (18) met less than 65% of the criteria, showing the opportunity to improve or start storytelling immediately.