L. L. Bean: The Making of an American Icon [ハードカバー]

L. L. Bean is the classic example of the cultural icon company... One that has been around forever, runs by a different set of rules, and has a fanatically loyal customer base. Leon Gorman, the last family member to serve as President of the company, recounts the history and struggles in his book L. L. Bean: The Making of an American Icon. It's an interesting look at how doing a few things correctly can overcome a number of other things done really badly.

Contents:

Part 1 - 1960 - 1967: L. L. Gives Me a Job; Learning the Business; Who Will Succeed L. L.?

Part 2 - 1968 - 1975: A Committee of One; Living the L. L. Story; "To Run A Perfect Company"

Part 3 - 1976 - 1990: Taking L. L. Bean Professional; Fashion Boom and Bust; Back on Track; End of an Era

Part 4 - 1991 - 2000: TQ and Other Ventures; A Loss of Relevance; Time for Transformations; Platform for Growth

Epilogue; Voices; Notes; Bibliography; Index

Leon Gorman was hired by his grandfather, L. L. Bean, back in 1960 right out of the Navy. Gorman really didn't have specific responsibilities, but Bean wouldn't turn down a family member. Gorman spent most of his time learning about the company, how it operated, and how business flowed from one end to the other. At this point in time, L. L. Bean was a small catalog operation with one quirky retail store in Maine. The target audience was outdoorsmen, and all the apparel and merchandise sold reflected the feelings and opinions of what Bean thought was the best buy in any given category. This approach started back in 1912 and continued to carry forth at the time Gorman was hired. But Bean was getting old, had no real plan for succession of the company, nor did he really want to grow it any larger. But in late 1967, Gorman took over after the deaths of both L. L. and Carl, his son. The challenge then became one of retaining the L. L. Bean image while growing the company to one that would be known worldwide for quality apparel and active gear.

Bean's no-nonsense, fair value approach to business worked well at a certain size, but there were no processes in place to support growth. The types of things we all take for granted now (inventory control, accounting packages, etc.) were nonexistent. There were also a number of wars going on internally over whether the focus of outdoor activities should be scrapped for a wider appeal (think Abercrombie and Fitch or Norm Thompson). Since this is told in first person story fashion, Gorman takes the reader through his view of what he was trying to accomplish, and how he had to navigate some pretty tricky waters, such as running a family-owned business whose principals didn't all have the same goals and objectives...

The thing I liked most about this book is that it doesn't attempt to paint Gorman as an all-knowing leader who could do no wrong. Plenty of mistakes were made, and any one of them could have permanently damaged the company. But everyone learned the lessons they paid for, and the company kept moving forward, imperfections and all. This is an excellent read for any business leader who is struggling to balance growth against tradition. L. L. Bean has been successful in balancing those two often-conflicting values, and there's a lot to glean from these pages...

Don't let the cute color painting of a pair of Maine Hunting Shoes on the dust jacket fool you. This is a business biography, with the emphasis on business. It tells the story of the LL Bean mail order and retail merchandising company as seen by Leon Gorman, who propelled the business from a $4.7 million enterprise in 1967 to $1+ billion in sales when he retired as company president to become chairman in 2001.

The preface and first 56 pages are a history of LL Bean, the business, starting with its 1912 origin as a manufacturer and mail order merchant of the iconic rubber/leather Maine Hunting Shoe invented by the author's grandfather, Leon L. Bean. LL Bean, the man, was born the son of a Maine horse trader in 1872, orphaned at age 12, and left school after the eighth grade to do manual labor and hunt and fish in Maine woods. LL's genius, after inventing his famous boot, was to sell products he wanted to buy himself and used a catalog he wrote himself to give customers - mostly city folks from the start - a feeling of connection to the rustic, outdoor life of the Maine woods even if they were just buying a sandwich knife (whatever happened to the one I bought from them?). When I visited the Freeport, ME store as a teenager in 1964 my father pointed out a handwritten note tacked to a door leading from the store to stockrooms that read "Keep this d--n door shut! LL Bean." In 1967, Mr. Bean, well into his 90s, passed away with his hand still firmly on the helm of the business. Almost immediately Carl Bean, second in command under his father, LL, also passed away. So Leon Gorman, a Colby College graduate who joined the company in 1960 after a three-year stint as a Navy officer, became head of the family business. Any loyal LL Bean customer will enjoy this much of the book.

The remaining 240 pages offer a surprisingly detailed account of the decade-by-decade trek Leon Gorman lead his company on through the thickets of image maintenance, merchandising decisions, catalog and mailing list strategies, warehouse construction, customer service training, adoption and abandonment of corporate management techniques with names like The Best and Total Quality, comings and goings of senior managers and choices about things like building an LL Bean presence in Japan and opening retail flagship stores outside Maine. Gorman's main challenge was to grow the much larger and more profitable casual clothing side of the business without losing the company's unique heritage associated with serious outdoor clothing and equipment. The story is told from Leon's perspective with anecdotes and somewhat - but not very - different perspectives extracted from interviews with former and current employees and senior managers. As both a business consultant and an LL Bean customer I liked all this material and think Mr. Gorman writes most of it with a clear, fast moving style that made me want to keep reading to find out what happens next. But the bulk of the book may come across to general readers as too much of an extended business school case study lecture and, indeed, the book is published by the Harvard Business School Press.

Mr. Gorman's genius was twofold. First, he never abandoned his grandfather's core philosophy to "sell good merchandise at a reasonable profit (and) treat your customers like human beings" and he instilled that philosophy by personal example and by hiring managers inclined to believe it as well. Second, he refused to walk away from the heritage of being a trusted provider of serious outdoor equipment that could stand up to four-seasons of use in the forests and mountains of Maine or anywhere else. Gorman realized that LL Bean's sustainable differential advantage - or "brand" - was inextricably linked to its credibility as an expert provider of active outdoor equipment and clothing. He realized many customers would eventually abandon the company if they concluded there was no substance behind the Maine outdoor image. So even though it was less profitable and had less growth potential, Gorman insisted his managers aggressively grow the active outdoor business as a way to force preservation of a real heritage - not just a few old b&w photos scattered through the catalog - that continued the successful business his grandfather operated.

Mr. Gorman ends the story at his retirement as president in 2001. For unexplained reasons no member of his immediate or extended family worked at senior levels in the company so Leon spent two years using advisors to work out a plan to retain family ownership but turn management over to a much younger non-family LL Bean colleague, Chris McCormick. In a brief epilogue Mr. Gorman summarizes the five years between his retirement and the book's publication with a positive spin. However, newspaper articles available on the internet indicate that LL Bean's sales growth stagnated or even dipped a bit in the first years under new management - which coincided with a national economic recession - before growing again. Just last year they resumed the retail store strategy that fizzled after the first three openings in 1999.

The book has sixteen pages of photos of important characters and LL Bean heritage, a useful index, footnotes of sources cited and a brief bibliography. The end papers have b&w reproductions of LL Bean catalog covers from the 1960s-2001 (Wish I'd kept some of mine!)

Recommended primarily to those seriously interested in business history, strategy development and mail order or retail merchandising. A secondary recommendation to LL Bean fans, but they'd better want to learn about return of equity, mailing list management, etc. As soon as I finished the book I called LL Bean - much more pleasant than placing an internet order - to buy a new pair of Maine Hunting Shoes which was paid for with my LL Bean credit card.

Leon Gorman, grandson of LL Bean, tells the tale of his ascension and rein as President & CEO of this American icon. The story is clearly told from Gorman's very personal perspective. During his 40 year tenure he takes on his own iconic role as a strong centralized decision maker and micro-manager, substituting himself for the powerful personality of LL Bean - but trying to not change much along the way. Having caught the same disease as his successful predecessor, Gorman involves himself in virtually every aspect of the company as it grows from $30 million to a billion dollars in revenue, retarding the growth of most of the company's aspiring management talent.

While the tale seems logical and true to life, the format is disjointed, with editorial insertions from managers who are supposed to be speaking their mind but never wander far from what appears to be Leon (Gorman) accepted opinions. Most add glowing praise for Mr. Gorman and seem to have been inserted to make the author feel better about his dictatorial style.

But the history of LL Bean is both interesting as well as informative. Assuming you can navigate through the bumpiness and filter out the propaganda, you can probably find some interesting lessons about family owned businesses and how to and not to pass them down through the generations.